History time: In the original folklore, most vampires were short, ugly, Eastern European peasants. Then Polidori creates the character of Lord Ruthven and suddenly they're all elegant, English, aristocratic and look suspiciously like Lord Byron. Rymer's Varney the Vampire gives them fangs, but makes no real change beyond that. Then Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla was written, and vampires suddenly became angsty, alluring, bi-sexual upper-class gothic girls. Then, Dracula was written, and they're elegant, Eastern European aristocrats, sexy and deadly, outwardly beautiful yet disguising an inner corruption. Thus, horror turned to fetish, and pop culture the world was never the same again.