I Heart Vampires and Online Video

With its obvious parody to the drama behind the Twilight saga (no, I don’t mean the books or movies themselves but to the reality of the fifth book in the Twilight series getting leaked to the internet before its completion…and the drama that ensued), season 1 of I <3 Vampires was pretty much guaranteed a healthy audience and helped garner the online network Take180 more than 40 million video views to date. This week saw the launch of Season 2 of the popular web series.

But it isn’t the subject matter of the show that was its only appeal. Like all Take180 shows, interaction plays a key role and fans are encouraged and even rewarded for their participation.

In fact, fans of the show have been begging for a season 2 almost as soon as the season 1 finale went online. In the hiatus, they were treated to behind-the-scenes videos hosted by Adam Chambers, who plays Wyatt on the show and has proven to be one of the show’s most popular characters. Then, to get even more meta, about a month ago, Wyatt himself began video blogging as a way to cope with having discovered he’d become a vampire hunter at the end of season 1. Fans watched him as he discovered his powers…and as his relationship with his girlfriend, Luci (played by Erin Way), deteriorated.

The first episode of season 2 picks up a year after season 1. Viewers not familiar with the show are greeted with a very extensive “Previously On”, so to make it easier to jump right in. We find that Corbin (played by Cherilyn Wilson), once the self-proclaimed #1 “Confessor” (fans of the Confessions series, the vampire novels of the series), now not only wants to have nothing to do with the fact that the movie based on the second novel has come out but is no longer on speaking terms with her Confessor BFF-for-life, Luci. But when an unexpected visitor shows up, Corbin learns that her fangirl life won’t be that easy to run away from.

So far, the interactivity is pretty much non-existent in the first three episodes (though a random fan does ask that the audience to make videos asking Corbin to begin vlogging again), which is a shame as its what really rallied a community around the show in season 1. However, episode 4 does contain a whopping 4 fan submissions, so it looks like the interactivity is just ramping up. Hopefully it can top last seasons impressive fan inclusions including a fan cameo in the finale.

Fans were also treated to a surprise cameo by YouTube stars and members of The Station, Ryan Higa and Kassem G. All of season 1 as well a the first three episodes of the current season are up at Take180.com, with the next episode airing February 12th and new episodes going up weekly. The series will also be having a live chat with the cast on the 12th on Justin.tv at 6 PM PST/9 PM EST.