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Dear Stephenie Meyer (Patreon)

Published:
2018-01-21 01:26:36
Edited:
2018-01-22 00:23:51
Imported:
2026-06

Content

I even talk about an anime in this one, which is a thing I never regret doing.*

*I always regret doing.

Files

Dear Stephenie Meyer

It's time to re-examine the culture surrounding Twilight-bashing.

Comments

Bailey Spencer

YAY! Anytime I get the email notification that you've posted a new video I drop everything I'm doing...

Brady Thomas

As somebody who was in middle/high school and super into the "twilight sucks" craze...yeah, its cringe-inducing as hell looking back at the vitriol I worked up over it. So this video in particular works for me.

Jonnygadfly

Thanks so much for all your work, Lindsay.

JENIRD

honestly after 50 shades came out i said the same thing.

Marie

Great video. I am seeing a lot of striking similarities happening in other current fandoms right now, in terms of this purity policing with some abstract 'think of the impressionable young women!' as the touchstone. Really fascinating to see it's nothing new.

Tim Bates

Keep up the good work, Lindsey! Sure someone's already caught it, but there's a bit of a rough cut at 10.13. Sorry if that's intentional, or you know already, I just wanted to be sure.

Jennifer Miller

Honestly, I was just a stupid vampire fan who disliked anything not adhering to the Stoker variant of the mythos. I gave Buffy shit for the same reason. I was a child, and yes, I agree, Divergent is FAR worse.

Elizabeth M Hyde

A fair assessment of the vitriol around Twilight. I wish at the time those of us critiquing the abusive elements had thought more about how pervasive stalking and abuse are as elements of “romantic” fiction, from YA to genre writing. Twilight was just an example; not a progenitor or even necessarily the worst offender.

Tennelle Flowers

Very good video and good timing for it too. I think we should take away from this and how the internet is reacting to a lot of things now. *cough*Star Wars*cough*

Jennifer Miller

One thing Chad Rocco brought up in defense of the sparkles is that these are predatory creatures. The diamond like skin is a lure in the vein of an angler fish. Its not brought up in the book s to my knowledge, but it explains a lot.

Allyson Cygan

Thank you so much for this! I definitely had my fair share of Twilight bashing as a teenager, and while I do think some of the messages are still messed up (he literally takes the engine out of her truck so she can't go anywhere. Because romance??) I think the level of vitriol outweighs any sort of negativity there. There is definitely this culture that feels like things aimed at women are somehow lesser or worthy of mockery that needs to be examined. Things aimed at men or teenage boys are often considered to be much more universal, even when things that interest teenage girls and women COULD be universal - in my English class in high school a lot of the male students really liked Pride and Prejudice, for example, and Paul Scheer enjoying his hockey romance novel shows that there is some potential for crossover appeal. Your video brings up a good point, though - how often is stalking and "I'll follow you and persuade you until you say yes?" a thing in male-oriented entertainment? Quite a bit. It's certainly not exclusive to romance novels or Lifetime movies. There's a lot of icky things in media that should be examined, not just bashing what's popular with teenage girls at the time.

Robin Trujillo

Great analysis here! I was vaguely aware of Twilight, but it wasn't until I went to SDCC That Year that I realized a) how big it was, and b) how... icky... much of the anti stuff was. Dudes with signs saying that Twilight ruined Comic Con? Really? I think I absolved myself of the gendered stuff by focusing my ire on the technical flaws (of both the books and the movies), but... yeah. (Not to mention the fact that in light of 50 Shades, Twilight seems downright fine....)

David Majors

This may be crazy, but I expected this video about Stephanie Meyer & Twilight from you eventually. Maybe a little bit closer to when Awoken was released, but eventually. Thank you for this, Lindsay. And yes, Fast & The Furious was every bit as "awful". Thank you for bringing that up and helping me realize that it wasn't just me.

Tim Bates

Oh, sorry! But either way, thanks for making this; I was fully on the 'Twilight's terrible for girls to be reading because terrible lessons' train back when I was a douchey English student, and I'm so glad I'm not in that place anymore. PS. As a fan of some anime, it was a nice surprise to see you reference Ancient Magus' Bride. I know anime typically isn't your thing, so thanks for drawing on recent examples from so far afield.

Lindsey Phillips

This was a really interesting vid. I actually read the books as a teenager, and liked them a lot. I can't say they changed my life or anything but I liked them. I hated the movies not because they made me realize how bad the books were. I just didn't think they were well made. Looking back my opinion has changed as a lot of the feminist issues surrounding the books have come to my attention, but I can't say I've ever full on hated the books. So I guess what I'm trying to say is thanks for giving this series some credit, even if it doesn't deserve much of it. Once again a great vid. : )

Will Park

Haven't heard a Twilight discussion in years

Lindsey Phillips

PS: am I a terrible person for kind of wanting to see that anime? DX

Thom Wade

I never read the books (and only saw the first three films)...I was not crazy about the films, but I did not hate them (I did not care for certain color grading and stuff)...but I asked a friend who read the books (he reads the YA books his kids reads along with them) and his feeling was similar. He said he did not find them quite as bad as people claimed. His biggest criticism was Meyer not being very good at writing fight scenes. But I just never could get behind the hate...there were, admittedly, some clever one liners I saw over the years...but the "this is the worst thing ever" and the declarations of how awful Meyers was seemed far more ridiculous than the author or work being condemned.

Lindsay Ellis

I feel like I may need to add in some caveats that I actually REALLY like this anime (which I do, but I also don't think it SHOULD have a quality caveat), because anime fans be crazy.

larkspear

As someone who was on both sides of the issue at one point AS a teenager, this kind of retrospective is really great to see. Calling out the double standards of what the vitriol is aimed at is such a nice thing to see nowadays.

Lindsey Phillips

Okay, that's it I'm off to binge watch Ancient Magus Bride! Good day to you.

Tim Bradley

Thank you. You've helped me reexamine some of my own priors about the work. It surprises me a little how much I bought into this narrative, despite really enjoying the series when I first read it, which probably speaks to my own inherent biases - as a teenage male - about what I *should* be enjoying.

Gil

I started reading the Twilight saga when I was 11 and when I was 14 the movies started to come out. With every movie my enthusiasm started to fade. When I was 16 I got into feminism and I think Anita's video on Twilight made me understand that it not only wasn't that good but also problematic. Nonetheless, I appreciate that Twilight offered a space for me to gently think about my sexuality as a teenager. I think in recent years, I had mostly reached the same opinion.

Emily Daenzer

Yes, yes, yes! As a recovering Twihard who totally saw themselves in Bella and had a mad crush on the sparkly vampire this hits me in the feels super hard. I didn't even come to terms with the "bad" about Twilight until I was 17 but even then I resisted because it felt so much like everyone was piling on the hate because it's teenage girls and teenage girls are stupid. But even now I don't look back on my love of Twilight with shame, it was a part of my life that I learned a lot from and I'm a better writer as a result. Also, as a side note, if you're interested in more anime recommendations I highly recommend Noragami, it's like Twilight but good (i mean really good) and with plot. I know that probably doesn't make any sense but trust me it's up there with Fullmetal Alchemist for me for a reason.

Ariana Hofer

I was in my tweens when Twilight came out, and I made an embarrassingly large part of my identity hating on Twilight and its fans. My platform of choice was Yahoo! Answers, so make of that what you will. So now I know that media properties are not opposites. That's not a thing. (If anyone wants to talk about memories of the Harry Potter fans v. Twilight fans, I have stories). Also, the older I get, the more I get into more feminine things because the less I feel like they're bad.

Booklover13

I read Twilight in 2005 as a freshman in high school. I was a big reader thoughout all of high school(around 1-2 books a week), and it was recommended to me by a friend. I loved this book and the sequels when I read them, and it was what got me into fanfiction. For these reasons I will always have a fondness of the series. This is also why I never got on the hate wagon, the amount of books I was reading meant I had a good idea of the quality of the YA genre at the time, I always viewed Twilight as quite average in that regard. So when people talked about how terrible it was, my reaction tended to be, "really this is what you think bad looks like?" Thus I think I always saw a lot of the criticisms as coming from an angle of hating the popular thing. I have never felt shame for liking Twilight, I was never a mega-fan, but I have always owned liking what I liked(I also read adult romance in high school). This is also why I really liked the Booze Your Own Adventure and Awoken. Because you weren't being mean-spirited about it. I felt that you actually had some appreciation for what Twilight actually was as opposed to how it was perceived to be. Which I think is what made up that line for me between critics and "haters". The people who tossed the vitriol weren't interested in why it actually was popular, just joining in.

Fae Runner

This review spoke to me on such a deep personal level I almost cried several times. I started high school when the book was published but didn't hear about it till junior and senior year, from all the smart AP/Honors girls who l liked to read it. I thought, "must be good if all the smart girls like it," read a few pages, thought, "Eh, not for me," and put it down. I didn't think about it again until the movie hype in senior year, when I learned about the "Edward is a stalker/watches her sleep" thing, and I was horrified because of my own childhood of domestic abuse and studying abuse signs to avoid it. Still, that was my ONLY grievance with the book... until the MASSIVE societal (misogynist) backlash against it. Then, without realizing it, I got swept up in the herd mentality of bashing it for every and any little thing, and of subconsciously trying to distance myself from the "stupid, frivolous" type of teenage girl who supposedly liked this supposed garbage. (*I* read Shakespeare, Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, J. Sheridan Le Fanu; I liked REAL Literature, Gothic, vampire or otherwise; not like these garbage women gushing over this garbage book.) And as my mom and sister can tell anyone (but are very gracious not to), I spent an embarrassingly long time between 2009 and 2011 wasting all my mental and emotional energy bashing this book (until the hype and my hate for it burned out). But... slowly over the years (with maturity and hindsight) I slowly woke up to all the problems you described in this video, Lindsay. I slowly recognized the internalized misogyny, societal misogyny, unfair double standards (where the same "problematic" story elements condemned for Twilight weren't noticed or were given a pass for other more male-geared fiction), and even my own cognitive dissonance of enjoying "problematic" story elements that I had once condemned for Twilight that I now wrote or happily consumed in other works. And so on and so forth. Seeing these feelings of hindsight and regret so perfectly described and encapsulated in this video was almost cathartic for me, Lindsay. Thank you so much for making this video.

Allan

I read the first book in one sitting on a boring afternoon. This was before the first movie came out. My thought after finishing it was that it wasn't for me, but that was okay. I had no interest in continuing reading the rest of the series or watching the movies. I did get a bit caught up in the wave of making fun of the movies based on just seeing clips from them, but I remember sort of halfway defending it when a friend of mine went on a rant about how it was an offensively bad mockery of literature or something. I told him I at least read the first one and it "...wasn't that bad." Also, I think the Fast and the Furious movies are... fine... but I absolutely can't stand Transformers. They are not fine. Anyway, another awesome video! This was a really interesting perspective on this series that I haven't really seen before. Especially the part about the vilification of teenage girl culture. I've definitely been guilty of adding to that negativity from time to time.. Thanks for getting me to put some thought into things I've never taken the time to think about before.

Pietro Gagliardi

I remember seeing the first book in Waldenbooks at the local mall back in 2007 or so and I had a suspicion that it was going to be the replacement for Harry Potter, whose final book had just been (or was about to be, I forget) published, So I guess I have ever since believed that to be the reason it got big in the first place. I could be wrong, though... I never particularly cared for the series, anyway, so I can't say much; I don't think I've ever committed an actual act of unjustified hate against the series, not counting... let's call it "casual bashing" (is that a concept people talk about yet?). So I'm not sure where I'm going with this paragraph, other than in a vague "wow we have really deteriorated in our "it's popular, so it sucks" discourse the past decade, haven't we" direction. (And I say that as someone who avoided Harry Potter in its heyday for that reason. I was a preteen-going-on-teenager at the time. I can't have been the only one like that, can I?)

darkest hour

I personally love the Transformers films and think the hate for them is WAY overblown, i'll take them any day over the lousy dime-a-dozen Oscar Bait films that old white dudes vote for every year at the Oscars.

Pietro Gagliardi

Also am I wrong for being more disturbed by the general storyline of Ancient Magus Bride than the ages of any of its characters? There is a primal part of me that just wants it to end with the guy whose name and species I don't remember helping the protagonist recover from her tragedy and live her own life happily, if not in the same vein as her parents, but...

darkest hour

I was fine with it not adhering to the traditions, I wasn't OK with Bella being such a horribly written character, I still say she's the worst female character ever written-to quote my favorite movie critic Dustin Putman-Bella sets womens rights back 50 years.

darkest hour

I never saw a female character as badly written as Bella in any male-geared fiction story. The reason Twilight got the criticism it got was because of the concern with how much it appealed to teenage girls was that those girls would take the wrong lessons from the books and end up with a guy who treated them like shit. Whereas there wasn't much chance of that happening if they consumed say male-centered fiction not aimed at them anyways.

Allan

Well, I guess everything has its fans. Personally, I get a headache sitting through them... But if you enjoy them that's cool too.

darkest hour

You didn't bet on the wrong horse at all, Limp Bizkit kicks ass and i'd much rather see more Nu Metal then more boy bands(thank fuck One Direction broke up, the members are definitely stronger together then apart, well except for Zayn, he just plain sucks ass) I actually do like some stuff aimed at teenage girls like those tweencoms on Nick and Disney Channel and I like quite a few female pop artists like Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, etc

Sol Rabbit

This is actually a good summation of my recent disdain about the double standard in media. Twilight has many flaws and stupid elements, but so does Ready Player One, Bayformers and the Fast and the Furious films.

Sol Rabbit

Even though I made a comment down below, this summarized it better than I did. I'm with you that all media should get equal criticism, like Ready Player One and the Transformers films are getting now.

darkest hour

I don't think we did wrong by Meyer, sorry but that woman is legit insane(there's a lot of speculation that it comes from her being a Mormon, let's just say Mormon's aren't too progressive thinking for the role of women) and those are not just my words, those were the words of Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson who openly admitted in interviews how insane they thought she was.

Katherine Carter

Excellent and insightful, once again. Question. What is that Quasimodo thing on your wall?

Caroline Hill

Have you considered Sam from Transformers? I’d say he’s on par with Bella, at least.

Lindsay Ellis

It was a christmas gift - my editor angelina painted it at one of those ceramic places. It's a cheese plate and says "I am a MUENSTER you know"

teacupful

The height of my Twilight hate was pre-college, early college, when I was also maintaining a high degree of useless snobbery toward fanfiction. I didn't really get into fanfic until after college, and at that point had been so let down by the promises of lib arts academia that I transcended to a level of "good can be trash, trash is good" and fanfic-consumption that I could never again speak poorly of someone else's dumb fun.

Caroline Hill

Err, I misread that. I’d venture to say there’s plenty of poorly written women in male genre fiction, but I don’t watch/read enough to suggest one off the top of my head. Maybe Tenten from Naruto - she’s got nothing much beyond exposition for Neji in the manga. The female characters are often neglected in Naruto, but they all have some sort of characterization, except poor Tenten. Say what you will about Bella, but she at least wants things and interacts with her world.

Jen

In junior high I read the first book because all my friends who liked Harry Potter also liked Twilight and… I HATED it. So I was part of the bad for a while. I think another fair criticism about the series is its racism, such as its depiction of Native American tribes and one of the vampires being a former Confederate soldier and glossing over that for two examples, and also poor Leah the female werewolf. Leah deserved to be in a better book.

Jen

Also The Ancient Magus Bride is amazing and I’m glad you liked it too! When my friends and I watched the pilot we all agreed that given the premise it’s actually very well done and not creepy unless when it wants to be creepy.

Jennifer Miller

Yes, we should listen what you, a man, and he, another man has to say on the subject. Not actual women?

Jennifer Miller

Twilight is still a better love story than Romeo and Juliet.

Stu's Reviews and Ramblings

I read the Twilight books back in middle school, just as the first movie was coming out, because I wanted to know what the big fuss was. Upon reading them my immediate reaction was "yeah, that was alright. I can see why that is popular". And I actually REALLY wanted to read Midnight Sun and read a fair bit of that draft Meyer put online. It was only after that point, as we were getting into movies 2 and beyond that I jumped on the hate train myself retroactively. Needless to say, I was NOT mature enough in high school to look back on middle school and say "that thing I read was horrible in hindsight". I can do that NOW, as an adult, but not as a teenager.

Reuben

I think some of the initial Twilight backlash (tying into your second big point but a distinct permutation of) was exacerbated the press/old people did a bad job contextualizing just what it was. Being talked about by the press/old people as "the next Harry Potter" and later when The Hunger Games was being called "the next Twilight" inspired young people to place those series in competition when really they had nothing in common and thus stupid fandom rivalries developed. Hunger Games was the more feminist series, Harry Potter was a generation-defining event, and Twilight was fluffy and problematic in comparison, but the comparison never made sense to begin with.

Reuben

Also, is BYOA/Arisen ever coming back or has its time officially passed?

Taylor Crowe

Man I just had a LOT of flashbacks to 2008-2011. This video was fine! It's fine. It's fine! It's fine.

Maxwellll

If they weren't so similar as far as their legacies go, I would love to see a video essay on Titanic. How successful it was, WHY it worked, and why the backlash is/isn't warranted. I suppose the only difference between the two is that Titanic is legitimately a really fantastic movie, and Twilight............................................... is fine.

Heather Cotter

Does this mean I can finally admit that I think Stephenie Meyer has talent, just very poor priorities? I actually liked the middle third of Breaking Dawn, from Jacob's POV, and have always felt that she would have been more widely embraced if she'd written the sarcastic telepathic werewolves series instead of the sparkly vampires series.

emcats

Twilight blew up when I was around 12 and I honest to god LOVED IT at the time. By 11th grade, I started seeing the criticism and hopped on the hate train... full 180. Now, I honestly look back on Twilight with nostalgic fondness. I mean, it's not really good and Bella/Edward's relationship is.... also not good. But I'll be honest: I don't think I'd be writing a book right now if not for Twilight getting me into reading and writing, odd as that sounds. It's not great or even really good, but it's nowhere near as horrible as people make it out to be--especially when there's tons of masculine-centric media out there just as dumb, if not dumber.

BackroadDiaries

tbh, I would love to see more of this stuff on YA. Or even teen movies

emcats

50 shades though? Oh yeah, that's completely deserving in the vitriol it gets.

BackroadDiaries

I remember when twilight got big, I think I was in middle school. And before I jumped on the "better love story than twilight" joke bergade, I remember at least admiring it for the fact it was getting a lot of the kids I knew who hated to read to read. Same with The Hunger Games, but The Hunger Games is a looot more of a solid product then most of the YA dystopian genre (besides all the Gale/Peeta bullshit). I was never into fantasy (still ain't), but had you given me a contemporary or other genre with a Bella/Edward vibe to it, I could totally see myself secretly loving it while openly hating on it.

Neala Ernswa

Once again you post a video with the viewpoint that is unique and completely separate from the same schlock every other film critic on YouTube is shitting out. I too was part of the fuck Twilight group despite the fact that I had read all four books in the span of 3 days back in 2008 during my post Harry Potter depression. I read them because they were a fun enough read but I immediately felt terrible and shitty for getting enjoyment from it. Up until this post I would always claim that I'd only read the books because I was on a bus for 43 hours with no other books to read. Which was only partially true. I did finish it on that bus ride but I brought the last two books because I already started the series and I wanted to see how it ended. I Aggressively shit on Twilight a lot. It was fun to shit on Twilight. it was fun to feel Superior for a minute despite the fact that I knew I had kind of enjoyed it. But I also read a lot of books that weren't good that I enjoyed. A lot of romances. Hell growing up my mom had a huge wall of books in our house that was stuffed three layers deep and packed in sideways on top with crappy romance novels. I was at a college reading comprehension level in fifth grade because I was reading all these books aimed it adult women. And having read so many crappy romance novels I can tell you Twilight wasn't the worst. not by far. And I read those books for fun not for a video project or because I felt like I needed to I had no obligation. But despite having read hundreds yes literal hundreds of crappy Harlequin and horror-themed romance novels none of them were as fun to s*** on as Twilight. It was fun to be surrounded by people who agreed with me while we made fun of the one person in the room who admitted to liking Twilight. I did that a couple of times and there are some people in my life I genuinely owe apologies to. A couple of years ago John Green said something in one of his videos about how some of the hate towards Twilight kind of felt like hate towards everything teenage girls loved because sexism. That was the first time I'd ever been exposed to this line of thinking. But all that video did was made me stop shiting on Twilight as much. But this video? This video made it sink in. I feel like this video has made me a better person and a better feminist by pointing out a profound truth I had aggressively tried to avoid for a decade now. Thanks Lindsay. ( seriously thanks) Now if you'll excuse me, I have some awkward apology emails to write

Nikchemnyk

Didn't realize she looks so much like Michelle Monaghan.

Alex H

This is really interesting to watch as someone who was on both sides of the debate, I read the first book very early on and enjoyed it, and then started to figure out the flaws as I read the rest of the series. I think the Twilight series and the backlash towards it (I read all of those 'I Hate Twilight' essays) started getting me thinking critically about books, so I guess I'm grateful to it for that? And yeah, i agree, things directed at teenage girls get WAY more hate than equivalents directed at teenage boys. And I also fell into that camp when I was younger of wanting to 'not be like other girls'.

tomathy 💙

This is a good video and made me realize I’ve been unfair to Twilight in the past as well.

Rork

Just one thing, on my side. English is not my native language, and for this video you talk fast, and use some unusual terms. Is it possible, for each video, to give the script to patreons, please? It would be greatly appreciated I think.

Mar MB

I watched the movie first and then read the book, convinced by my friends that the latter was better. In hindsight, my problem with Twilight was the wasted potential: the first time I read the book synopsis, way before watching the movie, I imagined something along the lines of Interview with the Vampire. But, as you say in your video, 2/3 of the books are Bella and Edward just staring at each other, and that's not the kind of book that I want to read (I actually stopped reading before the bad guys appear). My other problem was the controlling nature of Bella and Edward's relationship. Having just come out of such one myself, I couldn't find it in any way romantic, so my vitriol went mostly in that direction. But I had never come to think about why products directed towards teenage girls (females in general) are expected to offer good role models while products aimed towards teenage boys/males get a sort of free pass.

Mar MB

Off-topic: is there any chance that we see more from Serra Elinsen in the future?

Robert Bracey

Personally I always found Buffy and Angel problematic and now find it difficult to watch without feeling it is slightly icky. These are really good points but I wonder if Fast and the Furious is the right comparison. As others have pointed out at its core is a relatively positive message (about diversity and family), and it is not so overtly aimed at teenagers. More apt would be a comparison with Transformers which has a much less positive message (military porn/might makes right) and borrows a name and concept aimed squarely at teenage boys. And that, and Michael Bay, have received plenty of vitriol, and are still doing so, often most strongly from sections of the perceived audience (those who grew up with Transformers).

Alex Wright

Given that Buffy is at the age of consent here in England (16) I suppose I didn't really think about it that way. Hadn't realised Meyer got quite so much hate and only really seen the first two films and read a bit of the first book - have watched and read the Host though, which is a bit like Animorphs mixed with Twilight - so many of my thoughts about the series are formed second hand. That is a good point about other problematic or not very good popular fiction, especially targeted at boys and men, getting far less vitorol. That's also important about the 50 Shades plagiarism, hadn't realised Meyer hadn't pursued that at all.

Alex Wright

Why can't I do paragraphs on these comments on my phone? Yeah an interesting perspective. I loved Awoken though, only read it a few months ago. On disparaging Ready Player One - heresy ;) (I hadn't realised how those passages actually sounded tbh, having read the book twice).

waywardskies

If you keep making so much sense the internet will not allow it to stand one of these days!

waywardskies

But absolutely. And I’m really taking a good hard look at a lot of things I piled on to hate because I blindly followed some synthetic and inaccurate narrative that was pushed.

Becca Edney

Out of curiosity, are you familiar with das_mervin's sporkings of the Twilight series? She goes into huge depth analysing the books and also talks about things Meyer said in interviews and online, and she comes to very different conclusions about the contents of the books and on Meyer as a person, so if you have encountered them I'd be curious to know what you think.

Bible

Vampires were once complex and dark creatures. Their tales explored the morality of sustaining oneself, territory usually left to vegetarians and buddhists. The nature of a vampire was trade-offs for power: they are immortal but have to kill people and never see the sun again. That a fantasy contained caveats made vampire mythos compelling. Not to mention the metaphor of vampires being the wealthy preying on the population. Then Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series came along and made vampires into two-dimensional beings. Vampire without soul = evil. Vampire with soul = smouldering romance novel cover model. The bastardisation of vampires that began with Buffy continued with Twilight. Now vampires don’t have to kill, instead just floating in eternal high school angst, and sunlight? Sunlight no longer kills; it makes them dazzle! “Don’t look at me, I’m too beautiful!” Twilight vampires lacked everything integral and compelling about the creatures, to the point where they were not vampires at all. They were unintentional parodies of vampires, all rose and no thorn. They were the shallow wish fulfilment of pulp novels and fan fiction. And for this they were rightly despised. As for people not targeting other equally awful books and movies, most people don’t have the time to focus on everything that sucks, or may not even be aware of the ocean of terrible art out there. Twilight was a popular phenomenon so it drew a lot of attention, and the negativity it garnered was deserved. That people expressed their disdain with hyperbolic “worst ever” slogans is irrelevant. Twilight is bad, and way too bad to be a cultural cornerstone, so people rejected it the way a body rejects a transplanted organ. The Harry Potter series did not receive the same backlash as Twilight because it was actually good, in book form at least. Also, the Potter franchise is massively, if not exclusively, embraced by teenage girls. As for “their” music, boy bands are so transparently corporate that it is ridiculous. The music aimed at teenage girls, “their” music, is a result of older men manipulating the sexuality of teenage girls, for money. Age of consent laws are powerless to protect girls from the abstract sexual advances of boy bands. For whatever reason, teenage boys are too ashamed to gush over their passions. Cultural fads embraced by teenage girls generate crowds of fans wearing their love on their sleeves. I can’t recall ever seeing a large crowd of teenage boys squealing and screaming at the objects of their sexual desire, holding signs and begging for attention. Whether teenage girls are conditioned to be submissive or it is genetically coded, there is a loss of autonomy in fan girl mobs that is cringeworthy to adults, male and female alike. Maybe it is because a mob of teenage boys waiting for female actors and musicians would resemble something of a rape mob. Female sexual desire is seen as less physically threatening, even when that desire generates a mob that could tear any man to pieces. It’s not that people despise the feminine. Most of the trash aimed at teenage boys is military propaganda, and no-one really has the guts to challenge anything that is pro-military. It’s easy to mock a gushing 14 year old girl smitten with a hot actor. A 14 year old boy with AK-47s in his eyes? Not so much.

Step Hen

I feel horrible about how I hated Twilight all those years ago. I gave into my strict ideas of what does and doesn't define a vampire in a way that can only be described as toxic masculinity. I can at least be happy that I still hate those Michael Bay Transformer films with a burning passion with the fourth one in particular being extra-gross. I'm a shit-person and all I can do is try is think back and consider what to say before something new comes around the corner.

Susan Fry

Thank you for so eloquently putting into words what I've felt for years. I didn't like Twilight at the time because I thought it was bad writing and just....didn't read it. But I also fully realized it wasn't FOR me. I was not the target demographic, and every generation likes something that those older deem the end of intelligence as we know it. If you don't like boy bands, don't listen to them, if you don't like YA books, don't read them, but don't pretend like there wasn't something you liked in your youth, or still like, that other people likely found questionable.

Amy

hoo boy...I've certainly been there with the "I like good things unlike other girls" phase, but I'm not too hard on my younger self, there was a lot going on

Amy

explaining your dislike of twilight is kind of missing the point of this video

Rebecca Henely-Weiss

A few responses I have to this video: 1.) I read "Cinder" after you and Nella covered it in BYOA. I actually still like that series better than Twilight, for all of its problems, but it really didn't stick the landing. (I REALLY loved the prequel about the evil queen, though. You were right about "She's evil so she's actually ugly" trope being a horrible idea, but I really like how the book on her origins made her seem both sympathetic but never stopped reminding you that she's an objectively terrible person.) 2.) I read another YA paranormal romance a couple of years ago called "Wicked Lovely" which I can't call great but I can call interesting. One of my favorite parts, though, was that it did utilize the "heroine gets attacked by rapists" trope, but the person who rode in to save her wasn't either of her male love interests but the other girl in the love triangle. 3.) I happened to see Phantom of the Opera yesterday (on Broadway, not the film) when you put this out.

Aimee Hyndman

Thank you so much for doing this. I was a teenage girl who went from loving twilight to hating it and distancing myself from it because “girly and stupid” to finally realizing that hating on twilight was like beating a dead horse. Yeah there are problematic aspects, especially with Bella’s agency in the story but most of that same dynamic as popping up in Jane Eyre as well so there you go. Twilight, if nothing else, did huge things for young adult fiction and ushered in a new age of books for teen girls. Some of which are great. I feel very bad for Stephanie. Her love of writing probably got crushed under the weight of these one million hot takes that sparkly vampires are stupid and also she’s evil.

Stephanie Adele

Great video! I'm glad you've opened up conversation on this long overdue topic. I think it ties in nicely to the discourse around Robert Pattinson's and Kristen Stewart's post-Twilight careers as well. Both actors have been doing fantastic work lately but only Stewart is STILL met with so much "that's just that dumb girl from Twilight who can't act" criticism, even though she is (imo) one of the best working actors under 30 today.

David Arroyo

You've convinced me to watch Twilight. Read it? Eh. Get back to you :)

Andrey Kurenkov

Loved this one! Though, I gotta say, comparing Fast and Furious to Twilight is a bit unfair ; the former got people who are generally not into silly action romps a la Transformers to like it through sheer audacity and charisma.

Matt M

Hoo boy, brace yourselves for when this hits YT and the anime portion pops up. Ugh, Magus’ Bride just... bothered me too much. I could barely make it through the first two episodes before I realized I was too creeped out by the scenario and wasn’t enjoying the rest nearly enough to compensate for it.

Emily C. A. Snyder

LOVE this. I've been trying to parse out my own internalized misogyny (yay, issues!) and your videos have been particularly enlightening. I especially appreciated your spotlight on the fact that we DO denigrate anything that's "tween" and "girly," while giving things like GI Joe a pass. I certainly have - even as a teenage girl. I don't know if you have any more thoughts on that in particular, esp. in re: solving it, but this is just to let you know that your work is wonderful and your insight invaluable. Thank you.

Bon Jakobsen

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who thinks that. I've been hearing it praised everywhere, watched a few episodes, and...yeah, pretty creepy. Maybe it gets less creepy though?

Bon Jakobsen

I went from loving Twilight, to hating Twilight, to now just mehing about it. It's not really anything special in its genre. Not really. But I think it was one of the first "fanficy" books to go mainstream, and really alert people that this is what teenage girls liked. And, yeah, sexism did play a role in it, especially internalized sexism. If you're an insecure teenage girl who's suddenly being made fun of by boys and everyone else for liking it, it's no surprise you'd want to distance yourself. That's probably why fanfic culture is so secretive still, even though it's becoming more mainstream. And I know Twilight isn't really fanfiction, but it reads very much like one to me. But maybe people being way more receptive to the AMB anime is a sign of change? Or all the Americans who praise it are still a niche group, and if it were to go mainstream, Twilight will happen all over again? Who knows.

Bon Jakobsen

Also I don't think Meyer is a completely hopelessly terrible writer. Breaking Dawn was...god awful from a narrative stance, sure, but the Host almost worked. It was bogged down by romance a bit, but the idea was a pretty compelling one. Unfortunately it took an easy way out ending, but if she can learn to really embrace conflict, she could be pretty good.

Bon Jakobsen

Also might be bc James Cameron is a dude and Meyer is not.

Sam Risebrow

Love it. I think what you do is so thoughtful and important- you set a high standard for youtube content. Sorry I'm pretty broke, but I'm putting my pledge up.

Nicole Otaola

#TeamJacob I kinda liked novel, but the movies were fun!! And it contributed so much to pop culture!! I can't imagine a world without twilight. Meyer also wrote The Host, which 13-year-old me thought was amazing. I remember it having less problematic aspects and a really cool story. Great video!!!

Greete Korvits

The part about how we as a society hate "vapid teenage girls" was a very interesting idea. I think it actually might stem from that same age, when boys and girls, who, in their teens and tweens are not quite on the same level with their interests and development. Boys don't understand girls with their celebrity crushes and their swooning over (usually older) role models and girls don't get why boys are so "immature". And that resentment then remains even as those boys and girls have grown into men and women. Really good video, as usual. :)

B R

Speaking of attitudes from the early 2010s we're kind of sick of, i'm a bit disappointed that you made a "ahaha japanese people are so WACKY" joke. I agree with you, the way women (especially girls and preteens) are sexualized in a lot of Japanese media is really insidious and troubling, to say the least, but the way westerners talk about it usually comes off as really Orientalist and hypocritical. If you feel that uncomfortable or unfamiliar with the cultural context surrounding a Japanese work, you could. I don't know, research non-western esp Japanese feminists and what they have to say about it? instead of making an overdone and honestly pretty tasteless joke about age of consent laws. Like i assume you were trying make the butt of the joke the type of white dude weeaboo who fetishizes Japan particularly Japanese women, but it didn't come off that way to me.

B R

but anyway, on a less negative note, i liked the rest of this video a lot. the massive twilight backlash kind of reminds me of the mass revulsion with "Mary Sues" that existed in fandom spaces when I was a teenager (which was around the time Twilight was very popular). wish fulfillment and self-insertion is a huge element in so much media for guys but when teenage girls do it is when it's shitty and bad, of course.

Lindsay Ellis

Yes that was the aim (we were anticipating the archetypal anime ephebophile), plus it was pointed out to me that the joke just doesn't work (google the age of consent in the USA - that's news to me!) so I added a stealth edit to my stealth re-upload that makes the butt of the joke clearly the fetishy weeabo. ;) FWIW, I agree with your original assesment.

Daniel Hadley

ContraPoints is rubbing off on you, saw a few repurposed jokes in here from some of her recent videos. But I like ya both so it’s fine. It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s fine....it’s fine... it’s fine.

Lindsay Ellis

It's okay, we have a NAFTA-style agreement where we steal from each other without having to pay a tariff. Did you catch the ContraPoints cameo?

Lindsay Nelson

Still trying to distinguish between "I don't like this thing because it's not for me" and "I don't like this thing because it's super femme and ugh ribbons and lace and fluttering eyelashes and oh God where did that internalized misogyny come from?!!" Videos like this are a big help. The other thing that really makes my blood boil is the fact that adult women & teenage girls are constantly being told "Love girly things, that's what women are supposed to do" and then simultaneously being told "Girly things are gross and dumb." No wonder a lot of us are confused as hell.

Matrim

It been a long, long time since I read them, but I think something similar to that is mentioned in the "everything about me is built to be alluring so I can be a more effective predator" scene. Though they don't use the angler fish metaphor.

Theo Gerome

It never clicked with me until you mentioned the "fantasy of being rescued" thing seems like a natural parallel to the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope that was so much more in vogue for male-created works for a while (until it got its own pushback, which seemed much more focused on the girl characters themselves than the men fawning over them both in-work and as creators, because of course it was).

JordanL

Another fantastic video with lots of really interesting and insightful observations, as usual. So many of us (myself included) get so worked up about certain movies or shows or books being the WORST THING EVER! that we end up drowning the thing itself as we try to rationalize why it's so awful (I'm honestly still a little scared to mention it online, but the female Ghostbusters comes to mind as a recent example). Like you pointed out with Twilight, the worst of these criticisms are usually overblown and unfair, and place unreasonable expectations on something that may or may not be objectively flawed as a piece of art, but almost definitely is not demonstrative of the beginning of the End Times. I was never big into Twilight one way or the other in its heyday, but you definitely made me reconsider the thoughts I had about it, and what drives how certain products of pop culture are considered within the collective consciousness. It seems that we struggle to realize the simple fact that not everything is for everybody and that, regardless of anything else, really is FINE.

Chee Vang

I had a similar experience with Twilight. I wouldn't say my dislike or hate of Twilight ever got to rage levels where I'd be obsessed about it, but I was very defensive when people asked or assumed I was a Twilight fan. I also was guilty of jumping on the bandwagon of saying Twilight sucks and I didn't like how popular it was. In hindsight, a lot of it was internalized misogyny and the double standards society has on female entertainment. I was also guilty of enjoying the very things Twilight had (love triangle, normal girl who is in love with a guy who is just so attractive yet he only has eyes for her, protective strong guy saving damsel in distress), so no, I have no room to act like I am above the Twilight fans. LOL Also, I have always been impressed that Stephenie Meyer was able to write a story that happened to have become super popular.

Chee Vang

I only read the first book, and I think my biggest problem with it was also the wasted potential. I can't remember if my friends (who recommended the book to me) told me that there was a war or if I read the synopsis with the idea in my head, but I assumed the Twilight series was about a girl who goes to high school and finds out her boyfriend is a vampire and he and his vampire family is protecting the school from evil. Instead, the book is mostly about Bella and Edward being together. I didn't think the book was bad, but I remember feeling disappointed that there wasn't much else to the book.

SpookyQuill

I remember so specifically this era. I was a sophomore in high school and that year just about every girl left and right was either talking about the movie Twilight or reading one of those books. I was spending my nights watching all of the Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street movies and nerding out about that and I think that’s why I avoided the bashing party. Everyone who was into them felt the exact same way I did about my slasher movies. We were nerds, it was just a massive majority versus one little nerd. And girls kept telling me to read it because I liked horror and that was the only time I would get defensive. My horror wasn’t the same as THEIR horror, which on the one had if you break it down it’s really not but on the other I was into TRUE horror and that in a way made me superior. But I mostly just kept my head down and ignored the popularity and even though it’s something I’ll probably never get into, it’s a different era. Great video Lindsey, gave me a lot to think about.

Chee Vang

I have never seen a Twilight film all the way through, mostly just the first hour of the first film, but I always found the hate around Kristen Stewart was harsh. I thought her acting was ok, but I felt it was more due to the character of Bella more than her acting skills. I also was a little bothered over the whole "mouth breather" thing, because I was always insecure with how loud I breathed (asthma and seasonal allergies) so those always hit a little too close to home for me that I always wanted to defend Kristen Stewart.

Rachel Mc Veigh

Twilight was like the perfect storm of the joy people get from shiting on things teenage girls like and not understanding that it is possible to enjoy somthing and still see all it's problems.

John Wells

So does this mean I have to stop dumping on Ready Player One and Michael Bay Transformers?

Fabrisse ter Brugghe

I was tutoring 5-8 graders in 2008-2010. Twilight was a big part of the girls' lives. I agreed to read the first book if one of the 7th grade girls watched Romeo and Juliet (with her mother's consent). I caught one for Shakespeare. (Go me!) But I was also surprised by how much fun the first Twilight book was. It has a sense of humor. Bella is surprisingly self-aware. I wouldn't read the second one for payment, because I didn't enjoy the first one that much, but it wasn't a chore. The best part was being able to narrow my critique to two specifics: Edward changing Bella's plans for her day out of Forks (Bella had gone on and on about how much she wanted to go to a bookstore and the boy just up and says "we're going to the woods instead.") and the non-consensual sleep watching. If Edward had asked permission or Bella had made the request, it still wouldn't have been my cup of tea, the whole watching someone sleep thing, but I wouldn't have had a problem with it. Someone creeping into your house at night without your express permission shouldn't get "That's so romantic," but rather, "Here's your restraining order."

Jade Dale

Confession time. I love the Twilight movies. They're femme Star Wars,in the sense that they access mythic consciousness. The emotional opera is handled with earnestness by the actors and each installment is dripping(sparkling?) with gothic atmosphere. The fact that the concept does descend so easily into lampoon only causes me to be more impressed with the original execution. Lindsay,your astute analysis making me insecure so I'll have to send you some criticism as soon as I finally think of some. I'm sure you understand,fan requirement and all that. (;

Kevin Bartelen

You say we don't say "If you go see this you're a fucking idiot" about movies geared towards boys/men but I mean I've said that about several movies.... All of the Transformers movies, Expendables, and Batman V Superman for example.

Erebus92

It's interesting you mentioned the 2000's era Buffy fandom, because I remember now how they REALLY hated Twilight. It's sort of like how Punk fans of the 70's hated 80's New Wave and created the Hardcore Punk music.

Audrey Z

Hey Lindsay, wanted to take an extra moment to save I loved this video and it made me re-evaluate my own condemning not only of Twilight but of several other things simply due their popularity among teenage girls. Thank you!

Katelyn Pringle

I don't really have anything insightful to say about the (great) video, I just wanted you to know that your anime comment made me laugh. It's actually funny because when you talked about it in the video, I realized I had, in my life, stopped liking one thing supposedly because I realized it was problematic and weird (Twilight), only to move onto loving something WAY MORE PROBLEMATIC AND WEIRD (most anime). Fantastic work as always!

Ed

In hindsight, in the age of Twitter etc, having someone gate Ms. Meyer's fan/hate mail seems GD prescient! Great video as always! But do you still like to drink the tears of Twilight fans? :D

Solomon Wakeling

I never read it, but I remember being intrigued by the cover. I was never hostile; I used to cop flack in primary school for reading "My babysitter was a vampire". They asked me if it was horror ("Like goosebumps?") or comedy, and I said it was kinda both, and they never really got it. Oh Ann Hodgman, I loved you so. I'm glad my mother thought fit to buy me children's books written by women. Anyway, I saw the very last "Twilight" movie, hoping for cheese, and it was a bit of a snorefest. I wish it had had more of the stuff people hate it for. p.s., I love your work, you're the YT equivalent of a butterfly seen against a cloudy sky, brightening up my day, you never let me down, not once, not ever, keep working.

Jasmine Krause

I was in middle school when Twilight fever really started. I remember really liking the first two books and then being heavily disappointed with everything else in the franchise that came later, books and movies included. But with the fad came all of the haters as well. I grew older and read better novels over time, but even now I never thought the first Twilight novel was honestly that bad. I always saw it as someone's wish fulfillment and a harmless fantasy. But even so there were plenty of people who hated the novels for reasons I never understood, the two main ones being "Vampires don't sparkle" and "It's an abusive relationship that young tween girls will try to emulate when they grow older." And honestly I never thought any of those claims really held any water. The former always struck me as weird because vampires as far as literature and folklore go, are completely different depending upon what iteration of vampire you are looking at. If one woman wants to make her vampires sparkle, I don't really see what the issue is with that. And the latter makes even less sense. Little girls grow up with movies like The Little Mermaid and Cinderella and they don't become adult women and marry men they've only known for a couple of days. You grow up and understand that you can't emulate everything you see in fiction, nor should you. Sometimes fiction is just for fiction's sake. Twilight is no different. Most women will not strive for a relationship like Bella's and Edward's just because they read the Twilight Saga when they were thirteen. So I have to agree with you on this front Lindsay, I never understood all the hate Stephanie Meyer and Twilight got from readers who have most likely read something equally as silly or in the vein of a guilty pleasure.

De

I worked at a book distributor during the Twilight thing and a lot of my older female co-workers loved it. I felt it was wrong to sexualize a 17 year old boy (I still think it's wrong) but I was really hoping that after they got bored with the Twilight books I might be able to convince some of them to read other vampire books and then I would have someone to talk to. Alas, it never worked. And I've seen a lot of articles since indicating that this is usually how it goes. Non-readers who pick up a book in order to be part of the zeitgeist mostly don't go on to read other books after. But all was not lost, for not long after Elisa Hansen started her Vampire Review show and it was almost like having someone to talk to about vampire books. I think there is a really good reason to hate the stuff marketed towards teenaged girls, and it's that it's so narrow. I hated the YA books that were available at the school library when I was a kid. I felt erased by them, to use a phrase I have in my vocabulary but didn't then. The image of girlhood represented in those books might expand enough to encompass vampires, or fairies, or witches but they didn't allow for a world that was big enough for a weirdo like me, or weirdos like my friends. I wish I'd had Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children books when I was a teen, but she's about my age so I had to wait until we'd both grown up for the privilege of seeing the sort of teenaged girls I could relate to. It is so frustrating how downright bad and close minded the things that get popular in our culture are. I think it's okay to be angry about that.