The mixed reaction to my VERY condensed mini-essay (yes, folks, that was supposed to be about twenty typed pages of exposition, containing quotes from primary and secondary resources...or so I assume it would be twenty pages long, I'm still doing research for the dissertation, haven't actually written the bloody monstrosity yet) proves one thing: "Gothic" means a lot of different things to different people. The two of us might consider ourselves Gothic in light of our literary and artistic tastes; a Mansonite Spookykid (is that what they are called? I'm afraid my knowledge of Gothic music is frozen in the eighties!) would probably laugh at us. The fact of the matter is that neither Gothic camp is "right" or "wrong," or has more of a claim to being truly Gothic than the other. There's so much individual expression and re-interpretation that it is safe to say that there are really more than one mini-subcultures within the gothic underground. Saying "I'm a Goth" is like saying "I'm queer" - there's an awful lot of ways of being Goth, or queer. The more popular Gothic things are throughout history, the more people jump on the bandwagon, and the more variations there are on the Gothic theme. The Elizabethan version of Gothic fandom, the cult of melancholia, had many different manifestations and literary character types.
Likewise, I think it's safe to say that there are several different types of vampire out there, and no one type is more "real" or "pure" than the other. I personally think that the bickering and debating over what constitutes a "real" vampire (or, more typically, whether a given person's claims to vampirism are genuine) has much to do with the hunger for validity. As long as outsiders scoff at us, we will feel a defensive pressure to justify ourselves, and that can all too easily turn into internal prejudice. This phenomenon is found in other subcultures as well (including the aforementioned Gothic and queer subcultures - mere fans of Marilyn Manson are considered fake by many other Goths, as are "weekend" Goths who have not "made a commitment" to the lifestyle; bisexuals are not considered really queer by many gay people, femme lesbians are considered less lesbian than androgynous and butch lesbians and are often given the cold shoulder or treated as sex objects. In the SCA, which used to be small and friendly, there is a big stink over who is truly authentic, who is truly a SCA person as opposed to a hanger on. These are just examples.)
Unfortunately, internal prejudice merely strengthens the position of the mainstream attackers, and weakens the position of the members of a given subculture. Divide and conquer, and all that. Disunity is a disadvantage.