Zombie Awareness Month

Zombie Thursdays is a weekly feature with guest blogger, Miranda. You can read more about her here.

Ribbons, ribbons, ribbons! Every organization and society has a colored ribbon representing something-- pink, yellow, red, blue, and on and on. When and why did this whole ribbon thing start? I have no idea, but like anything where people can proudly display a ribbon or ribbon shaped magnet on their car without actually doing any sort of real work to combat whatever issue they are representing, the idea has clearly spread faster than the upcoming zombie plague. ((Which is not to say that they're aren't individuals who do actively support causes, and they do so much more than just sport a ribbon!))

Well, add grey to the list of ribbon colors now! And what does it represent? Zombie Awareness Month!

Much like my cynical post from back in February about the dubious "I Love Zombies Day," the old Grinch in me is showing his ugly head. The first place where I heard about Zombie Awareness Month was on the Facebook. Facebook seems to be where all "relevant" information is conveyed these days (although, that's probably a topic better left for a non-zombie blog). I checked out the 'Event' page and found a link to the group that is sponsoring this month long time of awareness.

The group is the Zombie Research Society and they actually have a pretty snazzy little website. According to their page, the Society was founded in 2007 and "is dedicated to raising the level of zombie scholarship in the Arts and Sciences." They have three areas of specific focus-- Science (studying the biological makeup of zombies, etc), Survival (learning how not to die when the zombie apocalypse comes), and the Arts (appreciating and studying the growing popularity of zombies in our culture). According to their site, the month of May is the perfect month to "emphasize continued vigilance in the face of the coming zombie pandemic." The choice of the grey ribbon is to "signify the undead shadows that lurk behind our modern light of day."

I'm not entirely sure what I think about another Zombie "holiday." I'll leave it for you readers to decide. As always, you all by now should know I am fully aware of zombies 24-7! The one thing that does bother me about the ZRS sponsoring an Awareness Month is that the Society does seek membership-- for a one time fee of $25, you can have lifetime membership into the ZRS. They do send you a tshirt for this fee and it seems like you get membership to their forums and other parts of the site, but I wasn't able to find an accounting of what your membership fee goes towards (maybe website maintenance fees?). Although, I do find the core idea of the society to be a cool one! Every week I write about new things in pop culture and the Arts that highlight the growing trend of zombies and that awareness in our society. So, I do applaud them for making a website dedicated to what many of us do every week and everyday!

One thing I did get a real kick out of is that they have a map of possible zombie outbreaks throughout history. One proposes an outbreak on Roanoke Island in North Carolina. Having lived and worked on Roanoke Island at the 'The Lost Colony' outdoor symphonic drama for three years, I found this idea really entertaining and no more or less plausible than any other idea as to what happened to the Roanoke settlers!

So... Happy Zombie Awareness Month? It seems as if the ZRS has also been having some contests on their blog for zombie swag-- check it out! At the very least, it could be free stuff!

All photos and images are courtesy of the Zombie Research Society's webpage. I am assuming they own the rights to all of them, I'm just borrowing to help further educate the zombie loving community about what all is out there in our popular culture!