Werewolves by Daniel Cohen
In late 1996, the book simply
titled, Werewolves was published by Daniel Cohen. Cohen’s book was
written for young adults and covered various stories and accounts of werewolves
centuries past to modern day. In the book, Cohen devotes a whole chapter to
people who spirituality identified as werewolves in modern days which was
titled, “Werewolves on the Internet.” In the chapter, Cohen talked about having
stumbled across alt.horror.werewolves by chance. He stated that during his time
searching AHWw there were “about forty active members and around 100 ‘lurkers’”
and noted how active the group was. Cohen noted how many of the users were
university attendees as well due to how many of the messages sent were done
through university computer systems. Cohen went on to quickly go over the
history of alt.horror.werewolves having once been for talking about fictional
werewolves in the horror genre, but had changed into discussions about
werewolves in more a personal and
spirituals sense. With Cohen wrapping up his thoughts on the matter stating,
“This is not really a horror story or film fan group anymore. Its is a werewolf
group.” Daniel Cohen when on to mention other things about the group
including talking to someone considered himself a “spiritual werewolf” and who
dreamed that physical transformations could occur. Cohen also talked about having
talked to a member of the newsgroup who claimed he actually could physically
transform among other things. However, Cohen moved on to note how a “common
theme that ran through many of the personal stories of these Internet
werewolves was the feeling of being profoundly different from others around
them.” He stated how the internet had allowed them to reach out and meet people
with similar feelings and open up about their experiences. He then went on to
talk about how many experienced transformations through dreams. With that Cohen
wrapped up his chapter stating, “these werewolves […] maybe the werewolves of the
twenty-first century.” [1]
After the book was published,
members of AHWw reacted to the books content with mixed feelings.[2] Linked to the outside exposure,
alt.horror.werewolves experienced a growth in new members joining, people
trolling the newsgroup, and disgruntled older members occurred during the month
of December. During this time and afterward, a number of people who joined alt.horror.werewolves
asking to be taught how to physically shape-shift having read the book. This
meaning, not only was this book the first of its kind to reference the therian
community outside the community itself, it would simultaneously be the first incident
of people rushing into the online community excepting something the community
was not. [3] Alt.horror.werewolves, also began to have to deal
with attacks by trolls and spammers which would come to be known as
“Meowers’ by the members of the newsgroup. All these things began to stir-up
flame wars between older members (or ‘graymuzzles’ as they referred to
themselves) and newer members. [4]Sources:
[1] Cohen, Daniel. Werewolves. Cobblehill
Books: New York, 1996. Page 101-107[2] “Chapter 12 from
Werewolves,”alt.horror.werewolves, Dec 1 1996,
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!searchin/alt.horror.werewolves/Chapter$2012$20from$20Werewolves/alt.horror.werewolves/za1b9ZDOapo/nIRm3XR4KXQJ
[accessed September 10, 2013].[3] Scribner, O. “Otherkin timeline: The recent
history of elfin, fae, and animal people, v. 2.0.” Last modified Sept. 8, 2012
in The Art and Writing of O. Scribner. http://orion.kitsunet.net/nonfic.html
[accessed April 10, 2013]. Page 39[3] Scribner, O. “Otherkin timeline: The recent
history of elfin, fae, and animal people, v. 2.0.” Last modified Sept. 8, 2012
in The Art and Writing of O. Scribner. http://orion.kitsunet.net/nonfic.html
[accessed April 10, 2013]. Page 41
