twilight fever

Stephanie Meyer released the first novel in the Twilight saga in 2005. From the beginning, young girls and older women alike fell in love with the heroine, Bella Swan and her dark love interest, Edward Cullen. "But why do they like this crap?" , is what many people who have no interest in the series proclaim. Well, my answer is this: everyone loves a fairytale (well, mainly women and young girls anyway). All women dream of a prince charming coming to sweep them off their feet and to love them unconditionally. From the beginning of story telling, there have always been stories of the knight in shining armor that comes and sweeps the princess, or damsel in distress off of her feet. In the case of Bella Swan, she is awkward, quirky, shy and often misunderstood. Many young girls also relate to her because she is not conventionally pretty. She, to many is considered the antithesis to what the media has shoved down our throats of what we should aspire to be.
Also, through history since the early middle ages, the folklore of vampires has always been wildly popular. Vampires are always perceived as beautiful, dark, mysterious, and dangerous. The character of Edward Cullen embodies all of this, except for major difference. He's a humanitarian, he and his coven value human life and feed off of animals only. Edward and his family are not bloodthirsty deviants as many other stories portray vampires as. Also, Edward has the ability to love, not just lust as many other stories stereotypically typecast vampires as. So, all of this makes for an interesting mix for the reader: the unconventional meets the unconventional, and as the readers follow the saga of the star crossed lovers, they become more immersed in the fantasy and are very anxious to see it in real time on the big screen. On November 21, 2008 Twilight the motion picture was released in theaters and grossed a whopping 384 million worldwide! The phenomenon was introduced to a whole new set of people, many of those who had not even read the novel. But soon after seeing the movies, the fanatics went out and bought all of the books and the merchandise available. Sales are skyrocketing, and with the release of New Moon, the second installment in the Twilight saga this weekend, the sky is the limit for Twilight fans.
Twilight's popularity could not be determined by the gatekeepers of the media. It was fan fueled. In popular crowds, it got horrible reviews, but those who truly like the story are the ones that are the gatekeepers to the phenomenon.