The Vampire Diaries is the current vampire craze. It is a TV show with two leading vampire brothers and the girl they fall for both. The Vampire Diaries is set in present day, with the exception of flashbacks. The leading vampires, along with other characters, often make pop culture, literature and entertainment references. Below are some of them.

(Please note that I tried to include the episode numbers as well as I could but I just couldn’t remember some of them).

The Vampire Diaries Characters: Damon Salvatore (Ian Somerhalder), Elena/ Katherine (Nina Dobrev), Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley)

- Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley)’s old friend, also a vampire, Lexi (Arielle Kebbel) comes to visit Stefan for his 162th birthday. They talk about having gone to a Bon Jovi concert in the past and how Dead or Alive is their song. From 162 Candles: Season 1, Episode 8.

- Damon Salvatore (Ian Somerhalder) jokes that Stefan looks better with his 21st century haircut as opposed to how he looked during the 90s grunge period. Damon points out that he (Damon is talking about himself) is irresistible to women: In addition to being sexy, he has the uncanny ability to listen Taylor Swift endlessly. From the Pilot Episode.

- As Damon is reading Caroline (Candice Accola) ’s Twilight Saga books Damon thinks that Bella got all Twilight cast whipped, without anything to show for it). Caroline also asks Damon why he doesn’t shine in the sun and Damon replies that he lives in the real world where vampires burst into flames if they happen to go into sun. But she asks him how he and Stefan do it, since they are able to walk during daytime without burning or shining. Damon then shows her his ring.

- Stefan worries that Elena (Nina Dobrev) might break up with him, as she is big on trust and he seems to be keeping her in the dark about a lot of things about himself. So with a little help from Elena’s brother Jeremy (Steven R. McQueen), he cooks for Elena and talks about himself; including his tastes in movies and music: he says that he loves Martin Scorsese and can watch Taxi Driver over and over again. His music taste is wide and covers Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix although he is not above enjoying a Miley (Cyrus) song as well. He also says that he loves the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald and considers his The Great Gatsby a masterpiece but he also loves reading a good John Grisham thriller. From Episode You’re Undead to Me. Season 1, Episode 5.

- Katherine (also played by Nina Dobrev) returns to haunt Damon and Stefan. Stefan asks her what she knows about werewolves and she says werewolves are almost extinct, apart from the Lockwoods (the werewolf family line in the show), “books and really bad movies”.

- Caroline and Elena are in the car, listening to radio. Elena turns on the volume, partly because she is trying to avoid listening to Caroline complain about the impossibilities about a human-vampire relationship. Caroline decides that Elena likes the song, so she uses the voice feature of the radio and asks the name of the song- the band’s name appears: Goldfrapp.