So... Are we over hating Twilight now?

[Cikomyr]

Lindsay Ellis's discussion of popular culture's dismissal/hatred of girl-oriented media was also discussed by MovieBob in his Titanic Really That Good.

Its not a new thing that stuff aimed at anything girly or womanly being dismissed as "not serious", and even aggressively hated when it becomes somewhat mainstream.

Because there is nothing worse in our culture than a women'a movie being successful.

[Peelee]

Lindsay Ellis's discussion of popular culture's dismissal/hatred of girl-oriented media was also discussed by MovieBob in his Titanic Really That Good.

Its not a new thing that stuff aimed at anything girly or womanly being dismissed as "not serious", and even aggressively hated when it becomes somewhat mainstream.

Because there is nothing worse in our culture than a women'a movie being successful.

I think this is far less an issue if a woman-oriented media being successful and getting backlash for it as it is a massively high-profile media getting loudly vocal backlash because of the ordered quality by the loudly vocal community. If only there were some sort of media that was also incredibly high-profile that also receives incredibly loud backlash every time they release a new movie despite its popularity and success and is also aimed at men or the general public. Like some sort of war movie, possibly along the stars. The world may never know.

[Cikomyr]

I think this is far less an issue if a woman-oriented media being successful and getting backlash for it as it is a massively high-profile media getting loudly vocal backlash because of the ordered quality by the loudly vocal community. If only there were some sort of media that was also incredibly high-profile that also receives incredibly loud backlash every time they release a new movie despite its popularity and success and is also aimed at men or the general public. Like some sort of war movie, possibly along the stars. The world may never know.

You are transforming the topic there dude

[Keltest]

By all accounts it's terribly written, and I haven't read the books but the more I think about the movie the more issues I thought of with it...

But I was deeply disappointed by the general response to the popularity of the Twilight books, and things like 50 Shades of Gray for that matter. It wasn't just a wasted opportunity, it was... whatever the far side of a wasted opportunity would be.
We, by which I mean "people who have read books for pleasure for our whole lives", saw a bunch of "non-readers" getting excited about a series and reading it voraciously and talking about it and speculating and writing fanart and so on... and we actively and maliciously excluded them from the "real readers" club. We dismissed their excitement. We insulted their intelligence. We told them that they and their stories "don't count".

When what we could have done was use it to invite them into our "club". We could have asked, "What do you like about these books?" We could have said, "Do you like the romance? Here's a list of 100 fantastic romances of various kinds you might enjoy. Perhaps Pride and Prejudice?" We could have said, "Do you like the monsters? Here's a list of 100 monstrous novels you might enjoy. How about some Stephen King?" We could have said, "Do you like the female protagonist? Here's... well, a somewhat smaller list of wonderful books with female protagonists. I recommend starting with Tamora Pierce."

Instead, we said, "You like Twilight? lol What an idiot. You have no taste. You romanticise abuse. You're such a ~~teenage girl~~" *gag*

We failed an entire generation of potential readers, because we took offence that a bad book got popular - or maybe, as I think some others have referred to, because a book for teenage girls got popular.

I don't know. I don't feel particularly obligated to guide new people into this specific hobby. It isn't like gaming, which is almost inherently a social activity, you don't need to be taught how to find quality books, or how to enjoy them "properly". Reading for fun is, frankly, not at all hard, certainly not something you need a community behind you to do. I'm not going to, like, physically assault somebody for liking Twilight, but I have no particular reason to hold back my scorn for it either, just because somebody may or may not read other books.

[deuterio12]

I believe it was more a case of "stop liking what I don't like!" and pure envy for the success of the books and resulting movies. Lots of people out there probably dream of writing a succesful book and it then becoming a series of movies known accross the world. That Twilight succeeded where many others failed probably sparked quite a lot of rage.

If Twilight had been just another novel in the back of libraries that never made it to the cinema/TV, then there probably would be hardly any hate.

But when something becomes popular, they will also get its (un)fair share of hate.

At the end of the day, Twilight was a fantasy book that successfully entertained millions of people accross the world. What's exactly wrong with that? Just because one personally doesn't like sparkly vampire love stories one shouldn't go trying to take the fun out of the people who enjoy them. I for example don't like either that or sparkly pony love stories, but I don't go out there hating on My Little Pony.

[Amazon]

(...) but I have no particular reason to hold back my scorn for it either, just because somebody may or may not read other books.

Why is it worthy of scorn? I bet you used to like some very silly thing when you were a teen, perhaps you STILL like some sort of silly and stupid thing, we all have guilty pleasures, so why be a hater of a thing and the fans of that thing? I never got this, why can't we just let people have fun?

[Keltest]

Why is it worthy of scorn? I bet you used to like some very silly thing when you were a teen, perhaps you STILL like some sort of silly and stupid thing, we all have guilty pleasures, so why be a hater of a thing and the fans of that thing? I never got this, why can't we just let people have fun?

I have no problem with letting them have their fun... over there, away from where I'm having my fun. Twilight became worthy of my scorn when it wormed its way into public awareness. No, I don't care about Team Edward versus Team Jacob or whatever crap it has, please stop making a bigger deal of this than is warranted and let me go back to enjoying my things uninterrupted.

If somebody has a guilty pleasure that they know nobody has any interest in, that's fine. Its when they try to force people's attention to it anyway where it becomes a problem. Well, if they wanted me thinking about it, theyre going to have to deal with those thoughts, which in this case are largely unkind.

[Dr.Samurai]

Folks... Twilight is bad. I don't think anyone can disagree on this point. I don't understand trying to make this about hate towards young women though. I didn't even know what Twilight was until a friend of mine (a man, by the way) told me about it as he was reading it and how bad it was.

Some time later, he asked me if I remembered that book he had told me about, and then said there's a trailer for the movie and it looks awesome. We watched the movie together and it was terrible.

At no point did I think to myself "this is aimed at young girls, therefore I will destroy it and destroy their fun". I have thought "who likes this stuff?", but I think that about many things AND I'm self-aware enough to know that I like movies and books and other things that other people will also find awful/terrible/bad/etc.

The trick is not to assume that everyone is going to like the same things you like, or that even a lot of people or some people will. Obviously there is a massive number of people that love Twilight, given it's success and popularity. And obviously there is a massive number of people that think Twilight is "garbage", as some have described it here.

I'm not sure why one needs to justify their feelings and not the other. We may as well ask "are we over loving Twilight now?"

[Dragonus45]

Never. Ever ever ever ever ever.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

And it's definitely not true that anything aimed at teenage girls is bad or gets hatred from everyone who's not a teenage girl when it gets popular. The 100 is a great series, for instance. Still very clearly aimed at teenage girls first and foremost. Similar to Twilight it uses themes that adult males already know and like in a different way, but instead of vampires it's the post-apocalyptic thing. Yet it's a good series. People are not yelling "those are not real post apocalyptic survivors!" And that's because it's not a big pile of bad things, like Twilight is.

Or you know, dare I mention it, google for how well My Little Pony was received by men. For years at an end you couldn't connect to the internet without someone shouting at the top of their lungs that they were totally not afraid to admit they liked something girly. Those people caught a lot of flak, including from me, and they deserved it. But the show itself? No, people don't hate it, because either they don't watch it or they think it's a good show.

And there are media out there that fail as hard as Twilight does on as many fronts, but they're usually some webcomic with a hundred followers. Not a massive phenomenon hyped by media all around like it would be the next Star Wars or Harry Potter. Only ones in a while the perfect storm comes together. A thing people do hate with a vengeance for instance is Pokemon Go. It made great big huge promises, caught massive attention, and was for those people in the target audience (grew up with Pokemon, still likes them, likes walking or cycling around outside etc etc) a pretty okay game. I still start it up from time to time. But I get how many people must have tried it out and feel like someone just shat in their face. Twilight is like that. It's a garbage little book that found its way into way too many hands it shouldn't have been in. Just like Pokemon Go is a garbage little app that found its way into way to many hands and just like Paranormal Activity is well, you get the picture. Is anyone to blame for that? No. If anything the marketing department just did a spectacular job and they all deserve a raise. But it does get the thing hated. That's true for Pokemon Go, it's true for Paranormal Activity, and it's true for Twilight.

O, and sure, there was probably a whole lot of #gamergate MRA nonsense rolled into hating Twilight by certain people. But that followed from the point where the thing was rubbish and people made fun of that. It wasn't the root cause.

[Lord Joeltion]

Its not a new thing that stuff aimed at anything girly or womanly being dismissed as "not serious", and even aggressively hated when it becomes somewhat mainstream.

Because there is nothing worse in our culture than a women'a movie being successful.

Wait, are we talking about Wonder Woman being shunned out from the Oscars? Because that made me angry too!


Anyway, my experience with Twilight was fairly short, so I never really had a chance to become a hater. I bought the first book (way before the movies came out) because I knew some girl I liked it was kind of a "fan" (I only knew she read it at least once). Also, a friend of mine recommended it to me. I think I couldn't get past the car crash scene. It's funny, because at the time I was still studying/perfecting my English and even with my somewhat rudimentary knowledge of English language I could tell from a couple of phrases how badly written it was. Then came the movies. It wasn't a nice experience either. But I never had the chance to become a hater because I had better things to do, really. I met a lot of haters tho. And here's the thing about them:

No, they aren't "over" hating twilight. If anything, to most of them it became beating a sparkling dead horse. But that doesn't mean they have "discovered" anything good in Twilight over the years. I doubt anyone will grow fonder of the books in the next decades, not even fans (unlike Harry Potter, for instance). Sure, haters' response to fans was probably over the top. So what? Fans reaction was just as much as over the top as well. Nothing makes the fans more entitled to scream about their opinions than haters. Both have equal rights to praise and complain whatever they wish to.

But another thing to consider, and that I think it's worth noting, if we are to judge "haters"; is that a good portion of them were originally harcore* fans (mostly from the books). My GF is one of those "recovered" Twilight fans. The realization that you may have wasted days/months/years of your life loving/talking/discussing about a piece of work you now consider utterly worthless; creates a huge backlash in your reaction. The strongest criticism (with enough fundaments) I heard/read was from these former fans. And their reaction is only natural: which means, they are understandably disproportionate in their retribution (since they are basically balancing all the former praise they wasted before).

All in all, I don't think anyone is "over" hating Twilight. If anything, they are done with voicing their hate. Just as the fans (do they have a hideout or something? Are they still alive?) are done (hopefully) loving it. At least in public spaces, that is.

*ranging from "I really enjoy reading this book" to "I'm totally in love with [insert main/secondary character here]"

[Knaight]

Sword of Truth is the most popular and is detested by most of the fantasy community. Twilight is among the top 20 best selling fiction books of all time, it hit a wide audience and so like Lolita is more dangerous then more radical works.

If we're talking about sheer level of danger, one of those other books listed (To Train Up a Child) has an actual body count associated with it, because of readers who took advice in the book to heart and, following said advice, beat their children to death. This has happened multiple times.

While that's a fairly extreme example, there's no shortage of books both worse than Twilight in terms of literary merit and vastly more deserving of being seen as dangerous.

[Dragonus45]

Wait, are we talking about Wonder Woman being shunned out from the Oscars? Because that made me angry too!

To be fair Wonder Woman was good, and great for a DC film nowadays, it didn't really do anything that the first phase Marvel stuff wasn't already doing years ago.

[2D8HP]

Beats me.

I've read some amusing screeds against it, and when I visited my mom years ago, I saw the book and asked how it was, my mom said her sister (my Aunt) had recommended the book to her, and said it was "just awful", but other than that I've never heard anyone say anything about it out loud.

As for the movies, I was working in County Jail #4, onr day and the movie that they were playing for the inmates had bunch of pasty looking people wearing long coatsstanding on some ice talking to another group of slightly less pasty people wearing short coats, I recognized the actress from Snow White and the Huntsman (a movie with some memorable magic, but that is almost laughably over the top in its grimness), and I assume it was one of the "Twilight" films, when I got out of the plumbing chase after doing the repair, the scene on the ice was still playing (so 30 minutes?)., it would have to have been some really good dialog to be watchable.

[Lord Joeltion]

To be fair Wonder Woman was good, and great for a DC film nowadays, it didn't really do anything that the first phase Marvel stuff wasn't already doing years ago.

Even if that were true (which only partially is*), Beauty and the Beast still got a nominee. I mean, if it's really "original" what the Oscars are about...

*MCU is, to this day, at least one female lead movie short. So, not really.

[Xyril]

IDK that most people hated Twilight so much as hated that a mediocre work was so popular.

This right here. I freely admit to enjoying some pulp sci-fi and B-movies that are arguably worse literature/film than Twilight... but most of us fans don't delude ourselves into thinking they're better than they are, nor is there an unavoidably large fan-base trying to push that delusion onto other people. What irked me was that is that a lot of Twilight fans really think that it's popularity proved that it's great literature, and more importantly, keep trying to push that view on others with fanatical devotion. I suppose you can call it the Harry Potter effect--they see this immensely popular franchise targeted at kids and young adults became fairly well respected by critics and academics as good literature, and they think that it's considered good literature because of its commercial success. Alternatively, they see this other series that has superficial similarity to their own, only it's getting a lot more respect both from the highbrow "experts" and people in general, and they see it as an attack on their fandom, and so see the need push back.

[The Glyphstone]

Even if that were true (which only partially is*), Beauty and the Beast still got a nominee. I mean, if it's really "original" what the Oscars are about...

*MCU is, to this day, at least one female lead movie short. So, not really.

Captain Marvel is scheduled for 2019, IIRC. So there's that.

[Dr.Samurai]

There is nothing about Wonder Woman even close to being worthy of an Oscar. Even if it is the best DC movie to date.

[Psyren]

I absolutely adore Lindsay Ellis, and her video was spot-on. I especially love the comparison she made to similar fiction (like Ancient Magus Bride) and how despite all the similarities, such titles by virtue of being perceived as NOT for teenage girls, they managed to escape all the vitriol that got poured on Twilight.

Having said that, I still think Twilight is trash, but it's trash that I didn't and don't need to be worked up over. Edward's "stalking = love" approach to Bella was still terrible. I still find Meyer's political stances (which I won't repeat here) and the fact that they went completely unchallenged in the work to still be reprehensible. Jacob "imprinting" on a literal baby was still terrible. Butchering vampire lore was still competely unappealing. But Meyer getting review-bombed and death threats and all the other stuff as a result - I agree, completely uncalled for.

[Peelee]

You are transforming the topic there dude

How so? I'm equating a high-profile media with a very vocal segment of the population we decried it to a high-profile media with a very vocal segment of the population we decried it and was also made for teenage girls, in response to an accusation that people decried it because it was made for teenage girls. My point is that the inordinate amount of vitriol it got was more due to it being so high-profile than it was for who its target audience is. In what way is that transforming the topic?

[Lord Raziere]

What are you talking about, I don't hate Twilight Sparkle, who ever hated her?

[Velaryon]

I really feel like Twilight is to books what Nickelback is to music. It isn't the worst thing ever, but it gets a lot more hate than some obviously worse things because of its combination of blandness, ubiquity, and disproportionate success relative to the talent of those involved. I'm sure we can all pick out books that are worse than Twilight and bands that are worse than Nickelback, but they both epitomize that blend of mediocrity and overexposure that leads to widespread trashing by everyone who's not a fan.

If there is less hate out there for Twilight now than there used to be, I think it has less to do with any perceived change in the quality of the books or films, and more because they're over and done with, and no longer the current thing. Or to put it better...

If anything, to most of them it became beating a sparkling dead horse.

This sums it up perfectly.

Not until every last instance of sparkly vampires are gone forever and then enough more years afterwards when they are forgotten. The true fault lies with Anne Rice. She started it. Twilight made it popular.

I see that you're being sarcastic, but I actually agree with that statement. Finishing Interview with the Vampire was a chore for me, and that was after I had seen and enjoyed the movie. I don't know if she was the first to do it, but I think Anne Rice definitely had a lot to do with shifting the popular perception of vampires from "killer monster that drinks blood and must be destroyed" to "dark, mysterious sexy people who angst about how much their immortality sucks." Although to be fair, Buffy deserves a big share of the blame here too (though I at least still like most of that).

Yeah, but then most YA is badly written. (Quite a lot of mass market adult fiction is also badly written).

The general premise is true though, people do criticise media for teen girls far out of proportion with its actual quality or lack thereof.


(Read Daughter of Smoke and Bone instead.)

Most of everything is badly written. YA isn't really an exception. YA fantasy and romance in particular are especially prone to relying on common tropes and formulas (seriously, if I don't ever need to read another book with a forced love triangle). However, there is also no shortage of quality YA material either.

I don't disagree with the Laini Taylor plug, though. I also find Marie Lu, Sarah J. Maas, and Maggie Stiefvater worth mentioning on the subject of YA fantasy particularly suited for teen girls.

[Lethologica]

You are transforming the topic there dude

This is a great analogy.

Even if that were true (which only partially is*), Beauty and the Beast still got a nominee. I mean, if it's really "original" what the Oscars are about...

*MCU is, to this day, at least one female lead movie short. So, not really.

B&tB got a nominations for costume and production design. It's hardly the same thing.

How so? I'm equating a high-profile media with a very vocal segment of the population we decried it to a high-profile media with a very vocal segment of the population we decried it and was also made for teenage girls, in response to an accusation that people decried it because it was made for teenage girls. My point is that the inordinate amount of vitriol it got was more due to it being so high-profile than it was for who its target audience is. In what way is that transforming the topic?

He's agreeing with you and referencing Transformers, a massively popular movie series for boys that gets ripped apart with every new installment. It's just hard to tell over the Internet.

[No brains]

You are transforming the topic there dude

How so? I'm equating a high-profile media with a very vocal segment of the population we decried it to a high-profile media with a very vocal segment of the population we decried it and was also made for teenage girls, in response to an accusation that people decried it because it was made for teenage girls. My point is that the inordinate amount of vitriol it got was more due to it being so high-profile than it was for who its target audience is. In what way is that transforming the topic?

I think they were making a subtle Transformers joke. Transformers is also something that's widely regarded as excrement and is directed at 13 year-old males. Sorely ninja'd, but this is what baited me into replying here so I'm keeping it.

As for my take on the topic, I think hype backlash is an important factor to consider here. When something is massively hyped by hordes of fans, it ends up having to live up to some massive expectations. Hell when something over-hyped comes out that's still on the better side of okay, I'll still end up disliking it just because I ended up getting less than half of what I was expecting. It's like ordering a big mac and getting a kid's meal with the some fries gone. Over-hyping something that is actually bad builds a lot of tension in a perception slingshot and makes most people overshoot the actual target quality that something really is.

The best reactions I ever have is when people I know say something is "pretty good" or "worth watching" and it fulfills those expectations. That prevents an overreaction chain reaction from resonating out of control like Tesla's earthquake machine.

[GloatingSwine]

I think the people comparing with Transformers are revealing something.

Bayformers is widely hated among people who like Transformers and people who like good movies and basically goes unreferenced otherwise, but Twilight became a memetic watchword for terrible romance among people who had literally only even heard of it due to the memes about things being a better love story than it.

There is not even a comparison in the level of vitriol levelled at the two properties, people forget a new Transformers film five minutes after seeing it, but they'll still happily dig at Twilight the same as they would, say, Justin Bieber.

[Berenger]

I don't know. I don't feel particularly obligated to guide new people into this specific hobby. It isn't like gaming, which is almost inherently a social activity, you don't need to be taught how to find quality books, or how to enjoy them "properly". Reading for fun is, frankly, not at all hard, certainly not something you need a community behind you to do.

I disagree. The joyful reading of books is an aquired taste and a skill beyond basic literacy. I don't think I would have been an avid reader from a young age without encouragement from my family and access to my older brothers books. I also regret that I apparently suck at passing this passion on to children now that I'm a bit older.

[Peelee]

He's agreeing with you and referencing Transformers, a massively popular movie series for boys that gets ripped apart with every new installment. It's just hard to tell over the Internet.

I think they were making a subtle Transformers joke. Transformers is also something that's widely regarded as excrement and is directed at 13 year-old males. Sorely ninja'd, but this is what baited me into replying here so I'm keeping it.

I am not a smart man. Sorry, Cikomyr!

[Silver Swift]

There is not even a comparison in the level of vitriol levelled at the two properties, people forget a new Transformers film five minutes after seeing it, but they'll still happily dig at Twilight the same as they would, say, Justin Bieber.

Ok, so how about the Star Wars prequels then? Those movies pre-date twilight by nine years and the vitriol levelled at them still hasn't fully died down.

[Lethologica]

I think the people comparing with Transformers are revealing something.

Bayformers is widely hated among people who like Transformers and people who like good movies and basically goes unreferenced otherwise, but Twilight became a memetic watchword for terrible romance among people who had literally only even heard of it due to the memes about things being a better love story than it.

There is not even a comparison in the level of vitriol levelled at the two properties, people forget a new Transformers film five minutes after seeing it, but they'll still happily dig at Twilight the same as they would, say, Justin Bieber.

Memes don't follow hard rules. It's tough to attribute the endurance of one wildly popular but bad franchise in memes and not another to factors beyond coincidence.

That said, it's not like Transformers didn't leave a lasting impression. Shia Labeouf and Megan Fox were held in regard comparable to Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson for a while, and Bay's reputation as someone who ruined movies was comparable to Meyer's reputation as someone who ruined literature--yes, even among people who never saw the movies and didn't care about the franchise.

One significant point of difference (at least in my recollection), though: fans of the Transformers movies were much less visible than fans of the Twilight franchise on the battlegrounds of the Internet, where memes arise. There was therefore much less conflict.

[Vinyadan]

IDK that most people hated Twilight so much as hated that a mediocre work was so popular.

The only real issue with the story as I see it is that the author promotes an abusive relationship model, but not nearly as bad as 50 Shades or many, many other romance novels.

I keep seeing this, "Once there was Twilight, now there's 50 Shades of Grey". But the thing is, 50 Shades was born as a Twilight fanfiction. SATAN ITSELF HATH SPAWNED ITS SUCCESSOR

Hissing, hackles lifting, the chicken's head rose.

Kahlan pulled back.

Its claws digging into stiff dead flesh, the chicken slowly turned to face her. It cocked its head, making its comb flop, its wattles sway.

"Shoo," Kahlan heard herself whisper.

There wasn't enough light, and besides, the side of its beak was covered with gore, so she couldn't tell if it had the dark spot. But she didn't need to see it.

"Dear spirits, help me," she prayed under her breath.

The bird let out a slow chicken cackle. It sounded like a chicken, but in her heart she knew it wasn't. In that instant, she completely understood the concept of a chicken that was not a chicken. This looked like a chicken, like most of the Mud People's chickens. But this was no chicken.

This was evil manifest.

Sounds like one of 2D8HP's postmodern poems