Why are people so obsessed with zombies?

Because zombies are awesome!

Why are you not obsessed with zombies?

Also zombies don’t sparkle like little gay douchebags.

Essentially it’s because they’re dead inside & thus feel empathy with the undead masses, tragic really :D

I still prefer vampires. Even the sparkly kind.

Though, I thought Warm Bodies was surprisingly good. Other than that, I don’t do zombie movies – I think they’re stupid.

Because they have always been cool…..more folks are just starting to realize it.

There are plenty enough scares in the real world without our having to invent fictional ones, but that’s precisely what keeps us interested in zombies and the horror genre in general: they allow us to be entertained by our fear rather than threatened by it. Safe fear, you might say.

Personally, I don’t dig zombies or vampires… and fortunately, they don’t dig me.

@XOIIO sparkling douche bags. Lol
Well said. :)

Why are you so un obsessed with zombies? :P

Because they are relentless in pursuing you… they don’t sleep or slow down and partially indestructible.

Because Twilight ruined vampires

hmm I guess I’m just not a “horror” person. I never understood why people would WANT to be scared intentionally. Too much unnecessary stress for my tastes lol

@Only138 This is what I was going to say, it has always been there. The effects and make up are overall better too. Specially for movies and video games.

@Only138 That’s right. I also loved zombies long before they were ever cool. As such, I might have theories and the like as to why it’s recognized now in every day entertainment, but really…I’d just be guessing. I denno. My guess is, some type of fad? Lots has already been done? I mean, vampires got it in the eighties and the nineties, yet vampire entertainment has existed more than a century before Anne Rice said anything about em. This is, actually, the kind of study I’d be interested in reading about, if any has been done.

@cutiepi92 Oh, I love horror. I think it’s for the same reason people like roller coasters. It’s exciting. It’s a rush. It’s great!

It’s because were bored. What is life really about? Well some people wish zombies and vampires would just already invite us to the party and lighten up our unreal normal undead life because deep inside we are all just a little bit Jonathan, aren’t we? :)

They’re fun.

Because zombies rock. You have to see 28 Day/28 Weeks Later!
Or if you prefer funny, try Zombieland.

Why all the hate for sparkly vampires? I love Twilight. There, I said it, and I’m not ashamed!

Rarebear got it right !

(And Shaun of the Dead was ahead of its time. They hadn’t ruined vampires yet :)

Morbid fascination, as with traditional disaster movies. An opportunity to be as thoroughly misanthropic as we like (there’s a whole line of zombie-defense themed shooting supplies). The creeping horror of something that can take a perfectly normal person and strip him of his humanity.
I denno.

Wow. Is this a kindergarten class for zombies in film? Shaun of the Dead was ahead of its time? really?

Because they are human like, but still foreign and fascinating.

I love me some zombie action, so long as it’s done well, but obsessed…that’s a whole new ball game which i’m not playing.

I don’t want a zombie apocalypse. I want to be the sole survivor of a real apocalypse. It would be nice to have Earth to myself.

@flip86 it would be ok for a little awhile then you might get really lonely, here is an interesting take on your idea, did you ever watch this movie?

Zombies might be less trouble for make up artists to create, like they never need to add tentacles or any other special effects, Just gash them up and some skin flapping and viola…terrible monster. They are the easiest to make believable from a “could probably happen someday” point of view. Maybe the story lines have more flexibility because the story characters can at least get away if they make an effort. Your buddy could be turned into something you have to kill tomorrow.

Why put this in “general?”
.

I love zombies, but I have to agree, people actually wanting a zombie invasion? That would be terrible. Also, I’m of the mind that the average human being couldn’t even maintain their sanity for 20 minutes if they saw an actual zombie, never mind a whole swarm of them.

What is a group of zombies called anyway? A swarm, a bunch, a gaggle, a clusterfuck? Has there been an official name for this?.

I need to know.

The one I’ve seen the most used is ’‘horde’’. Most likely, many words are applicable. I do like clusterfuck.
Although personally, I would use the word ’‘mass’’, because besides zombies mindlessly traveling to where people are, they are unorganized and slightly random, spreading out every which way. A mass of zombies.

Are they really a group? How organized are they really? It’s gotta be about survival since zombies are hungry. It’s more like chaos. Nom nom nom brains!

So If a zombie apocalypse happens we the living are food and are all pretty much undead and F ucked U p B eyond A ll R ecognition AKA FUBAR’d unless you happen to be or encounter a vegan zombie. o_0

like Sunday mass?

A group of zombies is usually referred to as a cast of extras.

where do I sign?

@woodcutter I’m going with a “clusterfuck”.

@woodcutter well you don’t sign, however throwing yourself into the mosh pit of zombies is more appropriate for their agenda and lethally err I mean legally binding.

@nofurbelowsbatgirl I’m a loner. Always have been. People annoy me more than you could ever know. I’m very good at tolerating them though. If I had Earth to myself, I would love it.

A man can dream right?

@flip86 oh I wasn’t questioning that you’d like to be alone, I myself am a loner, its just that after awhile one person is only limited to so much. So let’s say I wanted to ride the ferris wheel at the local amusement park…can’t do it.

It would end up to be pretty non adventurous is all I’m trying to say, with your closest friend being a basket ball affectionately named “Wilson”.

I mean it may be fun for about 3 weeks tops, but after that cabin fever sets in, unless you can actually remove yourself from everything, but you are on here and you wouldn’t even have the internet as a way to be social and we are social

Unfortunately a dream is the closest I think we will ever get to that experience.

People who don’t like other people seem creepy. Maybe they would blend right in with the zombies without them noticing? Just get the foot drag down and your in.

i put this in general because it wasn’t just a social question. I genuinely wanted to know because I’ve just never understood it. I’ve gotten some interesting answers though. It’ll probably just be one of those things I never fully understand I guess. I do like the “because they’re dead inside & thus feel empathy with the undead masses” answer tho lol

@woodcutter A group of zombies is called a horde.

Maybe the interest in things like vampires and zombies is part of a trend toward interest in the macabre. I just listened to an interview with the author of My First Kafka. Kafka for kids? Who’d have thought?

Guilty, I love zombies. I just find them appealing and scary, because they try to bite you and then you turn into a zombie and it starts all over again. I find it very fascinating for some reason. Just like quicksand and swamps, I also think they’re very interesting…hmm. But anyway, I’m don’t like zombies because everyone else likes them now, I’ve always liked them! I’m not a copycat, in fact, I was kind of disappointed when a lot of other people supposedly started liking zombies now…not cool.

Zombies are a remnant of our hunter gatherer psyche. We like watching horror movies, because we lack the opportunity to kill a wild animal with a spear and dissect it with bone knives. People who work in slaughterhouses are less needy in this respect. The same goes for soldiers who have seen real bloody action.

I am late to the thread but a similar question was asked a few months ago. My answer is the same. Also, I love zombies.

Because I am incredibly tired, here is the exact reply I put in the other question:

Stories of zombies are actually as old the human race. You can find them throughout recorded literature. However, the modern zombie has changed significantly. Most of what we see of zombies today are the result of George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968). He used zombies as a way to criticize the many negative social standards present in the real world – such as slavery, bio-engineering, religion, exploitation, greed and government incompetence. He added post-apocalyptic themes to tempt our innate interest in human survival – how far one might go to merely survive in such a world.

The fact that zombies are usually reanimated humans is what makes it all the more interesting (however gruesome and terrifying it may be). They are usually depicted as creatures who do not feel pain and do not need to eat/drink to sustain themselves…who keeping coming back until their brains are destroyed/severed. One bite and you become one too. All these qualities make zombies terrifying in any form, let alone the human version. Those distinctions make them very different than aliens, vampires, demons, etc.

A post-apocalyptic zombie world forces us to face our own mortality. Mortality, in itself, is a topic that has interested us from the time we became cognitive beings.
There are many people pining for an apocalypse in any form… a new start for humanity – of course this depends on enough people surviving one. This aspect alone, peaks our curiosity.
As time moves forward, the possibility of something apocalyptic happening becomes that much more real. More people are thinking about it (maybe not the zombie aspect, but of something big enough to splinter society as a whole). There are many people, from all walks of life, preparing for disaster.

In short, the fascination of zombies can be seen as a reflection of (and reaction to) our own fears, curiosities and social unrest in the growing unreliability of the world around us.

This is the second time I’ve reposted this old response! Deja vu?

For me, it creates a false reality. Something I want, something I dream of. A Zombie Apocalypse. So for me its just a dream, that’s why I love zombies.

Random, but I’m off to see World War Z tomorrow evening. w00t!

@Symbeline I expect a full report on my desk in the morning!

Oh you’ll get it. :D might have teeth marks in it…