Dear zombies, undead ghouls, rage virus victims, and the walking dead:
We need to take a break.
You used to scare the bejeesus out of us with your guttural moans while lumbering through dimly lit hallways. We used to cringe at the sight of you eviscerating B-movie over-actors. You used to be horrifying. These days the biggest threat you pose is annoying us by turning up where you don't belong.
You're everywhere. It's nearly impossible to walk down the street (let alone traverse the internet) without tripping over one of your mangled, decomposing corpses. It's made you a shadow of the ghouls you once were. You've become as common as pennies and, as a result, just about as frightening.
You're over. Like boy bands, pogs and Crystal Pepsi before you, you're done. You're the Jim Carey of the monster universe and here's why:
4. People Won't Stop Talking About You
We typed "zombie" into the search on tweetdeck and began regretting it immediately. It seems even Twitter is full of twits who won't stop singing your praises or making jokes so bad even you'd want to kill yourselves...again. Here are five humdingers:
@MONSTAHGaga - any girl tht loves zombies is awesome!
@chaddukes - No one needs to fear Zombies when I am around.
@beckyjmiller - Oooooohhh, just discovered purple Starburst! Zombies like purple Star burst. Yippee.
@kjdotts - Do zombies eat popcorn with their fingers? No, they eat the fingers separately!
@Stenu45 - Sometimes I wish zombies were real.... Kickin' their arses would be cool and extreme at the same time!
Cool and extreme? So zombies are a Mountain Dew commercial now?
3. Video Games Think You Give Them a License to Print Money
You used to inspire a sense of dread (well you and shoddy control mechanics) in games like Resident Evil. Now you're everywhere and you're usually nazis as well. How can I take you seriously when in Dead Rising 2 (see above), we can stampede through your ever-encroaching hordes with a moose head?
And what the hell are you doing in the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops? What Treyarch developer thought it would be a good idea to just add two scoops of zombies to his hard-boiled, Cold War-era first person shooter?
You might as well just go whole hog and make the final boss zombie robot hitler...oh wait.
2. You Can't Just Add "And Zombies" to Things
In 2009, Seth Grahame-Smith wrote a novel that combines Jane Austen's literary classic Pride and Prejudice with zombies. He called his abomination to literates everywhere Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and made it a point to credit Austen as the co-author.
I'm sure she's thrilled.
More good news: there's a prequel called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls. Unfortunately Grahame-Smith could not be bother to write it, however. He was busy placing pen to paper to finish Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.
1. Teddy Bear !@$%ing Zombies
In Conclusion...
Sorry, zombies. We, the adoring fans of your undead antics, have driven you into the ground (for good) because we loved you too much. We wanted you around all the time and refused to give you up even though we'd brutally head shot you with our fandom a long time ago. We've betrayed you by transforming you from the monsters you once were to a punchline that's grown stale.
Now if you'll excuse me, We've got to finish our sparkly vampire costumes. Anyone know where to get some body glitter?
