Dracula Daily
| Event | |
|---|---|
| Event: | Dracula Daily |
| Participants: | Matt Kirkland |
| Date(s): | May 3rd, 2021- November 10th, 2021; May 3rd, 2022- November 10th, 2022 |
| Type: | Book club or mailing list |
| Fandom: | Dracula |
| URL: | https://draculadaily.substack.com/about, archive link |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Dracula Daily is a newsletter that mails excerpts of the novel Dracula to readers on the calendar date they are given within the novel. The newsletter first ran from May 3rd through November 7th in 2021, and after the success of that year was re-started in 2022. The second year, it really blew up online, particularly on Tumblr.
Event Info
Bram Stoker’s Dracula is an epistolary novel - it’s made up of letters, diaries, telegrams, newspaper clippings - and every part of it has a date. The whole story happens between May 3 and November 10. So: Dracula Daily will post a newsletter each day that something happens to the characters, in the same timeline that it happens to them.Dracula Daily official website. Accessed May 12, 2022.
History
2021
About two thousand people subscribed to the newsletter in 2021. [1]
2022
As of April 29, over 25,000 people had subscribed to the newsletter, which began sending chapters of the book once again on May 3rd. [2]
On Tumblr, buzz around the newsletter, and activity relating to the Dracula fandom, increased dramatically. The tag #dracula daily reached the top trending position on tumblr on May 11th. [3] Fans began to refer to Jonathan Harker as "our friend Jonathan" or similar appellations, and discuss how he was either Tumblr's new favorite blorbo or a distinct class of character from "the blorbo". [4][5]
Love how we’re all talking about jonathan harker and his shenanigans in the present tense now like that’s our lil guy and he’s having a swell time with paprika and crucifixes in eastern europe Right Now 💙skies-of-blue. Posted May 4th, 2022.
After the entry where Renfield asks Seward for a kitten, tumblr was completely divided into "give Seward a kitten" and "don't even think of giving Seward a kitten".
In the September 15 email, Matt Kirkland announced that he would be releasing a Dracula Daily edition of the Dracula book in Fall 2023, with all the entries in chronological order and a fan comment section.[6]
2023
- Kirkland held a talk in at least two venues, one in a university[7] and the other at a public library,[8] with an opening slide reading Oops: 250,000 people came to your book club and The Dracula Daily Story
- Tumblr post about triggers/community etiquette for the 2023 edition, post by quietlywatchingwritingreading
- re-dracula, a tumblr blog for tracking Dracula Daily fandom activity, set up a discord server for 2023 participants at the end of April.[9]
2024
TODO
Fandom
Fanac is organized on subpages by year:
Links
- Did Dracula Daily Update Today? - counting the days since dracula daily last updated
- An update schedule for Dracula Daily
- Dracula Daily Tracker, a tumblr blog collecting fanart and discussion for Daily Dracula and organizing them by date within the book
- Daily Drac Art -- fanart for Dracula Daily, active in 2024
- Whale Weekly - a similar project for Moby Dick, inspired by Dracula Daily.
- Where in the World is Jonathan Harker? - a Tumblr set up to speculate on Jonathan's fate after his escape from Castle Dracula.
References
- ^ Tweet by Matt Kirkland, Archived version. Posted 23 April 2022.
- ^ Tweet from Matt Kirkland, Archived version. Posted 29 April 2022.
- ^ Dracula Daily number one trending on Tumblr, Archived version. Screenshot of tumblr trending board saved at Know Your Meme. Posted May 11, 2022. Accessed May 13, 2022
- ^ Love that the new tumblr blorbo is for the most part not being referred to as a blorbo., Archived version. Post by theorderofthetriad. Posted May 7, 2022. Note: an early prominent use of the appellation "my friend Jonathan Harker", which caught on in the fandom more generally.
- ^ hey btw if you wanna read dracula in real time..., Archived version. Original post by trupowieszcz on April 22, 2022. By May 13, 2022 the post had collected 57k notes. This reblog chain showcases several prominent memes and in-jokes that have grown popular within the fandom so far.
- ^ Dracula Daily Special Edition - An announcement, Archived version. Published 15 September 2022.
- ^ [1]
- ^ [2]
- ^ If you missed the link before, here’s the official Re: Dracula discord server! You’re welcome to join our book club!. Posted 30 April 2023.