Discovery+ and Travel Channel Claim Vampires Are Real, Control the Media

2/2/2022

The Discovery+ and Travel Channel two-hour special Vampires in America is one of those pieces of garbage media that reaches such depths of awfulness that it crosses over into unsavory, potentially dangerous territory. According to Discovery, the show is intended as a serious documentary about vampire hunters in Arizona who believe that missing persons and victims of violent crime have actually been seized by a hive of newly awakened vampires who descend from a blood-drinking hominid species that evolved 68,000 years ago before settling in Translyvania. They intend to find and kill the vampires. With a sword.

A recent and alarming surge in homicides and missing persons cases in the southwest US has vampire hunters concerned that a large group of vampires may have emerged from hibernation. #VampiresInAmerica is on @discoveryplus and on Travel Channel tonight. https://t.co/WeEKmzurqo pic.twitter.com/OdUZaOEWME
— Trvl Channel (@travelchannel) February 1, 2022

The show feels like a fake, in the manner of the mermaid and megalodon shows that Discovery's family of networks polluted television with in previous decades. The two "vampire hunters," Erich Streit and Marcel von Tingen, appear to have no online footprint beyond this show. Von Tingen claims to be a 25th-generation vampire hunter, which is a neat trick since the modern bloodsucking vampire did not emerge in European folklore until the early 1700s. I guess either his family reproduced young or got knocked off by vampires regularly.

"It is the belief of most vampire hunters," Streit says, "that Bram Stoker was actually taking dictation from a vampire." Real vampires, he says, are secretly behind all vampire fiction. Why even pretend this real? Streit goes on to say that bloodsucking elites manipulate and control the media to hide their predatory attacks on good Christian folks. I need not point out how close that its to anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

The unsavory part of the presumably fake show is the dishonor it does to victims of violent crimes and missing persons by ascribing their deaths to vampires, and the insult this does to victims' families. However, the newspaper articles shown in the trailer for the series appear to be fakes, presumably to avoid just this outcome. Arizona has an exceptionally high number of missing persons cases, more than seven times the next highest state, Alaska, and Discovery exploits the ongoing crisis for entertainment. Contrary to the shows's claims, the Arizona murder rate has actually fallen over the past ten years, and there was no dramatic "uptick" during the time of the alleged events.

The dangerous part is that viewers will think this is real. Ancient Aliens-style conspiracies have already inspired cults and been cited by criminals to explain their crimes. We don't need Discovery telling viewers it's cool to try beheading people with swords if you suspect them of vampirism.

25 Comments

Jim

2/2/2022 11:50:57 am

Its Templars I tell ya.
It is a well known fact that the Templars have been hiding out in a secret cave in Arizona guarded by their "blood" brothers for over 600 years.

I would like my own special on this, does anyone know where to apply ?

Ray DeComyn

2/2/2022 03:45:39 pm

Probably gotta call that Zac Bagans- he seems to be Trav Channel incarnate!
I suppose the zombie thing is played, huh?

Bernice stine link

2/3/2022 10:24:54 pm

hOW VERY SAD THIS IS THAT THIS NONSENSE IS ALLOWED ON THE TRAVEL CHANNEL,THIS IS DANGEROUS TO MAKE PEOPLE BELIEVE IN THIS GARBAGE,AND WORSE YET THAT OTHERS MIGHT ACCUSE THEIR NEIGHBORS OF VAMPIRISM

Bob Jase

2/2/2022 01:44:53 pm

Not only are vampires real but they're half mermaid, half megalodon & descended from ancient aliens!

Clan McCloud

2/2/2022 08:23:44 pm

"We don't need Discovery telling viewers it's cool to try beheading people with swords if you suspect them of vampirism."

Just can't do it on Holy Ground.

"The can be only one"

CHARLES L VERRASTRO link

2/8/2022 11:27:37 am

You are right. Professionals use the All-In-One Vampire Hunter Travel Kit.

https://www.etsy.com/market/vampire_hunter_kit

I would recommend the Amazon model, as it comes with free overnight shipping. Good to catch them at dawn.

Swords. Sheesh! What amateurs.

Hilda Hilpert

2/16/2022 05:23:40 pm

As someone who is half Hungarian, other half German, think I'm going to upchuck. They can't be serious can they? HOw low some networks go for ratings is outrageous. People are really going off the rails.

Darold knowles

2/3/2022 09:58:18 am

Vampires are taking over the news media in a metaphorical sense.

Just like Christianity

2/3/2022 10:05:23 am

And look how long the Christianity deception has lasted

An Anonymous Nerd (Nerd11135)

2/3/2022 12:10:12 pm

Sadly, it's not far removed from other conspiracy fantasies, such as Q-Anon, that are at the mainstream of American political life, especially on the Right, these days. As described all they really did was throw in the word "vampires" and make some appropriate tweaks.

It's also "Supernatural" crossed with a few Netflix shows I've seen bits and pieces of.

Why would a vampire dictate a story where the vampire loses?

-An Anonymous Nerd

The Murph

2/6/2022 02:59:20 pm

Thanks for including your other name in parentheses — otherwise, I wouldn’t have been sure who you were.

Aachen

2/4/2022 10:13:17 am

How long till this fantasy’s fans collide with someone convinced they’re a real vampire to terrible tragedy?

D. Talbot

2/4/2022 05:34:54 pm

Hey Jason,
There's a Mr. L. de Lioncourt who'd like a word with you ...

Connor y

2/4/2022 10:17:10 pm

I know vamps are real everyone says there not till they got a story and actually live it. Like I remember y'all said ghost aren't real in 2000 how hard is it to believe there some other from of the devil walking among us. Y'all really dumb not just taking it in and listen and u never know until u give them a shot

Rick Knocker

2/6/2022 10:39:43 am

Speaking of shots, I traded a few shots of baijiu with one named “Warren” back in the late 70s at a Soho pub. Got hammered. Wait, no, he was a werewolf….sorry.

An Over-Educated Grunt

2/9/2022 09:32:13 am

1. ... And his hair was PERFECT.

2. Pretty sure if you tried trading shots of baiju with Warren in the '70s, you'd be dead. Dude could drank.

Kent

2/11/2022 01:13:14 am

Without naming names, we have a couple hardcore alcolholovers posting here. Slurredly one of them could have pulled a Milton Berle: just enough to win the contest.

Corey Olomon

2/5/2022 03:15:38 pm

This reminds me of their made up "Amish Mafia" series from the early 2010's. All the participants were eventually revealed to be local actors (including one porn star) with little to no ties to the Amish community. I'm sure eventually these "vampire hunters" will be revealed as the same.

2/6/2022 10:00:30 am

Sadly our culture is no longer in the condition to be able to accommodate fantasy masquerading as reality.
-An Anonymous Nerd

David W. Hughett

2/6/2022 10:59:29 am

Well, somehow I missed this program. Wotta shame! I find this kind of stuff entertaining. It is a tragedy that there are so many people out there that take these mock-documentaries literally, though.

CHARLES VERRASTRO VERRASTRO link

2/6/2022 12:43:07 pm

Don't know about Marcel, but Streit is a writer, showrunner and producer at, brace yourself, the Travel Channel and did several Animal Planet docs.. He's made such romantic travelogues as Gator Boys, Snake Man of Alabama, and Little People, Big World. He shot in my hometown several years ago. My late Mother and I ended up in a scene just because we were eating at an outdoor restaurant on the beach when the production crew surrounded us and started filming. Never even asked for a waiver. I did get to meet three of the cast of Burn Notice, who did their brief scene at an adjoining table. Jeffrey Donovan was a complete ***hole (not my words, the real waitress who had to serve them (twice,when he flubbed the first take), smug as without the cool sense of humor. I would have preferred to meet Bruce Campbell but he wasn't in that scene.

Ray deComyn

2/13/2022 09:23:43 pm

I wonder if Streit is tight with Zac Bagans- they certainly seem to "think" alike.
Sorry 'bout your experience with Jeff Donovan. I kinda liked "Burn Notice", thought he was better than that. "Stars" who abuse lesser actors just ruin things for me. Curses.
Maybe the vampires will get him and even it up! And there'll be a Travel Channel exposé about it, narrated by the great Bruce Campbell!
We can only hope. Cheers!

2/15/2022 12:21:44 pm

I actually loved Burn Notice. He strangely fit the role as someone very self-assured and with a chip on his shoulder about being outed from the agency. But he has a bad reputation in the industry for being difficult, which is why you don't see much of him since the series ended. Sort of like You-Know-Who getting full of himself playing a lead in CSI and thinking he should be a major movie star and dumped the tv series. How is that working out?

Chad

4/11/2022 07:33:33 am

The actors are so bad that it has a B movie feel rather than a documentary. It's obviously fake and scripted but travel Channel says it is a real documentary which is horse s#%t. I thought they had higher standards.

CHARLES VERRASTRO link

4/11/2022 04:47:48 pm

I guess ocean pollution and indiscriminate overfishing killed off all the real Mermaids and Mermen.
Let's hope the disappearance of the ozone layer doesn't doom the vampires. So many endangered species we have come to know and love.