Conformity's silence on the Vampyre Community

Within various subcultures or communities, there are niche rules, ethics, and goals. This is no different within the VC. Here I will not be going too far into the ethics portions, as ethics is formed through religion, country laws, and even cultures. What we will be going into is how conformity stifles the uniqueness of each and every community. But first, there are three words I want to define before we go deeper.

What is dogma?

A set of beliefs that is deemed true and is expected to be accepted. You will commonly see this as “this is the true way” within spiritual communities. But for the VC, you will see an example of this as “If you don’t feed consistently or have the same cravings or symptoms, you are not a true vampyre.” This can be enforced or produced by a VC figure. Someone who has influence is capable of passing off their beliefs, and people will abide.

What is standardization?

A set of rules or ethics that are bound within an organization. This was created to improve functionality and flow within an organization. This will be seen within any work environment, group, and community. The most common form of standardization is the rules or ethics a vampyre community may enforce to keep their operations consistent with their goals.

What is conformity?

Being compliant to a set of standards, rules, and even ethics. The compliance is for the purpose of fitting in. This is enforced by your VC peers and cultural norms. Conformity feeds off of your need to feel validation and acceptance, which rids you of your individuality. You will often see this with various identity types, but a good example would be the sang identity. This is no jab at my fellow sangs, but having extreme cravings or symptoms has been extremely normalized to the point other sangs feel as if their symptoms aren’t as valid because they may not have the same extreme experience or the same kind of need. Which causes these individuals to lie about the extremity of their experience in order to fit in with the general “sang experience.” (Which can cause the domino effect, but I will not get into that here.) I would like to make note that this isn’t really anyone’s fault; this is just how society works.

So what’s the difference?

While they all can work interchangeably and seep into each other, causing a slippery slope, especially for the concern of those who have an influence on the VC. The difference is the intent behind each of these and the way it is enforced. Dogma is a belief system, standardization is the way in which something operates, and conformity is a behavioral response to dogma and standardization.

How can conformity stifle community uniqueness?

Conformity respects and follows a system while also being subjected to dogma. Conformity can be seen as neutrality until it abides by a standard that is backed by dogma. Conformity is the killer of individuality, not only for yourself but also for the community as a whole. The VC has a huge issue with seeing how a community standardizes itself and expects them to conform to a single belief and align with what everyone else is doing.

An example of this is trying to force a VC organization to be inclusive to all identity types when the original purpose of that organization was dedicated to one of the vampyric identities. There is nothing wrong with that; there are plenty of communities that allow or centralize between all psi, sang, hybrid, alterhuman, you name it. Project V is an example of this. But if a space was built specifically for psychic vampyres or specifically for sanguinarians, that is okay. This is what makes these communities unique. Their content will be a bit different from a community that may cater to all identities. But these communities are great for people who want to only focus on one identity versus getting education or support from a community that specializes in all sorts of identities that may not pertain to them.

Another example I would like to give is if one community has something unique about them, members will try to drag that over into other communities and expect them to add such content. You can see this as events, rules, concepts, etc. Sometimes these unique concepts are not something that can fit into every community, as each community has their own culture within.

Recently, Project V had to make an announcement about moving a specific topic to the 18+ channels because the content is not suitable for minors, which made some individuals unhappy since they were used to the topic in other Vampyre communities and wanted to bring it to Project V publicly. This same topic could be fine within 18+ communities, but it doesn't exactly translate well to a community that has a huge age range, especially those who may be new to their vamp identity. With just how mature the topic is, it can cause extreme and graphic debate which was our right to move the topic in order to ensure productivity and harmony.

Meanwhile, I'm sure the content we may talk about in Project V may not be suitable in other spaces, and that is that organizations right to do what they wish with the topics being presented because that is the standard of the organization they wish to keep.

My final thoughts

Conformity is the leech of the vampyric essences. The suffocation of creativity and individuality is dimming the spark of the VC. Let us remember as the VC evolves, while enforcing the "correct or true way" may feel safer, you are risking the silencing of your peers, causing concepts, expressions, and personal experiences to be unheard.