Dear Stephenie Meyer
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- Опубликовано: 10 сен 2024
- It's time to re-examine the decade-old culture surrounding Twilight-bashing.
Twitter: @thelindsayellis
/ lindsayellis
"Awoken" by "Serra Elinsen" - amzn.to/2UFzb5i
Special Guest ContraPoints: / contrapoints
I remember mocking my little sister for reading Twilight, she then turned to me and said “at least I read books” and I still feel the burn many years later
I want to save this comment and share it. This is to great.
The shade
You should write a book just to spite her.
@@jor4114,
It would be great if he became a gazillionaire from that!
*presses F to pay respects*
I love seeing the internet kind of enter this phase of "hey remember all those things we used to hate relentlessly just because they were popular? Maybe they're not so bad." We're growing up!
@@kieranstark7213 oh I absolutely agree! If we have a negative opinion based on merit and actual criticism, that's perfectly valid. I mostly mean that I'm happy to see people expressing a multi-dimensional perspective on things that are popular to criticize.
No twilight is still bad
"Maybe they're not so bad"
Uhm, no, it's still bad, we just understand that being bad doesn't warrant hate
@@simonegreco1958 that's pretty much what I meant, but you definitely put it much better haha
Reverse nostalgia?
The first time I watched this video, I started to cry when Lindsay said “You’re not stupid or wrong if that’s your fantasy.” I had never heard that before. It was such a relief.
I know this is an old comment, but I wanted to say that I've felt the exact same before. I had a hard and long journey coming to a point where I'm okay and proud of the things that make me happy no matter if its a cheesy romance novel or pop music. I can also like classic literature and jazz. One doesn't cancel out the other, and one doesn't make me stupid or vapid. I hope you can (or have) come to a similar acceptance and find joy again in things you like!
@@kataangluv100 You should be proud of yourself for realizing that. Keep going. Don't feel like you have to qualify the pop music stuff by saying that you like "not dumb" stuff, too, like classical music.
bruh true. i've always been afraid to say twilight is one of my favourites because a lot of people just go straight up trash on me because I actually like it. This vid made me subscribed to her channel. I like how she didn't downright trash her and be hateful.
I just wanna leave this quote another youtuber said regarding to twilight:
"People just don't decide to loudly hate someone or something on their own, they do it because there's a crowd cheers them on everytime they loudly hate it."
if this isn't a fact then, I don't know what it is. and people aren't ready for that conversation yet.
I mean it's okay to wait for your vampire husband but it will never come so it's time to let this dream go :(
I am a software engineer and it is like logic on steroids ..... Deadlifts for the mind ..... Sometimes we need books like twilight ..... The last thing I want to do is come home and think more about stuff ..... It's nice, warm and fun
I respect Meyer for the "take the money and run" vibe I get from the fact I havent heard shit about her for almost ten years.
LMFAOOO
True. XD She may be toxic in the books, but she's not person who wants fame just for fame. That's cool.
She has actually written since then, she wrote a sci-fi book called The Host, which is also problematic, and she wrote Life or Death (genderbent Twilight which she also wrote for the 10 year anniversary), The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner (a novella in the perspective of one of Victoria's Newborns) and recently she released Midnight Sun, which is Twilight from Edwards perspective. She also plans to write two more books in the Twilight universe.
@@emmiebunny04 Two more after Midnight Sun?! I hope she finishes them off soon....I wonder what about though.
@@Femmefatale1990 Hopefully going into more about Alice. She’s an incredible character who is underutilized in the books but her perspective on how she sees the universe is absolutely fascinating
Also, I will go on the record saying that the idea of having vampires secretly playing baseball with each other out in the woods somewhere is novel and possibly brilliant.
I call the rights on writing a book about that
@@Izzy-ez7lb I imagine you should credit Stephanie Meyers for the idea, but let me know if you write it!
Not gonna lie that part was so off the wall that it sucked me into the story harder.
Huh? Why?
vampire baseball is the backbone of this society
Also can we apologize to Kristen Stewart. She was the victim as much as Meyer was, which was stupid considering she paid the role of Bella to a T. I was absolutely apart of that hate train as part of my "hating things is cool, hating other girls makes me a better girl" phase. She smiles when she wants to and she can act just fine in other movies. Not to mention that she believed Twilight would be a small movie and not the mega franchise that it was.
Karina Sanchez she did her best considering the material, and she even made Bella sympathetic to me in the first movie.
In those movies too Pattinson is a MUCH more bad actor than Stewart ever was
I honestly find it kinda scary how easily people project feelings about characters onto the actors that play them.
Twilight was never supposed to be a major franchise.
Karina Sanchez Honestly her career wasn't that different from that of, say, Mark Hamil at her age, and I think she's doing better than him.
“We kind of hate teenage girls.”
Ouch. For years I tried to make myself less girly or an acceptable amount of traditionally feminine. This is eye opening. Thank you.
It is! A simplified version of it is the "I'm not like other girls" trope; it's just internalized misogyny. I used to look down on "girly-girly girls" as being lesser and that was just a complete bullshit attitude and I regret it a lot.
True
To be honest, there's a good reason to kind of hate teenage girls. Teenagers, boys and girls, are the dumbest and most irritating. And the girls are worst than the boys. So they take the prize for the most annoying part of humanity.
Same! Until recently I hated dresses and skirts cause I felt so vulnerable wearing them and wanted to come off as not a wimp and tough
It's so true. Since high school, I've been wearing my hair short, dressing in baggy t-shirts and jeans, hanging out with guys and calling everyone "dude." Now I'm a 24-year-old who feels like she has to hide her love of stuffed animals, summer dresses, kittens and bright pastel colors, lest she be labeled as a "dumb girl." I'm deeply ashamed that I ever felt that way, and I'm only now beginning to embrace my true "softer side."
Let's all say it together:
"There's no wrong way to be a woman"
Geez I feel the comments about hatred for femininity. I joined a radfem forum and it was amazing how much it was tolerated to put women down for liking makeup and dresses. Not crapping on radfems in general here but I think the denigration of non-harmful personal choices needs to be addressed. It drives women away from thinking/talking about actual problematic sexism because they don't want to be associated with pettiness or hatefulness, as well as feeling that if people talking about those issues are petty and bitter, they themselves must be so as well for having ideas in common with that group of people.
You can do wrong things, but that's more of a general human behaviour thing, it shouldn't be tied to your being.
(I wish there were fewer people who went all in on conspiracy theories)
@@DerAykac Thank you for your unrelated and bitter comment. I just love how it hijacks a reasonable and empowering feminist statement and tries to make it about men and how oppressed men are. So nice to have heroic men like you to let us know when we've gone too far. Wouldn't want to forget the poor suffering men for a few minutes to talk about the systemic sexism against women that has been ingrained into our society for centuries.
"Heterosexual women also have valid identities, and your oversimplified view of JK Rowling does more disservice to you than to her."
Nobody has said that heterosexual women don't have valid identities. JK Rowling has an actual history of using her platforms as a means of invalidating transwomen because she believes in biological determinism, which psychologists have proven to be false. Sarah Z has a video regarding the topic here ruclips.net/video/m-rh-N4eFDU/видео.html, which provides receipts detailing Rowling's anti-trans sentiments.
A TERF is somebody who actively expresses the idea that transsexual women are invalid and don't deserve to be treated the same way a cis woman does. Calling somebody TERF is not equivalent to using anti-trans slurs because TERF describes people who follow anti-trans ideologies. By your logic, calling someone a who expresses fascist ideologies a fascist is also using slurs.
Can we just extend this to "There's no wrong way to ... be"?
And I don't mean this in an aLl LiVeS mAtTer way.
Back then I initially didn't know about all the hate twilight got and without bias pirated "some movie about vampires" and watched it and while it didn't blew my mind I thought it was okay (just like some dumb action movies were okay) and even that the style of the movie was unique in a cool way. So in my ignorance of the whole discourse back then the movie was... alright. Which I, as a 20 year old dude obviously wouldn't admit to anyone until much later and had I known before I would have bashed the movie relentlessly like anybody else.
I'm more or less confident in who I am now and in the things I like but I still see many male colleagues/friends, who are awfully stiff about being a man or what they are allowed to enjoy unironically.
Western society: "Be unique! We value individualism in this culture."
Also Western society: "Woah, okay I didn't mean THAT unique."
Oh boy, America! What a country!
they aren't ready for that conversation yet lmaoooo
In America, individualism means "hey fuck you buddy, I got mine. I ain't putting my taxes towards POOR people."
So eastern society’s are better when it comes to that? Grass is always greener.
@@NinjaOutfitInTheWash i think they're saying that because they're coming from the western society (as am i). it's not saying eastern society is better, just that western society is bad.
IT'S FINE
it's fine
You're fine
And just when I am about to sing the lady of the houses praises, there she is.
I thought I heard a familiar voice...
No, really. It's fine.
100% took being "girly" as an insult when I was younger. God forbid I utilize the choice to act like a "tomboy" or "girly-girl" and choose the latter.
Nowadays I wear pink dresses to my tech job & my soul feels on fire because I live a life where I feel like I can do both.
Ma’am you are a queen 👑
YES! As you should!
Reclaim your femininity queen! Femininity isn‘t childish, bad, boring or lame. It‘s just as valid as Masculinity. Go out there being the woman you are and don‘t you ever let anyone tell you how your female identity is lesser! 💪✊👩🏅
The former not the latter. Sorry I know this is nitpicking but the latter means the 2nd and the former means the 1st. Also same.
Yahuah don't care if your Tom boy or a grirly girl. It's not forbidden.
He would support you.
Rock on.
I recently read Stephenie Meyer's answer to the question whether Bella is an anti-feminist character, which I found on her QA. I think this might be interesting to people watching this video, so I will re-post it here:
"Is Bella an anti-feminist heroine?
When I hear or read theories about Bella being an anti-feminist character, those theories are usually predicated on her choices. In the beginning, she chooses romantic love over everything else. Eventually, she chooses to marry at an early age and then chooses to keep an unexpected and dangerous baby. I never meant for her fictional choices to be a model for anyone else’s real life choices. She is a character in a story, nothing more or less. On top of that, this is not even realistic fiction, it’s a fantasy with vampires and werewolves, so no one could ever make her exact choices. Bella chooses things differently than how I would do it if I were in her shoes, because she is a very different type of person than I am. Also, she’s in a situation that none of us has ever been in, because she lives in a fantasy world. But do her choices make her a negative example of empowerment? For myself personally, I don’t think so.
In my own opinion (key word), the foundation of feminism is this: being able to choose. The core of anti-feminism is, conversely, telling a woman she can’t do something solely because she’s a woman-taking any choice away from her specifically because of her gender. “You can’t be an astronaut, because you’re a woman. You can’t be president because you’re a woman. You can’t run a company because you’re a woman.” All of those oppressive “can’t”s.
One of the weird things about modern feminism is that some feminists seem to be putting their own limits on women’s choices. That feels backward to me. It’s as if you can’t choose a family on your own terms and still be considered a strong woman. How is that empowering? Are there rules about if, when, and how we love or marry and if, when, and how we have kids? Are there jobs we can and can’t have in order to be a “real” feminist? To me, those limitations seem anti-feminist in basic principle.
Do I think eighteen is a good age at which to get married? Personally-as in, for the person I was at eighteen-no. However, Bella is constrained by fantastic circumstances that I never had to deal with. The person she loves is physically seventeen, and he’s not going to change. If she and he are going to be on a healthy relationship footing, she can’t age too far beyond him. Also, marriage is really an insignificant commitment compared to giving up your mortality, so it’s funny to me that some people are hung up on one and not the other. Is eighteen too young to give up your mortality? For me, any age is too young for that. For Bella, it was what she really wanted for her life, and it wasn’t a phase she was going to grow out of. So I don’t have issues with her choice. She’s a strong person who goes after what she wants with persistence and determination."
- Stephenie Meyer, from stepheniemeyer.com/the-books/breaking-dawn/frequently-asked-questions-breaking-dawn/
you don't have to be a feminist to support "prochoice in anything" movement. I think it is a basic human decency, that what he or she likes, if it doesn't hurt anyone why stop/discourage the person.
I do think the start of her argument is kinda bullshitty, fiction can mirror real life in very meaningful ways even if a lot of elements like magic and vampires and shit aren't real. You can absolutely have really problematic themes in your book, and Twilight actually does have other aspects to it that are....not great....at best. But I do like the second part of her argument a lot, where Bella making the choices she made doesn't make her anti-feminist, because that's what she wanted from her life. Bella honestly isn't a bad leading female for a book like this.
Ever since I reached Bella's age of eighteen, I finally understood her. Also completely stopped whatever disdain I had for Twilight,because admittedly it WAS the series that made my fascination with vampires amplify even more.
Also,Stephenie Meyer was on point with her line of "On top of that, this is not even realistic fiction, it’s a fantasy with vampires and werewolves, so no one could ever make her exact choices. " and "However, Bella is constrained by fantastic circumstances that I never had to deal with." A lot,and I mean a LOT,of critics seem to forget this fact about relationships in fantasy worlds.Yes,some relationships you may not like and may think are unrealistic and unhealthy. In the real world,that is. But they're applying real world standards to situations that can only happen in that kind of circumstance in fantasy,which isn't the best way to judge a character/relationship if we in the real world are unable to experience ourselves(because again,we aren't thrown in that situation). And like Meyer said,she never intended for Bella to be the figurehead or model for anyone in real life.
@@sffb8295 the only difference they have in our world is sparkly vampires and werewolves. Their relationship is a great depiction of bad relationship and a blank slate protagonist but as long as you do realize this and still like it hey more power to you but don't pretend ficiton effects your perception. It doesn't matter if it is a fantasy sci-fi etc LOTR is a fantasy book yet it effected the perceptions of millions on many things. Stephanie did not deserve the bullshit she got but let's not act like it was a good book or had good characters... well Jacop was nice until end of the new moon and Leah's story was really interesting being stuck in a boys club with no acceptance and being hang up about her ex is with her cousin because of imprinting and letting these obvious pant up frustrasion and anger apperantly makes her a bitch etc but they didn't go anywhere. I would not let my girl read twilight to be honest until she comes to an age that can recognize the problematic elements at least.
Thanks for finding and posting!
Rereading Twilight in 2020 during quarantine helped me understand why I liked it so much when I was younger.
The feeling of being constantly out of place or not fitting, the low self esteem and depression where my constant friends.
Reading about a girl who felt the same was consolatory for me.
And there where some quotes from Edward that I felt like they where meant directly to the reader.
Such as: "You don't see yourself very clearly, you know.[...]"
That book helped me understand who I am and who I wanted to be.
Thanks to Twilight I started reading a lot, learned English (because I wanted to meet Stephenie), became a curator of the school library at the age of 13 and started an obsession for cars, especially Volvos.
Now, at the age of 23, I'm getting my degree in human rights and I'm fighting agains bullying at schools. Especially because I know the feeling of being bullied at school.
So, not all is bad if it helps you achieve your goals. :)
Wow! Way to go, Serena! Love from a small town in southern India.
That's honestly amazing!
That's amazing!!
fabulous! i’m proud of you ❤️❤️
Good for you! 💜
"We hate teenage girls." As a 20 year old woman who was absolutely a self-hating teenage girl, this hit hard. I'm a university student and a massive nerd, but I also really like a lot of traditionally feminine things and I'm still coming to terms with the idea that there's nothing wrong with that and I'm not lesser, or less intelligent, because I think interior design is cool. It's something I'm terrified to admit because I don't want to be seen as somehow inferior, and be immediately cast aside as a shallow valley girl. I've only been opening my eyes to that issue in the past few months.
We demonize our girls. When we make Strong Female Characters, we make them tough and aggressive girls, fighters who don't show their emotions and hate to wear dresses. We make our girls strong by making them boys, because being a girl in our society is still bad.
Wow, that's a good point!
And please, don't feel guilty about liking "girly" things. There's more that one way of being smart, so; you do you.
Every so often, though, we somehow manage to strike the balance of a female character that can be tough and yet gentle.
Take Hua Mulan in the 1998 Disney animation. Why did Mulan go off to war? She didn't want her father to die, something that would surely happen if he went. Mulan knew she'd face execution if she was found out. Mulan knew that she'd probably die on the battlefield. Mulan went anyway.
The very best example, though? Katara. Just... Katara. This is a girl that is strong enough to subdue a crazed princess- yet gentle enough to heal wounds with just a touch. Perfectly balanced.
Dont you get the point the point is all Bella did was to live for edward she never focused on her career being a girl doesnt mean you live for boy and even if you want to live for someone why not your family which bella just abandoned being a strong female caharater means to fight for what you need agression is something that all. Women and men have it is nowhere written women cant be agressive yes they can show their emotions but what kind of women goes into hell and become a zombie when bf leaves her now thats strong being a storng character means standing for yourself and not depending on everyone. Else if that is what according to being a girl. Means then you are literall bella whining all about. Men having no ambition opinion or any dreams all that you want is boys. Being strong and independent doesnt mean behaving like boys it means behaving like a human having something in your life to do rather than whining about boys and thats what women empowerment means. Girls lile you can only like twilight.
@@SamaritanPrime very well said
And yes socitey doesnt make girls strong by making them men they make women independent women are not meant to live for boys or producing babies yes babies are what any women feels proud to have but that doesnt mean she will sacrifice everything for it and if thats wbat your point is leave the college go get married and have a kid sit in your room
Being independent is what humans do and not only boys women like you make women weaker by saying these comment being independent and strong is what's gonna make any men women happy and not whining about a man in their Lives. If thats your opinion of women that if women become independent they ac like boys then I woulf say yes I would rather behave like a boy than be a idiot huamn whining for boys and getting married in my youth
Man this whole hatred for young girls and the things they like really really hurts to think about. I used to hide all my interests from people because they were always seen as bad, embarassing, cringy, childish, dumb etc. And I still hide them to this day sometimes. Then, young girls often force themselves to be interested in "boy stuff" to finally get some respect there. Don't get me wrong, a lot of them do really like these things! But either these interests becoming 'more girly" makes them hated or the girls are just called "fake fans". There's no escaping this bullshit, man.
I can really relate to this. Thank you
ana medina Me too.
You see these days, the Billie eilish hate train, and the whole "14 year old girls" depicted as dumb meme. Nothing's changing anytime soon
@spooky katt Wasn't Bella using every chance she got to have sex with the vampire? How is that innocence?
Also, you're a joke.
This has nothing to do with the Twilight hate train, trust me.
I said it once and I'll say it again: My only issue with Twilight is that it shows abuse as normal and even romantic. Both Edward and Jacob don't know what consent is and it's terrifying. I will never mock someone for liking Twilight, but for the love of God don't think the relationships in this book are normal. If your partner acts like Edward or Jacob, RUN.
Thank you! Some genuine criticism of twilight that doesn’t revolve around “girly stuff bad”
fr...seeing those sort of relationships in the books i read kinda messed me up throughout middle school and in highschool i had to create a whole new image of what healthy relationships actually are
As someone who reads, a lot, a lot of YA books display unhealthy relationships a and a lot don’t . It’s a bit unfair to assume that teens aren’t smart enough to discern that a guy stalking you isn’t ideal, but cute in books. Fantasy standards and IRL are different and a vast a majority of the population knows that.
This is the biggest reason I dont like twilight, this kind of message is kinda dangerous when the target audience is a teenage girls.
See I think twilight did make me vulnerable to that kind of relationship. However, I think it could have been a learning opportunity for me instead. I was just so ashamed for liking it and the sparkly vampire aspect and the stalking parts that I never thought about the more normal relationship parts. That could have led to a more useful conversation rather than me hiding the book in shame haha. Rereading it as an adult the more subtle parts of the books actually got through to me and brought up uncomfortable memories. We just don't trust teenage girls enough to have these difficult conversations. Twilight could have been a vehicle for that, kept a toxic relationship in the fantasy realm for me and saved me from living through it.
“Yet it is the masculine values that prevail. Speaking crudely, football and sport are ‘important’; the worship of fashion, the buying of clothes ‘trivial’. And these values are inevitably transferred from life to fiction. This is an important book, the critic assumes, because it deals with war. This is an insignificant book because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing-room. “
-Virginia Woolf (A Room of One’s Own)
I'm a dude. I think that football and sport are fucking dumb and deserve the same level of contempt as stuff like Twilight. Which is to say, some - but don't just go shitting on things people like because you think they're dumb. That's a dick move.
@@dominict9325 Yeah, but try making the argument to your dad, boyfriend/husband, brother, male friends, or anyone really, that their decision to go watch the game on the other side of the country is a dumber financial decision than me dropping the same amount of dough that trip is going to cost (gas, a day off, overnight hotel, drinks, food and the tickets) on a handbag from my favorite designer. Hell, even as a teen I had a lot more success convincing my parents to buy me tickets to sport events or sport clubs (my god those must have cost a fortune) than paying for a pair of quality jeans instead of the cheap junk I was wearing for most of my life.
@@ideljenny Right? I'm freaking tired of having to defend Jane Austen as an important literary mark because assholes continuously minimize her writing as "old chick lit" since, apparently, the worries of women in early 1800s are irrelevant.
@@ideljenny Damn. If the men in your life are that tone deaf, I genuinely apologize on behalf of my gender. "Spending money on my trivial shit is okay, but we are wasteful if we spend money on your trivial shit." Selfishness at its finest.
@@dominict9325 How about instead of more contempt, try the more open-mindedness. Let teen girls go nuts over Twilight and let guys go nuts over football. Calling them dumb doesn't show me you're more enlightened, but rather less willing/able to understand others. I'm not into sports, but I can see the appeal (apart from the athleticism, it's a drama played out over a long period of time with varying cast members, heroes, villains, rivalries, prodigies, underdogs, etc). I'm not into Twilight, but I get why teen girls like it. You don't have to like something yourself to accept that others like it.
I personally never liked Twilight. It just wasn't my cup of tea.
BUT the hate the author and the actors received was absolutely unnecessary and extremely rude
I read it so I would know what to hate but I never did end up hating it. It was meh. When I read American Gods I was strongly reminded of the feelings I had. Like I see the appeal in a way but for me, it's meh.
Me too, but I wasn't its target demographic. I agree about the actors, even now I see people going on about how the two leads can't act (after announcements of Charlie's angels and the rumours surrounding Pattinson as Batman). But almost none of those people have seen the other films they were in. Hell, half of them probably never watched Twilight to begin with!
Sesame Street Enthusiast omg usagi matches ur comment
I read the books.....they were something to read? The books kept my interest. And honestly it wasn't the worst thing I ever read. Lol XD
True
I was like 14 when I read Twilight for the first time, and I actually really enjoyed it, but I acted like I hated it because thats what all the 'cool kids' did. Now I'm a 24 year old grown ass man and I just finished reading my copy of Midnight Sun that I ordered off my dad's Amazon account. I really love Twilight. Its not perfect, but its a ton of fun to me, and I will no longer let people shame me or anyone else for enjoying something.
32yo man fan here.
i agree!!!💯
I used to refuse to read in school and it was the first book I ever read. Now I love reading multiple books a week to this day. It was fun!
I feel the exact same way, back then and now. Rewatching the movies has been a really nostalgic trip back to middle/high school.
I'm 28 and I've just realised how much I shamed teenage me for loving Twilight when I never deserved that kind of slamming. I've just reread all the books and watched all the movies again, and I still enjoy them. Screw all the haters.
This might be a little dumb but I honestly feel like sOcIeTy's hate for teenage girls really impacted me in growing up, questioning everything I do and like, hating myself for who I am and trying to change my entire personality to what I thought I should be. I'm still struggling with being myself as an adult now.
that’s not dumb at all! i’d say that the majority of girls, including me, have this experience growing up. i used to say i hated taylor swift to other people, despite being a fan of her my whole life. i really struggled with accepting my interests because i constantly saw other girls shamed for the same things i enjoyed. i’m trying to reclaim those lost years back though by starting twilight today and i’m already half way through it lol
@@personaljesus4278 jesus christ! I'm so sorry this happened to you - it's not remotely ok :(
yea this sucks people hate on others for what they like and dislike but its really none of their business
It doesn't seem dumb to me at all. I think that's a very insightful bit of self-reflection and understanding.
It's a real shame that "sOciETy" has become overused and misunderstood to the point of becoming an internet punchline. We are undeniably influenced by the people, norms, and history that surround us, and it's important to examine those effects often.
People in 2008:
“Stephanie Meyer is an anti-feminist arrogant idiot. Let’s appreciate the actually good and politically woke writer J.K. Rowling.”
Me now after defending Meyer at the time: Oh how the turn tables
Stoyan Petkov True. But I think you meant “tables turned”. Still correct though
Janus Simonsen no it’s “how the turn tables”
Slava O no it’s “how the tables have tabled”
@@emilyhong2311 It's a reference from "The Office"
After we've seen how it could've also been (fifty shades of Grey) twilight is totally fine.
As a teenage girl myself, I read the twilight books a couple years back, and I enjoyed them. I remember thinking "why were these so hated?" and then I never watched the movies, because I didn't want to ruin that little corner of bliss I had cultivated with scathing reviews and bad book adaptations.
In other news, I do think that a lot of teens are becoming more aware of the mob mentality towards things that girls like. Things like kpop, "vsco girls", boybands, etc etc. My friend and I even have a little joke about how "no matter what music girls like, it's wrong", and I feel like people could mull over that one.
I think it's not just about K-Pop. It also happens if any girl likes to listen to Nirvana. I'm one of those girls who likes Nirvana. And many Nirvana haters claim that girls like the band just because the frontman Kurt Cobain had an attitude and some good looks. Yes, it is true that Nirvana isn't the best rock band in terms of technical talent. But then there are some people (and girls) who love this band because they simply love that kind of sound. Or it can also be that the fans relate with the message or the emotions attached to the music of Nirvana. Just because I love Nirvana doesn't mean that I'm a poser who knows nothing about "real rock music".
@@_sam_ddn That's exactly what i mean when I say that no matter what a teen girl likes, it's wrong. You like kpop and boybands and teen pop, and you're "cringey" and "obsessive" and "basic". You like rock music and you're faking it. You like rap music and you're a try hard. There's literally no right answer. We'll be made fun of, criticized, and put down no matter what we like. We will never, ever, be seen as "cool" in the eyes of the patriarchy, because teen girls simply aren't cool. They're the antithesis of the everything male culture stands for. Guys want a "gamer girl", and then take every single opportunity they can to humiliate and shame girls that like video games. There's literally no way to win. It's an impossible scenario.
@@stopme7030 well, there are few men (or boys) who treat us as equals. But yes, as you said it, we won't be seen as cool according to the definition of the patriarchy.
Another reason of this problem is that often a girl is teased by another girl for not being like 'other normal girls'. It's disappointing, isn't it?
@TripleDoubleNoTAS I'm not going to waste my time explaining to you how wrong and ignorant this is. A woman's identity does not revolve around their relation to men. If you were offended by my comments and think that I was referring to you, then you are the problem. Take some time to figure out why you feel this way about women trying to take charge of themselves and have a healthy discussion about our own experiences as women, which you will never be able to understand or relate to as a man.
@@stopme7030 I'm so sorry. Thank you for writing out your perspective. It's honestly giving me a lot to think about. I never saw it that way before.
I'm a parent. What you said is going to come back to my brain sometime when it needs to.
No matter what a teen girl likes, it's wrong. That's shitty. I'm sorry.
13 years ago. I'll just be sitting here and trying to comprehend that.
it means you are old
13 years ago, I was reading THE SHIT out of Twilight
We're getting old, dear.
13 years ago. Someone could have gotten their big start in reviewing on RUclips by reading Twilight.
I was 13, nearly 14 when twilight came out. I had a friend who had family in forks and she came back over the summer with a new book signed by the author. I borrowed it and immediately fell in love. I don’t know why so many people hated it at the time. It fulfilled a need for many teenage girls
I still don’t understand why people watch fast and furious movies...
Thank you!
The first one was a fun movie
Because it's about family
The want to see ilegal car races and don't care about the plot , i guess
car go vroom vroom!
It’s a romance, that’s the plot. If people want to see danger and fast paced plots then they should read things that are made for that. Twilight was my balm growing up, I was bullied and awkward and my home life wasn’t great but I remember thinking: It’s going to be okay, I’m not alright right now but someday I will be. I’ll have my own happy ending. And you know what? I’m not ashamed to say Twilight saved me. It saved my life.
Same here. It made me love reading and helped me become a writer.
EXACTLY bella never had a boyfriend she is awkward and shy so everything feels way more intense which is very accurate to what happens when you also have your first partner
Same here bro. Twilight saved me too.
This was me but with Linkin Park. It makes me feel kind of bad for acting kind of "above Twilight" (even though I watched all the movies), because I absolutely hated when people did the same to Linkin Park.
You have the most epic user name and I sense that you love Mulan because of the same reasons as I do and what you wrote in your comment above.
the worst thing abt twilight is that it inadvertently brought 50 shades of gray into existence
Ivy - the - Demon true 😂 i love twilight, and its crazy how Stephanie, who is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, inspired a book about sex
She cannot control that, fanfiction is like an open site for everyone, from the worst grammar and stories, to the weirdest, then there are few epic stories. 50 shadea started in fanfiction dot net
Carmela Camba ff. net is a lawless wastleland. definitely not surprised it came from there
Well just wait until 10 years from now and you can write an apology for that statement.
*356 days entered the chat*
To be honest, I was one of the teenage girls who stared all star-struck and in awe of Twilight, then I realized the books series was a literary equivalent of a popcorn movie (only with romance instead of all the action). Much later, I grew to resent Twilight, mostly for a very personal reason.
You see, since I come from a pretty conservative background, Twilight was one of the few sources of knowledge about romantic relationships I had access to. That's why ,when I first started dating, I not only did ignore all the red flags - I actually took them for the signs of the true love.
However, I would like to point out that this shouldn't have happened in the first place. As a teenage girl I should have been already educated about this sort of things, especially about consent and the sense of self worth. Stephenie Meyer wasn't the one who failed the teenage me, the society and my loved ones did. It wasn't Stephenie Meyer job to rise me and teach me about life, it was my parents'. If the culture I live in wasn't so obsessed with the idea of keeping girls pure, naive and innocent, I would have been able to spot which ideas presented in Twilight were healthy and which were not. Instead, I was told that I was too young to know about all this stuff (I was 18) and that I would magically understand everything as soon as I met the right person (never happened).
That's why I cannot help but think that all this Twilight-shaming was a cover up for the real problem. It was like saying "Look! Everything is this book's fault! There's nothing wrong about the way we rise children and treat young women! It's not like we need a proper sexual education in schools!".
Marta Tarasiuk I'm so glad to see people like you sharing your story! There's a problem with education, and a tsunami of books/shows aimed at young girls, with unhealthy romantic relationships.
The fairest summary one can give of Meyer I think, especially with your story in mind, is that she's a wasted opportunity for alot of young girls.
Marta Tarasiuk wow what an amazing comment, thanks for sharing
Marta Tarasiuk I know how you feel from a male perspective. My family is Catholic and I'm within the Asperger's range of autism (I don't mean this as any sort of insult or excuse). The combination of these two things lead my parents to largely focus on my social (friend/etiquette-wise) survival rather than my romantic ability or knowledge. Due to this i've found myself stuck in an unhealthy relationship that lasted over 5 years and included so many other men dating my at the time girlfriend it's not even funny. If you were to ask my friends, you would also find that I am very touchy feely, sometimes in terribly inappropriate and embarrassing ways and it's something I have not only been called out on, but am trying to fix and am ashamed of. I can't blame my parents too much. They really worked hard and still love, support, and guide me to this day. However, their talks in the matter of sexual education occurred multiple times and were all extremely lackluster in every occasion, always ending in "Try not to before marriage, but use a condom if you do." I honestly feel that shows like Steven Universe, Toradora, Gumball, and other shows meant for children and teens have helped me more in the end than my family or culture has because they go through the trouble of trying to show healthy and unhealthy relationships and how to fix them or when to cut them off. I also have issues of flirting stupidly and, at times, unintentionally, and having a very Disney-esque, unhealthy view on romance. I've had issues of declaring that I love someone after two weeks of dating. In the end, I understand somewhat the things that hindered you from correctly understanding how relationships are supposed to work in order to be healthy. I think it's a problem plaguing American and other JudeoChristeoIslam based countries in the current time.
I know this comment is seven years old, but I think for the first time, a RUclips comment affected my opinion.
I don't think it's okay to romanticize abuse and creepy behaviour (especially to this extent) but you know what, you're right, we can not go and put the blame on the author, we can't have a series be our scapegoat, we need to read these as signs to the far bigger and complex problems that result in writing like this.
I will forever have a special place for these books in my heart because my DAD was the one who got me into them. He wanted to know what I was into, and saw a copy of the first book in the bathroom once, and the next thing I knew he had read them all 🤣. Then per when the movie came out, HE TOOK ME to see it (I was not yet a big fan), and then ragged on the changes in the film with me afterwards. He was a big fan - Charlie being his favorite, and he's since passed away. Now anytime I see anything related to the films/read the books, I just have this warm n fuzzy feeling because of my dad, and that makes me happy. Thank you Stephanie Meyer, for making books to bond over in ways I didn't think possible! 😂
Omg that is such a beautiful bonding experience!
So heartwarming ❤️
Best comment in this thread. Your Dad sounds wonderful. With all this discussion about what makes a good « role model » He’s a good ‘role model’ for dads everywhere. 🙌🏻❤️
That's very cute
This story reminds me of season 3 episode 3 of Parks and Rec where the dad wants to put the Twilight novels in the town’s time capsule because his daughter loves them. It’s so cute how much he loves his daughter and loves twilight.
I love Meyer’s response in that interview about 50 shades of grey, very mature
THE example of author loving and accepting her fanbase, even when it is a parasite on her content.
@@christiandavey4221 Not just a parasite, but one that stands in direct contrast to the original author's attitude. Both are wish fulfillments, but Meyers' and James' responses to critics, feedback, and adaptations are night and day. Meyers tolerated and stomached a lot of the vitriol she got, and still has a pleasant outlook on her book series and readers despite being slandered by both fans and haters alike. When the adaptation brought even more people to her franchise just to bash it, there wasn't any animosity to the director.
Meanwhile, when E.L James gets criticism from actual people in the bondage community that her books represent toxic and dangerous situations and relationships that could genuinely hurt people recreating it, she instead spews bile and claims anyone of that sort doesn't know what they're talking about. Her wish fulfillment came to a head when her books got adapted, as she was apparently an absolute pain on set, and constantly told the director he was doing shit wrong, since it didn't fit her giddy garbage erotica vision, to the point where her husband directed the sequels.
people hating twilight was like the beginning of 'i'm not like other girls. i have *emotions*, i have my own *taste* in things and i have my own *thoughts*.' it's like, yeah, you're right. you're not like other girls. not one girl is like other girls.
Nonsense, that was old enough to be parodied in Not Another Teen Movie four years before Twilight came out in 2001.
It really is cause that is such an annoying trope
That certainly is not when it started. One study traces it back to the 70s where about one third of adult women recalled being "tomboys" while they were in school. In 2011, about 60-70% of girls were "not like most girls" and that percentage has probably increased since then.
But yeah, people hating Twilight and other "girly" things is part of the problem. The reason girls act more like boys when they get to a certain age is because boys are socially superior and it's all a girl can do to be taken seriously by teachers and parents and friends. There are probably girls out there who dress like boys simply because they want to, but many do it because they don't want to be the target of mockery and dismissive attitudes.
Have you seen twin sisters?
i think its a direct result of misogyny but it manifests itself in different forms in different generations. in the 90s it was valley girls, in 2000s it was twilight fans, etc... but regardless of the generation, the entire world seems to hate teenage girls, which is so sad. so many of didn't get to live our teenage years properly because of that, we were made to grow up faster or distance ourselves from our own personalities. i'll never forgive the world for stealing my teenage years.
Glad to see that some people can still admit that they were wrong. We need more of that.
Self included.
Liking a popular thing will make you basic and trashy.
Liking an underrated thing will make you an edgy try hard, who wants attention.
And liking both will make you a two faced snob, who can't decide to pick one or the other.
There is literally no way to win here.
I think both is the best bet:3
Yeesh
You defined perfectly how I felt being in the third place.
Like, "am I good enough in this thing to be part of it? Should I shit in the opposite? But I kinda like it too... what do I do?"
Liking something that's non popular or is traditionally masculine gets you pick me or not like other girls like there's no winning
The way to win is to just stop caring what other people think of what you like.
I can't believe you predicted the theme of the barbie movie
The absolute best thing you said was about how we hate teenage girls. We do. We hate them so much it is terryfying.I don't know why that is, but it is frightening in and of itself. All the big things that get the massive hate of the general public tend to be 'girl' things.
The general public hates these things because they're not supposed to be qualitative. They're supposed to speak to the lowest common denominator, so that all teenage girls, in all their shapes and sizes, with all their personal uniquenesses, enjoy them.
That means it's paint-by-numbers art. And so paint-by-numbers that a machine could've made it. People don't like soulless media, and most media targeted at YA girls is pretty soulless. It's very basic in nature and simple in structure.
And often there's not even any real action to redeem its basality.
@TheArrowsPath You're absolutely right. There's a reason people despise girly stuff. And one doesn't need to be a feminist to despise it.
Good fiction takes the reader/viewer to places they don't go in their everyday life. That's why action and adventure themed fiction can get away with being silly.
Having a crush is commonplace. Books about it are redundant. No need to read sexism into that sentiment.
I feel this so much. I was really unimpressed with the series when it came out, but no moreso than with the "guy stuff" aimed at me. The criticism took me by surprise, not the content but the magnitude. I first encountered it after I told friends I'd seen the first movie. I wouldn't have normally, because I'm not a huge movie person, but it's apparently a good movie to watch when you're learning a foreign language because it's not complicated, and we'd seen it in French class. But the backlash against something merely boring and with some gross themes (again bad, but not nearly bad as some other movies) has always really floored me. I don't like coming to the defense of something I don't like.
I absolutely agree. Growing up, I decided I hated the color pink. Why? Because it was a *girl* color. It wasn't cool to be a girl and like *girl* things.
I wish I could've gone back and told young me that there's absolutely nothing wrong with femininity. There's nothing wrong with loving romance novels or soap operas or fashion or anything that people despise for its girlishness. I also have masculine-coded hobbies, as it happens. I'm really into college football, for instance, and Dungeons and Dragons, which, to a greater or lesser extent, get coded as "guy things". All of those things are fun as shit. I like to dress up cute so I can go scream bloody murder at my favorite team on Saturdays and that doesn't make me any less of a fan or any less of a woman.
(Kind of funny on D&D because it's very similar to the stereotypical female style of childhood play where you make up long, tangled stories with your dolls. It's like marketing trains us to be good D&D players and forgets to follow up!)
I felt so attaked. Never realized that the reason I’m such a tomboy was Becuse I didn’t want to seem like “zone of those girls” example. All the girls I know are listening to kpop. I love kpop! But when somone askes me what kind of music I like I say heavy metal. :(
I deeply regret bullying other girls for liking these books. They aren’t doing anything wrong by liking a book, they’re just teens enjoying something and don’t deserve to be made to feel bad over something so minor. I’m not a “better woman” by distancing myself from all teen girl guilty pleasures and nobody is a “worse woman” for enjoying them. You can like things, it ain’t that deep. I appreciate you talking about this, I’m sure this is comforting to people who grew up liking Twilight and similar things.
I hope the ones you bullied are successful and you lead a very shitty life.
I was obsessed with Twilight before the movies even happened and I was so loud and proud about it. Then the movies started coming out and, while I didn't hate them, the shame started to set in because of how masses of people reacted to it. Now I'm nearly 30, and while I do acknowledge the ways in which Twilight is problematic, I just don't give a shit about how "uncool" the series is anymore. I still reread the books and rewatch the movies, and I refuse to feel guilty about it. Also, I can't wait to read the fuck out of Midnight Sun...I feel like I've waited my entire life for this!!
Same, don't be ashamed of liking these books, honestly, its really such an over reaction how much hate the series got. Loved the books it gave me a community when I had no one, since I moved. A lot of things I don't agree with in terms of themes but you know what it's not real, its a fantasy. Plus most if not all the fans are 20 and above, we're grown adults to know the difference now.
Yesss 🙌
I see myself in your comment even down to the age.
I'm reading Midnight Sun and oh boy... Waited 10 years for this hahah
@@duskicakruskica I'm on the last five chapters of midnight sun and I am so happy! I can still remember when I found out that Stephanie's book had been leaked and she stated on the website that it would be a long time to feel inspired and write the rest and just how sad I felt but honestly it was worth the wait. I also find it quite ironic that Edward was "born" during a pandemic and we finally get his point of view while in a pandemic.
This video made me realized how much internal misogyny our society has. Growing up I have always liked stereotypically feminine things (being boy crazy, like makeup, played with dolls, etc.) That’s just the way I am. I’m not tough and brave, and I could never win a physical fight.
There was a time when I thought I had to be tuff because of these fictional characters I idolized especially Katniss from the hunger games. But my personality is absolutely nothing like her. These tough fictional women are supposedly perfect role models fir teen girls, while a more traditional female character like Bella is deemed boring and a terrible role model.
Feminism does not mean that women have to reject femininity and try to be “not like other girls.” It’s about allowing women to be wherever they want. If that means being basic then that’s fine. If it means being a tomboy that’s ok too.
Society hates on cheesy romance targeted towards women because they think it has no real value and reinforces negative stereotyping of women. But it’s ok to like that stuff, including Twilight.
I love action movies and movies that typically men like, but I also love twilight and romcoms. And that is ok, girls can like whatever they want and not be critiqued for everything.
as Stephanie Meyer said herself:
"Is Bella an anti-feminist heroine?
When I hear or read theories about Bella being an anti-feminist character, those theories are usually predicated on her choices. In the beginning, she chooses romantic love over everything else. Eventually, she chooses to marry at an early age and then chooses to keep an unexpected and dangerous baby. I never meant for her fictional choices to be a model for anyone else’s real life choices. She is a character in a story, nothing more or less. On top of that, this is not even realistic fiction, it’s a fantasy with vampires and werewolves, so no one could ever make her exact choices. Bella chooses things differently than how I would do it if I were in her shoes, because she is a very different type of person than I am. Also, she’s in a situation that none of us has ever been in, because she lives in a fantasy world. But do her choices make her a negative example of empowerment? For myself personally, I don’t think so.
In my own opinion (key word), the foundation of feminism is this: being able to choose. The core of anti-feminism is, conversely, telling a woman she can’t do something solely because she’s a woman-taking any choice away from her specifically because of her gender. “You can’t be an astronaut, because you’re a woman. You can’t be president because you’re a woman. You can’t run a company because you’re a woman.” All of those oppressive “can’t”s.
One of the weird things about modern feminism is that some feminists seem to be putting their own limits on women’s choices. That feels backward to me. It’s as if you can’t choose a family on your own terms and still be considered a strong woman. How is that empowering? Are there rules about if, when, and how we love or marry and if, when, and how we have kids? Are there jobs we can and can’t have in order to be a “real” feminist? To me, those limitations seem anti-feminist in basic principle.
Do I think eighteen is a good age at which to get married? Personally-as in, for the person I was at eighteen-no. However, Bella is constrained by fantastic circumstances that I never had to deal with. The person she loves is physically seventeen, and he’s not going to change. If she and he are going to be on a healthy relationship footing, she can’t age too far beyond him. Also, marriage is really an insignificant commitment compared to giving up your mortality, so it’s funny to me that some people are hung up on one and not the other. Is eighteen too young to give up your mortality? For me, any age is too young for that. For Bella, it was what she really wanted for her life, and it wasn’t a phase she was going to grow out of. So I don’t have issues with her choice. She’s a strong person who goes after what she wants with persistence and determination."
- Stephenie Meyer, from stepheniemeyer.com/the-books/breaking-dawn/frequently-asked-questions-breaking-dawn/
Exactly; there's no reason to not like both. :) Life is too short to not like the things you like.
I've always been a tomboy...but I liked Twilight growing up, and I enjoyed those little doll dress up games. I enjoy a good romance/rom-com (hence why I liked Twilight lol). Do I think it's a good view of a relationship? No. But it's not like fucking action movies are good views of how to drive cars/deal with conflict/basically doing anything in the real world.
Preach
Hate to break it to you but it is actually post 2010 feminists who are extreme misogynists and misandrists. Feminists before the 2000s were about choice... men and women should have a choice. But since the 2010s... a lot of now middle aged crazies have flooded the feminist market... resentful of the young or the feminine (be it men or women).
You're not 'basic' - you're all you're meant to be.
the argument that "there isn't a plot until the last 50 pages" isn't valid. the plot of twilight is the relationship between bella and edward; it's a love story, that's the plot.
I think that complaint comes from the fact that a love story is only as good as the characters in love. So unless you die hard ship the two and are interessted in their lives it feels like nothing is happening. In other words people were too bored to see the A plot and when the B plot was resolved in the last few pages people confused the A and B plots.
A love story still has a plot.
like... why are ppl so obsessed with plot when its a fucking romance? why does it have to be super developmental why cant it just be cute and hot scenes???
Yup, and people shitting on that plot cause they don’t like it.... good for you, go read the thousands of other books out there that I’m sure you’d like, instead of shitting on something and harassing the author. Some people don’t get the concept that not everything is for everyone.
@@intotheunknown6736 I agree but there is always a widespread frustration when something mediocre (or bad) gets this popular. Hating it is a bit exaggerated though. And harassing the author is idiotic.
You reading an excerpt from Ready Player One made me realize that my fanfiction writing might be better.
Everyone's fanfiction is better because at least they tried lol
fanfiction can be beautifully written but no one wants to recognize that bc of the rep it gets.
Not to demean the quality of your writing (which I'm sure is lovely!) but literally everything is better than Ready Player One.
@@Natalie-ip9co Plus fan fiction is technically copyright infringement.
Christopher G true, but many authors don’t mind, some even greatly support it because they see it as free advertisement and keeps fandoms alive long after the series is over. That’s why I think fanfics are still being allowed and haven’t been stopped.
Wow, this video really did make me think, it never occurred to me that the Fast and Furious movies essentially occupy the same kind of escapist wish fulfillment power fantasy for teenage boys that Twilight does for girls, but they absolutely do. Good video.
That's pretty much how I've always felt about them. I could never describe it exactly, but the Fast and Furious series always reminded me of Twilight in some weird way...
or transformenrs for michel bay
The difference being you can actually buy or build a car and street race it etc etc... And everything in twighlight is fantasy.
if you're into anime, any isekai manga/light novel/anime is wish fulfillment in a similar vein to twilight. the only real gripe i have with them is the main protag is dull as dirt and visually barren compared to the female cast. they've gotten better with it lately i suppose.
@@Odinsday in all fairness the transformers movies are the same way and they get shit on alot.
15:28 - “imagine if Stephanie Meyer *was* the vindictive narcissist... and HAD gone after E L James for... copyright infringement... fan fiction... litigated... and nobody wants that”
This is either the most brilliant foreshadowing I’ve ever seen, or the universe is truly cursed. Because WOW.
I was about to comment the exact same thing lol, that part really hits different after the omegaverse saga
@@adambebb99 fanfiction in general no, because fanfiction writers are not making profit. But banning publishing fanfiction of another work and making money of it , would not be that bad..it would save us of so much shit contents....
What’s especially interesting, both cases could have been correct without litigating fanfic - because both 50 Shades of Gray and Born to Be Bound are literally plagiarizing the stories they are based on. Like, literal repeating the original source, word-for-word.
Compare to fanfiction that uses the characters, universes, and ideas but really does write its own story.
I admit, I was on the hate train too. And watching this made me realize I've been a jerk in a lot of ways.
"she's in love with her own creation" so in my fair lady its cool, but in twilight it's not. nice.
I hate My Fair Lady, like HATE
Bibidibobbidiboops hahaha I don’t hate it but I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch it again. I just like listening to the songs 😬
Pattinson was a bit of a jerk to talk like that about her in that interview.
Making him look chill.
Dude, you accepted the role.
god damn.
The rain! In Spain! Falls mainly on the plain!!
I dont even know what that is....I'm not sure how I got here......DAD?
i work at a bookstore where most of my coworkers are the same age bracket as me (18-24) a vast majority of us got into reading BECAUSE of twilight, it was the book that sparked a generations love for reading. We finished twilight and realized that we liked the escapism books could offer so we picked up another series, then another and so on and so on. I could never get on the hate train. yeah twilight isn't the holy grail of books. so what? no book is. if it makes you happy, if it gets kids or teens or moms to read it did it's one job.
keira thank you!!! im 17 and never read a book that wasnt for school 😂 im reading midnight sun rn and i LOVE it, ive also alwaaaays loved the twilight movies so its perfect for me
Harry Potter is what made me realize I can actually LOVE books but most books I read after that I found just “okay”. I mostly kept rereading HP with 1-2 other books a year.
Reading Twilight in high school was what sparked my reading habit; suddenly I couldn’t get enough of books! I must have read through most of the Paranormal YA in my school’s library. I jumped on the Twilight hate train after the first movie (which was really so, so awful) but I secretly kept a special place in my heart for it. I had reread it a few years ago (guiltily), and when Midnight Sun released I reread again and finally admitted to myself I really like the books, even if they aren’t great books objectively. It was great to unapologetically have fun while reading them again.
I mean, fanfic got me into books so...
hey that's what happened to me
I was born 1990 and had this with Harry Potter. It was a great escape since my world felt like shit and I didn’t have friends. I started reading books in the fantasy genre because of this. I eventually expanded to order types.
I used to be all "ew I hate pink and dresses". Now I'm letting myself enjoy these things even if they're "girly"
people in 2008: Twilight is the worst book ever written!
E. L. James: hold my beer
Mary Ellis but it was a real twilight fanfiction, what could you expect?
You said it ! Fifty shades was just 🤢
I've seen better written plots on pornhub.
After is going to be a movie as well, God have mercy on us it's getting out of control
Tea*
I never realized how much internalized misogyny i had until i watched this video. Wow.
Good for you
Same though, even more so when I was a teen!!
Well said. For me it was rejecting the taylor swift/ jonas brother fandoms in high school as if I was "above it"
Lit life S I hope that wasn’t sarcastic??
Me too!
I think my temporary disdain for traditional feminine interests came about from a feeling of being put in a box by gender stereotypes. I was sometimes steered away from things I liked because it was not feminine behavior. Eventually, I began to resent the very idea of feminine behavior: it seemed like an excuse for people to tell me what I was not allowed to do. These days I'm more independent, financially and mentally, and I don't think about things that way. I don't mind having feminine interests or behaving feminine, and I also don't have anyone stopping me from pursuing more masculine interests. I think we'd all be better off if we just let kids explore who they are instead of trying to apply these expectations and assigning values to the roles we make up for them.
MsSphinx91 agreeeeeeeeeee!
Re-watching this, particularly Lindsay defending Stephanie earnestly from not only the backlash, but the disproportionate invasion of privacy and the revoking of her status as an individual with the same rights as everyone else, hurts so bad after reading her letter. We really have to find a way not to torture our artists.
what letter?
@@yaeli_i_guess The one in which she announces she's leaving yt. Originally posted on her patreon, but you can find it both on reddit and with people reading and commenting here on ytd
@@leocornio ohhh thank you
This reminds me of the anonymous vocaloid/game producer who left everything they loved because people didn't respect their desire of not talking about them.
_"Why would someone post something in internet if they don't want it to be know"_
Because they want to make other people happy? Is that bad for someone to wish for privacy? Damn.
I feel bad for Pattinson, Stewart, and Lautner. All of them really got screwed.
Perhaps their millions in income comforts them.
All of them got catapulted to the public eye. They got name recognition, which is the currency of their industry.
Poor Lautner. He was sexualized by twilight moms as a teenager, and almost no one talks about that. They CGI'd Edward's abs but made him get jacked. The culture surrounding the books was sad, so I'm glad to see it getting better.
@@margaretdiroma5051 he's the only one who didn't make a huge career out of it, I'd say that's his bigger problem.
Honestly, until now I didn’t really think about it this way, but the Twilight-hate really might have something to do with it being a book for teenage girls. I mean, Fast and Furious, or Transformers are equally stupid and flawed, but somehow they don’t get that mass hatred and criticism that Twilight has been getting over the years. Their actors are celebrated, while Kristen Stewart is hated to the bone. Somehow everyone agrees on that FF and Transformers are just pure male fantasy that shouldn’t be taken too seriously, just let the boys turn off their brains a little bit and let them enjoy the boost of testosterone. But the female equivalent of the silly fantasy (shy and insecure teenage girl is able to seduce the sexy, masculine senior guy, who besides being romantic and heroic, is also loyal to her, meanwhile a handful of other sexy man are also fighting for her love) is somehow condemned by everybody.
This video just made me more disappointed in our society ~
The comparison doesn't really work like that. Those movies are ridiculous and dumb but also very, very well put together movies. And, throughout the series they learned to embrace their craziness and are quite tongue-in-cheek. Twilight on the other hand looked like it was shot on a TV budget and doesn't nearly have the same level of self-awareness, something that lindsey also conceded. Transformers is not self-aware and, while the effects are amazing, the movies have real issues as well but it IS pretty widely criticized on the other hand. Maybe not to the degree of twilight but then it's not as big either. And boys' fantasies are being more and more criticized as well, even though that has only been the case in recent years.
Funny Onions Transformers and all eight (!) Fast and Furious movies were not better put together than the twilight saga, especially the later Twilight movies. Twilight also has its tongue in cheek moments, but there are fundamental differences in genre that prevent them from having, or needing, equality in that aspect. And no one personally attacked the Rock, Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, or Shia LeBouf the way that they did all of the leads, and even minor characters, of the Twilight cast. The person whos career suffered the most from the FF and Transformer movies was ironically Megan Fox, whos career suffered because Michael Bay decided to sexualize her character (who’s main character arc was that she was constantly underestimated and denied legitimacy because she was a good looking teenage girl) and thus cemented her as the transformer slutty eye candy when she plays the most (and maybe only) dynamic character in the series
@@singergrl1998 You might think that from a technical perspective Twilight and F&F / Transformers are equal but it's just not true. The budget of twilight part 4 was 110 Mil. USD while transformers 1 was already 140. I'm not saying that that in any way makes them good movies, I prefer a strong plot to good effects. But I am saying, and you say this as well when you point out the different genre affordances, that these franchises just can't be compared straight up and if you do, then it is heavily reductionist to say that the different audience reactions to these franchises is due to the fact that one franchise glorifies dumb boys' fantasies while the other glorifies dumb girls' fantasies. Feminism offers a great lense to view media through, but if that's the only view one can only get a partial picture.
Moving on, Shia LaBeouf is a much bigger target of internet ridicule than Megan Fox. That guy even has his own knowyourmeme entry. Now, of course, that is not because of the transformers movie but because he is just a weird guy. Similarly, Megan Fox's career didn't suffer because of Transformers; she didn't really have a career before that movie. Did Bay do Fox' character justice? No, but her starring in shitty movies and not really outperforming her roles is probably the bigger reason for her slow-going career.
Funny Onions Similarly to the nature of genres, it’s equally difficult to compare the quality of movies by budget alone, especially when one movie has a massive CGI budget. Not to say that Twilight doesn’t use CGI, but every interaction that they have with a transformer requires serious CGI. Use this to compare with FF, which started with a budget of around 40 mil similar to twilight, and had a similar budget trajectory to around 130 mil by the fifth movie (which is how many twilight has, by the way). And Shia LeBouf has experienced ridicule, but as you said it’s because of things he’s done, not the role he played. His character is objectively a selfish and unchanging person, but he didn’t really get much hate until he did weird stuff (Just Do It) outside of that. I disagree with you on the nature of Megan Fox’s career and acting ability, but that’s arguing potential and not something I think would be effective. But you also can’t tell me that the FF cast has suffered from the simplicity, toxic hypermasculine messaging, and general thinness of plot that their movies contain. Vin Diesel, the Rock, and Gal Gadot are massive, and have even worked for Disney in multiple capacities despite being associated with movies with this kind of messaging. Michelle Rodriguez is praises as an icon of the action genre and was in Avatar (I don’t have to tell you how big that movie was). Nathalie Emmanuel was acclaimed for her role in Game of Thrones. I know teenage boys and grown men who cried for a long while after Paul Walker died, and the song in the movie about his death was in the charts for a long time. You go down the cast list of Fast and Furious, and you’ll see many people who didn’t have their career hindered at all by these movies.
@@singergrl1998 Yes, F&F are very popular and they made a lot of money. So did Twilight. I thought our discussion was not about the commercial success or popularity with the fanbase but about negative backlash from non- or former fanbase members and the critical response. Btw, both Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson went on to star in other movies successfully, it's not like the backlash ended their careers (like, say, Hayden Christensen after the prequels).
My point is, and I stand by it, that the difference in the response between Twilight and F&F has to do with a lot of things. How we value teenage girls' fantasies comparatively to teenage boys' fantasies is, if at all, a very minor reason. The main reason is just action and reaction: The Twilight hype was insane. It was like the second coming (of Harry Potter). Any time anything garners an incredible amount of attention, especially if it's not exceptionally well done, there will be a lot of hate. You didn't see teenage boys running around with "Team Dom" or "Team The Rock (who knows what his characters' name is)" shirts. So naturally, the critical response was: Dumb action movie, but no harm no foul. With Twilight the very problematic messaging obviously elicited a much stronger response because it seemed to actually have an impact.
And, I am honestly curious, what is the toxic hyper-masculine messages that F&F has? As far as I understand those movies (haven't seen all of them) in the end it's always about "la familia", "brothers for life" stuff like that. Sure, the aesthetics are super stylized, the men are buff and the women are beautiful but is that really important to the story? Wouldn't you say that someone like Michelle Rodriguez' character is a much stronger female character than Bella?
'We kind of hate teenage girls' hit me harder than I thought it would
I was going to say the same thing. This whole video made me realize the whole "I'm not like other girls", "strong female character", "feminism lite" stuff I went really into in my teenage years really harmed my self-image and romantic development, because it is based in this sort of internalized self-loathing.
One thing that Twilight taught me as kid was you always have to wait for girl's consent or else you deserve a punch in the face like Jacob did in Eclipse....
Funny how apparently consent doesn't apply to edward though, bella was never mad about finding out he had been watching her sleep, in her room, at night, for weeks, without her knowledge.
@@nessyness5447 Watching her sleep really isn't the worst thing Edward's done. When Bella gets pregnant he promises to give Bella over to Jacob without her knowing as long as Jacob can help him get rid of the baby (without her knowing). Oh but it's fine because Jacob later decides to marry that baby!
@@kjarakravik4837 The HORROR that was the final book especially. I wonder if Meyer was just bored and maybe decided on doing something *cough* recreational while writing it. It differs so strongly from all the other books, genuinely creepy on another level from anything that was weird in the first three.
Hell, she might’ve just included all the shocking stuff because she knew it would sell.
@@kjarakravik4837 that's not what happened in breaking dawn... Edward was willing to let Bella have a child with Jacob if that's what she wanted, just like when she imagined a life with him. They did not plan on killing the baby without her knowing
@@kjarakravik4837 girl no he did not.
It's refreshing to see people are looking back and criticising their own judgmental selves. You can't be a feminist if you keep defining what a girl 'should be'. The fact that the society (albeit a small portion of it) is starting to recognize that, is so very hopeful.
Thank you for this video.
Some people claim to hate twilight because it portrays a toxic relationship. Yet movies like "Indiana Jones" and "Blade Runner" are almost universally loved, despite having abusive, sexually aggressive male leads who are never punished for their actions.
True!
Your evidence being...?
Maybe because they're only subplots there and no one takes romances in action films seriously?
@@Skallva what the fuck? Those movies have massive cultural impact and they directly associate sexual aggression with heroism. It's fucked up. How dare you excuse that kind of message?
I think the biggest difference is the focus of the stories. Indy is an action-adventure film about exploring tombs and shit, and Blade Runner is a detective thriller that focuses on hunting down criminal replicants. Those stories feature dowright rapey protagonists (which is wrong, and I'm not trying to defend it, it's regressive and dumb) but are not built around the relationships said protagonists have. Twilight is focused on the relationship between Edward and Bella, explicitly. There's a plot, but Edward and Bella take center stage.
Maybe that's why it took more flak for that... But I don't really know?
I’m just whatever on Twilight but MAN was that bit about teenage girls cathartic. I feel so validated, ten years later.
I tried reading them when I was younger and couldn't get into them, and couldn't wait until the annoying hype was over. In retrospect, the books aren't great but they're fine. I also dislike how Kristen Stewart got so much hate for her acting ability (she's good, watch Speak) but Robert Pattinson didn't get the same hate - even though Bella and Edward acted the same.
I mean, there was a lot of memes about Robert Pattinson and Edward in general.
He did get a lot of hate. I remember it well because I loved him as Cedric Diggory (Harry Potter) and fet bad that all he was associated with was Twilight. I remember thinking those movies would haunt him forever and they kind of did.
He couldn't get a role without people saying he's a sparkly vampire, unfit for it. Even speculation of him maybe getting a role was sure to have a few "uuuuugh twilight sucks so he sucks" comments and I remember all the controversy of him becoming the next batman...
He got a lot of hate but not as much as Kristen which I think is either because she's the main, main character or because she's a woman.. or because of both
Robert Pattinson also get a lot of hate for it. It's just that he doesn't get as much hate as others because he was buffered by his previous role as Cedric Diggory.
Heck Kristen Stewart was actually a good choice to play Bella. Bella’s supposed to be quiet and reserved most of the time, and she doesn’t really show her emotions much.
14:28 Just noticed that the Cracked article includes the line “You never heard J. K. Rowling throwing a tantrum when Christians didn’t like her books.”
Which is funny in hindsight because it turns out that what gets Rowling to tantrum is totally different
Guess which character is gay.
Plus honestly, I don’t take Cracked seriously anymore anyway
@@SiRenfield all of them
I was a 20 something aspiring writing when Twilight came out and as hype and hatred grew, a lot of people asked me about my feelings towards it, and my go-to comment was always.
"It's aimed at teenage girls and hits the make perfectly. I'm not a teenage girl, I haven't read it, I don't want to read it I don' think I'll like it, but I also don't think my opinion matters because, it's not for me. She wrote a thing, it did really well, good for her. We should all be so lucky."
It's fine.
It's fine
It's fine
@@RAFMnBgaming I T ' S F I N E
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
I think that another part of why Twilight was so hated is what I call Penny Dreadful Syndrome. In Victorian times there was a trend of writing supernatural/horror/mystery stories and were sold for a penny, earning the name Penny Dreadfuls. They were popular for a bit, before turning into something that many people absolutely hated, particularly men, because they saw that women were focusing their time on these Penny Dreadfuls instead of on men, and so the stories were put down and villainized to the point were they were Twilight before Twilight. So nowadays, when something gets too close to being a Penny Dreadful whether in themes or in societal effects, it gets villainized.
lmao.... twilight is hated because it has absolutely no depth.
There's definitely an element of male jealousy. Like oh you love this sparkly vampire? I'm not a sparkly vampire. I hate that sparkly vampire
@@nahnotreally416 yeah i agree
Like how incel hate women who dont like them and the men Girls like
@@nahnotreally416 holy shit, men dont compare themselves to non existant creatures, men are jealous of brad pit or jake gyllenhal. This movie was just bad , but i love your reaches
“Imagine if Stephenie Meyer was the vindictive narcissist that the 2009 internet made her out to be and actually had gone after E. L. James for what basically amounts to copyright infringement. Like, what if she had been, like, an Anne Rice type? And the whole Fifty Shades debacle ended up getting litigated in court? That probably would have ended up with the legality of fanfiction in general getting litigated. And nobody wants that!”
Addison Cain: Hold my wolf jizz.
It might have saved us from that 50 shades crap.
always love the way game of thrones gave arya that internalised misogyny line that wasn't in any way present in the books
Oh show you continue to be the worst
*Most girls are idiots*😒😒😠😠
Girls do struggle with internalized misogyny. It's not like Sansa or the other female characters didn't have internalized misogyny, that's one of the hazards of growing up in that kind of society. at least arya spoke up about it.
@@alicequinn505 its not that she can't have complex emotions and perspectives on being a woman it would be ridiculous if she didn't, it's that the writers didn't know or care how to explore that beyond "I'm not like other girls" and weird sansa hate.
how would they explore it?
Yeah, I feel like the proper response to Twilight would be a calm "Here's a breakdown of why these ideas are damaging," rather than the clearly misogyny-fueled hate fest that transpired.
Yeah, well it's the Internet, where the law of the land is hyperbolic hatred or bust. I'm sure there there were plenty of rational criticisms, but they were just buried under all the bile.
I mean, that's true, but it doesn't really...change my comment. XD
I agree with this. There were definitely things about it that weren't great. Like as a queer person, it was honestly a little terrifying for me to watch what was essentially a conservative heteronormative fantasy be actively marketed to young people and gain RAMPANT popularity and I at least would have liked more people to think critically about that.
But the hate towards the author and fans was unacceptable and even cruel. I'm definitely a believer in the idea that you can dislike something and/or have legitimate criticisms about it without hating the people who like it. And I totally agree with the idea of this video, that hatred toward franchises like this is largely fueled by misogyny.
I did see a few reasonable critiques- some focused on the more abusive aspects of the relationship between Bella and Edward, but the best I recall was focused specifically on that “abortion is always bad no matter what” message.
Honestly, out of the entirety of twilight, I think that was the worst message to come from it- that even if pregnancy is killing you, abortion is still wrong, and you should sacrifice your life for a baby that might or might not make it.
That is a fucking atrocious value to push. And, it’s why I dislike twilight so much, even though I do otherwise enjoy its cheesy romance for young adults stuff. I like cheesy novels. But this one message stretches how much I’m willing to forgive.
@Stella Star I think it was less "this book contains the dark thing" than "this book doesn't acknowledge that the dark thing is even a problem". When all of the abusive stuff is treated as normal, it makes sense that people would get kind of defensive about the idea that the book is marketed to teens. I honestly think the racism is probably more insidious than the misogyny, though, as it gets talked about less.
This video made me realise I had internalised misogyny 👌🏼
ikr
It's ok. Just be yourself.
Same here. It's... Weird to realize...
Dude. That his hard......
You should at least be proud that you are able to realize it and now you can address it and improve. A lot of people are so full of themselves that they can't handle even considering the possibility that they might be acting in cognitively dissonant ways, so they just stay in denial and act out through more vocal hatred. When you realize that you can improve, that's when you take the step to becoming a better person. Because let's say maybe next time there is something that the mob is hating on: you can draw from this experience where you realized that you had internalized misogyny without knowing it, then be able to better reflect on yourself and whether you as a person truly dislike this thing or whether you're going to step up and defend a relatively innocent victim.
As a straight MAN i got this properly explained to me in an Instagram meme the other day:
Imagine a hot alpha vampire chick and a muscle mommy werewolf fighting over the attention of a shy high school boy.
I finally get it 😢
Watch harem anime
Frfr we don’t dunk on harem anime or scott pilgrim anywhere remotely close to the level of what twilight and meyer got. Like not even a tenth of the vitriol even if you combine backlash from like five series combined
I guess the lessons to take away are: like what you like, dislike what you dislike, examine why you like/dislike something, fanfiction is at the very least a neutral thing, don't impregnate 14 year old girls even if you tell them "it's what they did in the middle ages".
In the books Dany got pregnant on her 13th birthday.
She was 12 when she married Drogo.
I thought they went pretty conservative in the show by aging everyone up 2-4 years.
“Never represent elements of a setting that would be icky to a modern audience.”
What?
@@gma5607 ok, then lets see some depictions of dysentery! or disgusting uncleanliness! no bathing! body hair on women! all y'all want from that "setting" is rape and pedophilia. you don't care about realism.
not to mention, GAME OF THRONES ISN'T REAL. it doesn't take place in a REAL era in OUR world. there aren't any "elements of a setting" because noooone of these things ever really happened. you don't HAVE to write rape and pedophilia and incest into the story. jesus christ.
jinx hayes But it kinda is in a historical setting? Despite it being in a different world it’s still just the Middle Ages with more magic I imagine (I haven’t started Game of Thrones yet but from what I’ve seen I’ve gathered it’s Middle Ages oriented). I’d even watch those things you’ve mentioned. I think only peasants really looked all that dirty though, Queen Elizabeth covered herself in powders and such though her teeth were black. Like I said I’ve never seen the show so I can’t speak for the ladies though.
Also no, of course nobody has to write rape, pedophilia, or incest into a plot but it’s a story? Should we not write stories where a characters been raped now because rape is bad? Now I know that’s probably not what you were trying to say but I wanted to add that because of how it relates to other things. Now pedophilia isn’t okay, nobody is making that argument. But at a certain time people married children and nobody really thought about it, it just simply happened. Freaking Edgar Allen Poe’s did it. To act like in a time where marriage is mainly a means for power and bringing families together this didn’t happen is wrong. Now it sounds like he did it once, he highlighted it happened and it doesn’t sound like he was saying “hey guys get some child brides” but simply saying this was a thing and this guy did it.
If I’m incorrect here or have mistaken something please tell me. Most of what I’m trying to say is pretty broad since I’m more arguing for use in media in general, but I may have made an assumption and if it’s wrong please tell me.
Medium age at which people were married for the first time during the middle ages : 17.
I was that teenager that fell in love with the story, because it was literally my fantasy! two hot guys fighting over me? I don't have to worry about school anymore, because my bf is a vampire and I am going to live forever? Oh his family is rich, so I do not have to work a day in my life, unless I want to?
OF COURSE WE LIKED THE BOOKS! xD and then the movie came out and it was awkward and Edward was not at all like I imagined him, so I got off the hype train and started to obsess about The Vampire Diaries... yeet
I moved on to The Mortal Instruments, which is kind of just as bad. 😂
THIS.
Jiae Hong they are awesome 😎
omg you described it so perfectly!!
@@hongjiae I always considered them way better but they are really similar even though less creepy.
What I also didn't like was vampire diaries but on the other hand I liked the vampire school or something like that.. The main protagonist was zoe redbird, she was incredibly arrogant but I liked the story and her confidence :D anyone knows which book it is?
I don’t care what anyone says, that baseball scene was dope
Introduced me to a good song so I kind of liked it lol
I agree. I really liked that baseball bat flip thing Jasper does. There's a behind the scenes gif of him doing other twirling tricks with a bat that's pretty cool. Of course, this series' existence lead to there being Rifftrax commentaries of all the movies, so I'd say it was a net positive in my life, even if the acting and premise are mostly awful. I liked the people who played Alice & Carlisle and that's about it.
Honestly when I read the book, that was the scene that kept me going with the series. I only started hating it because of that bullshit ending. I honestly threw the book across my living room and yelled "Are you f****ing kidding me!?" My dad gave me a very confused look. Those are still my feelings. You can't have crazy shit like Vampires playing baseball and cannibalistic babies and have a nothing ending!
@@DarkAngelEU The movie franchise (I loved it at the time) and this baseball scene in particular are actually what got me into Muse, and I'm probably not the only one, so now 10 years later I am really grateful for that and will even see them live in concert this year! Greetings from a fellow Muse fangirl :)
I have no memory of it, except that one of the girls looked really good in baseball pants
I read Midnight Sun recently, and what I liked most about it was that Edward falls in love with Bella because she is a good person. That's it. She's not some super brave warrior girl or this witty, sarcastic outcast. She is just a truly good person, and I think that's an underrated quality in female protagonists of teen romances these days.
"Good person"
That's... inaccurate.
@@earningzekrom4173 What do you mean?
@@SquishyButt Bella is anything but a good person: She is shallow, selfish, manipulative, whiny, pretentious, entitled, spoiled, lazy and self-absorbed, whose only "ambition" is being Sparkleward's sex toy.
@@jorgebersabe293 how many of the books did you actually read
@@audri1273 omg I fr was gonna say that like none of those sound like bella
sort of off-topic but I had no idea how absolutely BEAUTIFUL Stephanie Meyer is omg
Clare O'Brien exactly. Thought I was strange for thinking that.
Nah she's not really my type. I'll have to agree with the horselooking comment
Saying someone isn't your type or you aren't into them is far less rude and shitty then saying they look like a horse.
shupasopni but it's not intended to be insulting when she really looks a bit like a horse
what kind of horses have you guys been meeting?? and where do i find one
"We hate teenage girls" On behalf of all teenage girls, particularly girly ones, 😊THANK YOU
Wow okay edgelord
@@megmeg2784 What is your issue with her comment?
Don't worry, they don't like butch teenage girls either. You have to be "just right". You have to be able to eat burgers with the boys, but look amazingly immaculate with the "no makeup" look at all times.
@@Trixtah Don't you dare be into fashion of make up, but also don't you dare to not be pretty!
Hello from another panda portrait :)
I went to a book signing for New Moon when it was released and met Stephanie there. I will say, she was nothing but nice, friendly, and open. She responded to my socially anxious dumb comment with a lovely anecdote that made me feel at ease, instead of ignoring me or pushing people along the line. The opening to this video about fans being angry that she didn’t receive angry emails just doesn’t compute to me, because she was so nice in person.
Not everything you have to consume has to be complete masterpiece anyway. "Oh my goddd haha you watch Friends, that show is not even that good it is so overrated" Well Woww f**** hell maybe after a 12 hour night shift I just want to sit and watch something lighthearted and fun and easy?????
Y e s!!
I did like her book "The Host." While it would be a stretch to call it a great book, it did have a surprising bit of depth to it.... None of which was in the film, btw.
Adored the host book but hated the film
The Host was good. Twilight was mainly just fanfiction (which has a bunch of stuff that comes with it like weird tropes, overly used tropes, not great writing) that became really well known. As someone who reads a crap ton of fanfiction, I've seen plenty like that and even worse ones, they're just hidden away in FFnet, aka "the pit." Another reason it got targeted in the first place was that it was so popular (not her fault), so lotsa people read it, and a bunch liked and a bunch hated it.
which is pity bc the film had Saoirse Ronan whom I adore in more of her work
I liked The Host a lot. Not a masterpiece, but I really liked Wanda. A sensitive, gentle, compassionate female protagonist who wins with her emotional strength isn’t something you see a lot these days.
The Host would make a great TV series
I read Twilight. I liked Twilight. Because I was a teenage girl...
She also wrote The Host, which was one of my favorite stories like...ever.
I was a teenage boy, and I too liked Twilight (and especially The Host.) Can't see liking these books today, though. Nowadays I'm more into brutal fantasy stuff with some romance.
The Host definitely showed that she'd matured as an author after finishing the Twilight series. The Host definitely has its faults, particularly with some of the male characters, but many problems that were found in Twilight were either improved upon or not there at all. For one thing, Meyer let people die! Not any of the main characters, but certainly fairly well-liked ones, rather than one character who the reader barely knew.
I just really like The Host.
Same
Eu também amo Crepúsculo
"Wrote the host"
Lol
Ok so I’m just gonna say this: I watched the movies first and judged based on that. Nothing, and absolutely nothing prepared me when I read the books and I kinda fell in love. Stephenie Meyers has a beautiful way of writing that makes even vampire and werewolf cliches seem melancholic. It’s not her fault the movie didn’t incorporate the book properly and Stephenie, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry for judging based on the movies.
I liked that too when I was younger, and, actually, Twilight was my first fantasy teenager novel, so, it was kind of cool to read things besides the school appointments, that didn't need to think deeply and just enjoy the ride. Gratefully, I didn't take any characther as a role model XD
I remember being glad I finally read a book that actually reflected the thoughts I was having as a teenager. And being immensely disappointed by the movies. I still think the books were great.
@@Erikari The books always make me feel like a teen again. She really captured the teenage girl mind. Love the books
I actually watched the movies when I was little and cringed, now I’ve read the books and I’ve started liking the movies, they’re not as cringy to me anymore
i remember watching the movies and then reading the books too. the books were so good that i pulled several all-nighters to finish the series. it was that good.
"That would have ended up with the legality of fanfiction in general getting litigated, and no one wants that...."
That hits different after your most recent videos.
I read an academic article for a class a bit ago (I was writing a paper on my experience cross-dressing for a day).
It was a meta-analysis that combined the results of several studies to generate a theory as to why it is more socially acceptable for women to take on masculine roles than it is for men to take on feminine roles. More specifically, why girls can wear boy clothes but boys can't wear girl clothes.
Basically, men and masculinity are socially superior. Girls come to this realization somewhere around middle school age. Many of them grew up wearing pink, playing with dolls, loving disney princesses and whatnot. When they get to the age where they start to realize that men are more respected than women, they change their behavior to be more masculine so that they can enjoy some of the social benefits that their male peers do. In my opinion, mainly these girls just want to be taken seriously.
Trading femininity for masculinity is a trade up, in our society. To go the other way would be a loss.
The article estimated that over/around 60% of girls are "not like most girls". I word it that way to be humorous, not to detract from the sentiment. If it were up to me, being girly would be more socially acceptable.
Its title was something like "Pink Frilly Dresses" if you want to look it up.
In the hierarchy of insults to males #1 & #2 are being/acting like a girl (or a female body part) or being a homosexual. So when it comes to relationships, workplace, & media, why wouldn't men feel superior? Why wouldn't they believe that their wants, needs, and opinions are more valid than a womans?
Men have been taught that anything feminine is lesser than and really just frivolous nonsense. Watching and talking about football is worthwhile and interesting. Talking about The Bachelor or a romance novel is just wasting time on trashy stories.
If men do not agree with this or follow suit, they are relentlessly teased or worse.
Women who flip this dynamic are aspiring to be 'better', you know not like 'other girls'.
The patriarchy doesn't just hurt women, it hurts everyone.
Reading this reminded me of when I secretly really wanted to see the first Frozen movie but said instead that I hated Disney Princess movies do people didn’t think I was girly and childish
I'm a psych major with specialty in human sexuality and gender studies and I am literally face-palming here.
20 years of experience in the subject and I am face palming.
For me to make a good comment on this, I would have to ask questions that I really just don't want to invest time in - however I will say that I think that article is lacking. I don't know who wrote it or their credentials but it's definitely lacking.
This also reminded me that I was like that when I was younger 😣 I started to hate wearing dresses and all hobbies that I was considering as 'girly' like stitching and playing with dolls...
But now I love to wear dresses again and want to start learning how to stitch 😊
Personally, i don't understand that, you could splash yourself with lot of make up but i'll still look at your behaviour and the way you talk. I respect people not base on their acts towards other people, not on how they dress.
I like girls btw, and i like watching them talk about their passion, whatever that is, of course i draw the line in passion of killing puppies, i would strangle her.
I disliked Twilight, but the idea that she, or any other artist, has to respond to every critique is absurd. Aside from the fact that she couldn't possibly have had the time for that, the notion implies a sense of fan/reader entitlement and a closer relationship between reader and writer than is warranted.
My issue is that the books aren't good, i hate to sound like a jerk but the biggest problem with things today is garbage being excused becasue you like it...
Yeah i occasionally like stupid things too, but i also make note that i wouldn't actually care if i saw less of those things or they were actually done well, in fact i probably would enjoy them better.
But that's not what happens becasue we excuse them and put them out of mind becasue we don't want to feel bad for liking them...and thus people keep making the same problem...
Well you know what happens when you support garbage...it makes money, and publishers, authors and fans want more of it...
there would not be a 50 shades of grey i guess, if not for twilight (i do not believe that at all unless myers thanks she owns the copyright to the relationship dynamic she pilfered and stole from other literature as well)
so that go towards my point.
It kills me becasue this is cheese and garbage that doesn't deserve a chance...there are talented people who never made it but this is what makes it?
what a waste.
I think what most people took issue with was Stephenie's brothers rude and downright childish email to the girl who sent the email/made the petition.
He simply could have ignored and deleted the email as one of thousands he probably received and instead he actually replies, starting off with smugly telling her that he will not be forwarding her letter to Stephenie, nor any other of the '35' emails he'd received that day. He then snidely remarks that he didn't think the petition was well written and passive aggressively remarks how because she made a grammar mistake (she addressed the letter to Stephenie but then later refers to Meyer in third person) and suddenly he doesn't understand who she's talking to. Then he brings up how many reviews he sees praising Twilight, childishly bragging and using the fame as a shield.
He proceeds to answer the criticism with the vague, hand-wavy answers that were being criticized in the first place, and then closes the letter with "And finally, Heather, your letter is not respectful at all. It is libelous in many instances. I would be embarrassed to say such things about someone who I have never met."
I'm not defending the girl who wrote the petition, even if her criticism of the books was valid her demands for Stephenie were definitely entitled, but she was polite and Seth's reply was basically a passive aggressive, well-written tantrum. I mean, accusing her letter of being libelous is a thinly veiled threat.
For some context in case you haven't seen it, here's her letter and his reply in full (I can't find the petition anywhere anymore, but this was years ago and Seth's letter is old news.)
"Seth,
I completely understand that you are not the whipping boy for Stephenie Meyer, but she has given us no address to reach her directly, so sadly, I have few choices- and one of them was to send this to you.
My name is Heather Faust, and I have written a letter to Stephenie and to Little, Brown. As suggested by a number of others on message boards, I posted this letter as a "petition." Today we reached a thousand signatures. (It has only been live for a few days.) We will continue to leave it live and see how it grows.
I feel that it is well written and respectful, and I would hope that you would take a few minutes to read it. If it gets through to Stephenie, well, I'd be thrilled. We are not looking to hurt her, we aren't looking for her to rewrite it... We just want our opinions acknowledged, and we'd like to no longer be referred to as a "vocal minority." We'd also love it if she'd be able to answer our concerns with more than just "it's fiction," "I'm not a biology major" or other brush offs. We don't, of course expect that at all. But just a simple "Yes, I hear you, I'm sorry that you were disappointed" would be enough for us.
Anyway, sorry that you are in the middle of all of this. That must suck for you.
Thanks for your time"
And Seth's reply:
"Heather,
First, let me assure you that I will not forward this email to Stephenie. You say that you are not looking to hurt her, but it would be ignorant to believe that criticism of any kind does not hurt the person to whom it is directed. I didn't even forward any of the 35 emails that I received today telling me (or Stephenie) how much they loved Breaking Dawn, how the series changes their lives, etc.
There are a few other reasons why I would not forward the link to this "petition." (By the way, you have heard that online petitions never generate results, right?). I disagree that it is "well written." Besides the grammar mistakes (which are not hard to overlook), you address the letter to Stephenie, but by the end of the first paragraph you refer to "Meyer" in the third person. I am not sure if you are speaking to her or not. Also, the "signatures" (which are completely invalid) are not just names, but a discussion board. I went to one page and found three people defending Breaking Dawn and saying things like "I am surrounded by self absorbed teenagers or adults that think they can write better books and never do!"
And, although I got very bored and wasn't able to read the entire "petition," I want to try to answer a few of your main points (although I'm sure that Stephenie's answers would be a lot better than mine):
#1 and #2: At the end of Eclipse, Alice specifically says that nobody has ever made the conscious decision to become a vampire, and so none of them had any idea how Bella would handle the entire process.
#3 and #4 (and everything else in your : These books are fiction. They are filled with FICTIONAL characters that Stephenie made up all by herself. In an attempt to keep the books clean and not make young girls think about things that they don't need to think about, no other book mentioned anything about reproductive systems. They are Stephenie's characters, she can decide anything that she wants.
And finally, Heather, your letter is not respectful at all. It is libelous in many instances. I would be embarrassed to say such things about someone who I have never met."
"It kills me becasue this is cheese and garbage that doesn't deserve a chance...there are talented people who never made it but this is what makes it?"
---
There will always be popular trash. Twilight didn't edge out some neglected masterwork. If Meyer had never written it, it would not be replaced by the debut of the next great novelist, but by some equally trashy nonsense. Twilight has myriad sins, but taking the place of some more deserving book isn't one of them.
" it would not be replaced by the debut of the next great novelist, but by some equally trashy nonsense."
It has more to do with, the fact that twilight is trash but is successful and got a shot while people who have probably written far better or had greater talent and potential never got a shot at all.
"It has more to do with, the fact that twilight is trash but is successful and got a shot while people who have probably written far better or had greater talent and potential never got a shot at all."
But isn't that just how life is? Why was there so much more universal anger over Twilight being more popular than better books and not nearly as much anger over other unfair things that genuinely hurt people?
Seeing other people hate on ready player one is the closest I've come to experiencing what it feels like to be in love
My soul sees your soul, friend
We should make T-shirts.
darkrage6 and Steven Spielberg
Raiden Vakarian most important thing to add: STEVEN F'N SPIELBERG
We all love Lindsay, i know.
I've never disliked it 🤷♀️ 12 years after and I still watch it.
honestly
I was a uni studying creative writing when Twilight was at its height of popularity. The majority of what I wrote for my classes was YA fiction and I would get questioned constantly by academics about my thoughts on the series. It got to the point where I ended up reading Twilight just to figure out why people hated it so much - because that was the thing about being questioned all the time. These people would find out I wrote YA, and then they would ask me about Twilight as if to question the validity of YA fiction as a whole. They would ask me these questions as if to say, "I need you to prove to me that what you write is Real Literature, and not THAT Twilight story, because THAT Twilight story could NEVER be Real Literature." It was incredibly frustrating, not to mention insulting.
But the thing was, when I read the Twilight saga - cause I read all four books, I'm not a quitter - I didn't hate it. I actually kind of love the series, admittedly in the same way I love stuff like Sharknado and The Room and Mills and Boon books, but still. I enjoyed reading Twilight because it was silly and predictable and easy to read. It was riddled with chapter-ending cliff hangers, and over-zealous purple prose, and I never got bored of it, even when it went absolutely nowhere. I understood where the criticism was coming from, absolutely, I'm not going to pretend that its problems don't exist, but for the life of me I couldn't bring myself to hate it. I just enjoyed it too much.
So in the end, when people asked me what I thought about Twilight, I got really good at giving an answer that I've been told is very politically correct. Instead of just agreeing that, yeah, it's trash fiction, I'd say stuff like, "Well, it's not Shakespeare by any stretch, but the woman can write a cliffhanger." Cause, like, it's not fucking Shakespeare. I'm not even arguing that it's just good - I don't necessarily think that at all (if anything I would call it "typical", because it actually really is typical of its genre). But I'm not gonna bash a book series because it's not groundbreaking or unpredictable or beautifully written or because it chooses to revel in its own fantasy. Not every story is "Real Literature" in that sense. And why should it be, really? Not every story needs to be smart to be entertaining.
Stephanie's biggest asset as a writer is in some ways she knows what her audience wants. Which is a very important talent as a writer.
"Stephanie's biggest asset as a writer is in some ways she knows what her audience wants. Which is a very important talent as a writer."
This alarms me...cause if twilight is what people want, then people have no taste or critical sense...
If i had to expand further on this i would say, she knows which hack tropes and tacky cheese that attracts people, but much like the con man who manages to swindle everyone they meet or the snake oils salesman that manages to convince you to buy their garbage...it says less about the quality of their work and more more about how they're able to cheat/fool the rubes.
"Not every story is "Real Literature" in that sense. And why should it be, really? Not every story needs to be smart to be entertaining."
Especially if the majority of the audience aren't that smart or it doesn't take much talent to entertain them...
My issue with the books is the excuses people make about them...
Literary achiever Stephen king called the Twilight books, "tweenage porn" and when asked to compare his review of Harry potter to Twilight he says this:
"The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a darn,"
"She's not very good."
"It's very clear that she's writing to a whole generation of girls and opening up kind of a safe joining of love and sex in those books."
When asked why he thought the books were successful he summarizes it quite well,
Twilighters simply aren't yet ready for or even familiar with real or adult romance, and she presents a world that romanticizes and hypes up the fantasies of tween-age girls about relationships...
"They're really not about vampires and werewolves. They're about how the love of a girl can turn a bad boy good."
---Stephen King
The books are not that clever, not well written (in terms of character, act structure etc.) plot is either stupid and or barely focused on, the relationship borders creepy, possibly unhealthy (but of course the book nor the characters ever see it that way)
it keep people interested with world and pace but again getting something right and the rest wrong doesn't make quality literature...or at the very least soemhting worth mentioning.
it's a gimmick aided by over used despised tropes and plot devices.
A real test of success is making something *smart* and *entertaining*, something that actually will be known as other than simply brainless teen girl fantasy fulfillment...
It bugs me when people say entertainment doesn't need the brain to be told or good....cause that is easy, and becasue it's easy, it's popular, and when there s over-saturation of entertainment without brains...people don't know (or appreciate) anything else.
You need to step back and understand people at a fundamental level because by sheer surface details yeah Twilight might seem like garbage... Dig deeper and you get towards the wish fulfilment. The fact that Edward "Cockblocks" Bella, for example, means he is the epitome of the outlet for teenage sexuality... In fact he is practically teenage sexuality incarnate, you know it is dangerous and yet you MUST keep away. It is easy to dismiss things as trashy, but you should understand them and why "Better" books flat out fail to spark the same interest. No "Good" book will ever be close to Twilight, because no "Good" book is allowed to hit the same themes due to the Victorian ethics of "taste" ("Edward must be the perfect gentlemen or else he is a bad character! None of this mix of wrongness and yet desirability... BARF!")
I am not saying that Twilight is perfect or even all that well written, I think it is passable. Yet rather that you could never EVER suggest books that do what it does but better, because no one who does "better" would dare hit those same notes.
As to the 'in the middle ages, thirteen-year-old girls got married' - in more general terms, the regular age of marriage was around twenty to twenty-five, which isn't that far from today (when you look at the church books which catalogue marriages and check on the dates on which the people in question were baptised). Marriages in which one or both were still teens were usually between ruling families and were political - quite often, the marriage was not consumed (aka 'they had sex') until years later. The first husband of Lucretia Borgia (she had two) complained to her father that he wasn't allowed to sleep with his wife - and never did, because soon afterwards, her father, the pope, revoked the marriage completely, because the man was no longer useful to him. Being married at thirteen didn't necessarily mean having sex at thirteen.
That is super interesting and I never knew that, despite having heard the "Teenagers married in the middle ages!" factoid thrown around a lot. Thanks.
@@christamabee9702 well, the source basis OP is referring to is more in the later Middle Ages and proto-modern age, as church books from the early Middle Ages aren't widely preserved (so like 14th/15th century onwards we got lots of stuff). But it makes sense to extrapolate to the earlier Middle Ages as well. Giving away a pair of hands at age 13 makes no sense, since she couldn't exactly pop out the 7 kids needed to end upon with at least 2 living ones. There is economic reasoning for 22-25 being the typical age of marriage, as in many regions, people needed some kind of economic basis to marry and make themselves independent. Be it the reaching of a certain status in a craft or the acquisition of land.
Of course this was different in other places, where families tended to live together in large households, even after the kids married. There the marriage age was more like 16-18. This actually connects to a kind of outdated but still semi-valid concept called the "Hajndal line", where a guy observed that the different types of marriage age are distributed along a line cutting diagonally from south-west to north-east in Europe, with younger ages in the East and older ages in the West. It's outdated, because it kind of was influenced by the division of the Cold War and also because there are of course spots on either side where the opposite age range was dominant, but it still mostly observes a tendency relatively accurately.
@@paperbackwriter1111 In the early middle Ages the life expectancy was 20. Of course many babies died, but still, 40-50 was considered old age. So no, most girls married and had sex as soon as they got their period (13-16), a disgusting practice that is still present in some cultures today (some Islamic countries and parts of India).
It's called bethrodal
*”consummated”, not “consumed”. I suspect autocorrect did you wrong, but just in case... 👍
I came back here to say that when I first watched this video i thought she was exaggerating about everyone likes to shit on what teenage girls like. Then I just watched a video where a guy shit on like 3 to 4 webtoon comics that predominantly teenage girls liked FOR 2 HOURS. Just...needlessly overanalyzing and ripping them apart. That was the first time I've seen an analysis video and went "What...why are you taking this so seriously?". He kept harping on the man-candy and problematic romance.
Then I remembered this video and it clicked and fuck you were right.
Oh, I know that video! It was from Clementine.. something.. productions? About Lore Olympus. I also had flashbacks to Twilight debate with his accusations. I even left him a comment saying just that. It's still there, but it's a bit buried under people who think that if somebody is talking in the video on the internet their word is the law. Funny times.
I found this comment-essay-rant I wrote under that video, enjoy.
" Yeah, ok, I was thinking about it for three days and now I have to write it, can't help it, because it smells like a Twilight debate all over again and I thought Lindsey Elis put an end to that, so...
I actually went and read Lore Olympus after your vid, just to see what so gross about it.
All of the webcomics you mentioned are basically pulp fiction: cheap drama and unnecessary plot points designed to keep the damn thing running forever. Modern soap operas. They are pretty much a dumb cheese for females.
But. You say yourself that they are not made for you and you don't get it. This is very much a natural response, you are male, and male brains focus on different things than females. I really advise you to look up this video: ruclips.net/video/yhwO8u4sZ-8/видео.html
I will reference facts from it later.
Let's focus on Lore Olympus for a moment. The tropes and the power dynamic shown there is the ultimate female fantasy and it's present in old works of literature like Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice. This is very much a biological/ instinctual thing that's why it's so popular. Women are attracted to status and older males. Your primary line of offense is that it 'grooms young girls into victims of sex abuse'. Does it though? If we look at fiction this way then I will say every media 'grooms' you into something if you take it as reality. It's kinda scary to think about it.
You have to understand, that if grown, adult woman influenced by works of fiction do stupid decisions on their own accord, then it's pretty much their fault, I'm sorry. It's the same kind of idiocy like jumping off a building believing Red Bull will give you wings. And I think you're barking at the wrong tree here and you yourself being male should have no right to criticize and dictate what girls should read. I brought up Twilight debate, because this feels like a flashback to that: __is not a good role model, __ is 100 years old, no-one should read it, it's not good for girls, etc. Double standards; what about boys media? Killing, guns, emotion suppression, super-hero power fantasy of being the king of the world. Is it ok? Doesn't it 'groom' them into being aggressive sex offenders then? No. I can stretch it as far as to ViDeO GaMeS cAuSe ViOlEnce. This is just fiction and is interesting to different groups for different reasons, and THAT'S OK, as long as you know the boundary between reality and fiction.
Damn, I wrote an entire essay. And I don't even like these comics, I like to read them sometimes in a a way some people like to watch terrible reality shows just to zone out. But I needed to get it out, because videos like this take away people's responsibility to make their own decisions and make them into victims of imaginary threats. It's not against you or whatever, but do some research on these issues before you start criticizing it. Peace, man. I liked the vid. "
@@SilverLion09
I want to correct you on one thing, I think in Cody Ko's video she stated she identifies as a trans girl.
I'm not going to lie, that part made me feel a bit iffy. I felt like a lot of her arguments were valid but that one.. The thing about it, it assumes that teenagers are dumb. That they won't be able to know what's right from wrong.
But the thing is, there's a lot of stories like that on webtoon. As well as movies. Stories about Bad Boys who rarely get punished for their actions and basically comics that romanticize bad behaviour.
Its a bit hard to assume that there wont be people who are going to try that in RL.
@@POP-nm1ix Who's Cody Ko?
@@SilverLion09 A RUclips who does commentary channels as well as podcasts.
You know what I find interesting is how we are so concerned with teenage girls having "strong role models" but we never talk about what kind of role models boys have.
Yes it is “problematic” but the hate was a lot b/c it had that “every teenage/tween girl likes this boy band so I automatically hate it”
Pretty much. I read the books a couple months before the movies were announced and everyone was either telling me how great of a book it was, or asking if they could read it next because it sounded neat. The movies come out and all of a sudden everyone hates it. Even I was dragged down into the peer pressure of hating Twilight in public, but loving it in secret.
I liked Twilight at one point. I _never_ understood why. Looking back, turns out I was that much of a frigid bitch, too.
She definitely brings up a point I never considered. As someone who loved vampires and read Anne Rice books as a teen, I hated Twilight for "ruining" something I loved, and I hated it for being so popular when the girls around me had never read the vampire books which I considered superior. With that being my frame of reference, I considered the Twilight hate completely deserved without realizing that my reason for hating Twilight was not why it was receiving so much hate.
Obey Amma PREACH!!!
Yup. Circa 2010 the Internet was awash with savants of shitposting giving their impassioned hot takes about how a bear attack is still a better love story than Twilight, and an accordion falling down the stairs of a lighthouse represents a bygone era of good music cruelly taken from us by Justin Bieber. Do these two hatedoms have a 100% overlap? Maybe not. Are they completely identical in every respect? Absolutely.
In Hindsight Twilight is better & farless toxic than The Grey series
I'd say Twilight is far less toxic than games and anime in general, even though I love both.
The bar has never been lower lol
borot man Depends which games or anime. You're generalising too much
darkrage6 Better doesn't mean good
yugoxgc No, he's really not. Gaming in general attracts a lot of toxic losers, plain and simple. It doesn't matter which game. Anime fandom has its bad points, though perhaps not as toxic overall. Those who hate anime tend to be more toxic than those who love it in my experience.
every time i hear "i studied monty python, /and not just holy grail/" i instinctively roll my eyes so hard i get a headache
It's like "oh, cool, you watched some British comedy, I hope you had a laugh", but they make it sound like they took out a pen and notepad and tried to figure out what it all means.
Mordaedil It's framed in the context (in the book at least) that it's his life consuming research for the contest that wins you ownership of the world by knowing pop culture things, so it kinda makes sense that he'd write it that way.
That being said, it's a stupid, self obsessed book with a contrived premise, written by a sad, small man, which celebrates everything wrong with pop culture obsession.
Also, it's Life of Brian that's an actual part of Britsh pop-culture, not nerd trivia.
THE BOOK WAS SO BAD AND I HAD TO READ IT FOR SCHOOL BECAUSE OF A FRIEND..I cant forgive her.
You don't study your comedy with a notepad? I guess you're not a real Monty Python fan.
Twilight was the book that got me into reading, and I will forever be grateful to Stephenie for creating the Saga. And just like me I know a bunch of girls that started reading thanks to this books, I'm talking girls who nowadays are book editors or are english literacy teachers. And for me I found the beautiful world of fiction books in an era where reading was "boring" and "for nerds" at least in my school lol
Back in ye olde 00s, my time on the anti-Twilight train came to a screeching halt because of exactly this: it was getting girls and femme folks into reading.
Once again, Lindsay shows that maturity makes fools of us all.
She's absolutely correct. I feel as if I need to apologize for every post I made on /lit/ back in the day...
AgentOracle GENERA FICTION!
AgentOracle don't we all brother
It's an interesting video but she makes too many inconsistent comparisons. Lindsay’s comparison of Twilight’s stalking to Scott Pilgrim’s stalking doesn’t make much sense since, unlike Edward, Scott is supposed to look like a creepy, pitiful, lowlife at many points in the movie. They present him as a naive, socially-inept slacker, while Edward in Twilight is supposed to be a cool, dreamy husbando. There's characters before and after that scene that insult and criticise Scott for chasing after that girl and their encounter is presented as awkward and cringey, whilst in Twilight, Edward's stalking is seen as charming.
She also compares Twilight's content with GoT and Fast and Furious despite the obvious difference in target audience age. If GoT or F&F had the same target audience age as Twilight they wouldn't get away with their content.
F&F is absolutely targeted at young teen boys. My friends were all over that in middle school and early high school.
ShiningSpear Now that you mention it, F&F is much like teen wish fulfillment in the way Twilight is for a different gender. Good point
I’m kind of glad I was too young in 2008 to have experienced or understood all that hate Twilight received on the internet (and more) and was able to enjoy reading the books with little prejudice in 2012 as a barely teen. And even then I was able to see the problematic parts of it and never saw any of the characters as a role model, but could still dream of destined love and having an immortal hot boyfriend who protects me when I’m in danger. It was a nice escape from my angsty teenage mind.
@@Hyacinthless damn thank you for this. people act as if ANY type of not-morally-correct things should be banned from existence, especially if they are aimed at teenage girls as if everyone wants to see virtue and justice and equality in everything and never escape their boring lives for a bit. the fictional world was created for a reason and very rarely it should reflect high and mighty correctness. fictional stories, which are kinda labeled under "art", should make you feel things, be them positive or negative but should never dictate your thoughts and influence you. and newsflash, you shouldn't read/watch them if you don't like them. and tbh it's not the writers business how easily influenced or sensitive A PART of their public might be. I also enjoy dark stuff but even as a teen, watching twilight never made me want to be in a relationship with an older guy or become a furry
@@Hyacinthless to be fair people are constantly saying video games cause violence and was an equally dumb comparison
And I think I am happy that I was already in my twenties. I read the books and loved them. Saw the movies and thought they were ok (what I like to call a popcorn movie). Could not give a shit about people opinions about how terrible it was. Me and my now fiancé love to watch trashy movies like fast and furious and make fun of them, and even he says twilight movies are really not that bad (our only fight is that he says she should stay with Jacob and I tell him he clearly never read the books so he does not know Edward like I do so he should shut the f up).
You know what? It may not be the greatest plot, write or book in a whole. BUT it drived a lot of teens and pre-teens to the reading world. And I thank Twilight for that.
That's exactly how I feel about young adult novels. A majority of them aren't good in my opinion, but at least it is getting pre teens and teens to read. So because of that, I respect them.
*drove
Young adult novels can be emotion-driven, pretentious, lacking refinement, etc etc, but for the most part so are teens :D We're not usually mad at fairy tales for being too unrealistic or simplistic, because we know kids need that and relate to that. I think this is similar.
Slitheringpeanut Were you replying to my comment? And what did you mean?
@@Slitheringpeanut I think you're insulting their intelligence. Not sure if you're aware but most women out there (including those who grew up on Twilight) don't actually want abusive creepy boyfriends in real life. Twilight is a fantasy, not a relationship manual. People, even teens, go into it realizing that. Plus, as attractive as Edward may have been in the movies, most of my female peers, 13-15 at the time, STILL couldn't stand Edward. Same for a lot of other girls online. So your tirade about attractive men getting away with being creepy is void.
Speaking of fantasies, quite a lot of women fantasize about being abused by people like Edward. On a subconscious level Twilight very well may have catered to that. Again, doesn't mean they want that kind of treatment from real life partners. Stop and think next time you want to insult the reader's intelligence over fantasy and reality.
Daenerys was raped in the ASOIAF book too. basically heres what happened. she was scared of viserys so she agrees to be open to the idea of having sex with drogo, verbally saying "yes" during her wedding night, because shes being threatened by her abusive brother and she has convinced herself "im a dragon and im tough enough to handle it". yeah thats not consent. the next four months of daenerys' marriage with her "sun-and-stars" husband daenerys is raped daily.
her way of coping with this is praying that he "takes her from behind" so that she could muffle her own screams and cries with a pillow because it upsets Sun-and-Stars Bae when she cries. sometimes he just flips her over in the middle of the night while shes asleep and just does it without even a heads up. everyday she thinks about ways to kill herself until she finds out that shes pregnant on her 14th birthday. this is ABSOLUTELY supposed to be framed as rape in the books, moment because up until then daenerys' age is never mentioned. and the book just drops that bomb on you like "yup that 'woman' whose getting raped all day and night? yeah its a little girl. sorry."
there are a billion things the show did wrong but not sugar coating that moment under the guise of "but she said yes!" as if thats consent, is not one of them.
You brought up a good point on the Stephenie Meyer vs Anne Rice approach to fanwork. That really put it into perspective for me about how maturely she handled the amount of bile that went her way.
I found Bella’s character to be so relatable and realistic! People say she’s dull and boring but what I see in Bella is a girl who moves to a new town, new school, has this group of friends she’s not really interested in and almost has no interest in anything with a boring life. Then she meets a vampire guy (who she’s doesn’t know is a vamp but say mysterious) who takes interest in her. She gets to know him as one does and is brought into this new world of vampires. She says so many times how she wants to be a vampire with Edward and live with him forever, and that’s because she so desperately doesn’t want to go back to her boring life that she has no interest in. When Edward leaves in new moon, her depression is real. She’s lost this one thing that made her life have more of a purpose, that made her happy. Of course she will sulk and feel suicidal because that’s bella. She’s an average girl who never had interest in her average life and once she sees something out of the ordinary being taken from her, she sees no point in living her miserable life. You can really tell after bella becomes a vampire on how much happier, confident and sure of herself she is than human bella. She belongs somewhere now, has purpose. Bella is underwritten to the point where she’s overwritten by how simple she is, how quiet and empty she is. It’s not outwardly spoken that bella feels like this but people assume that’s just because she’s boring and obsessed with a random vampire. They don’t look into it and see that Stephanie Meyer wanted a regular average girl to portray bella. Nothing special, nothing out of the ordinary. As a reader, teenage girls would self insert themselves as bella being in first person. I can go on so much more but I will never not defend this series. It gives such a calmness and relaxing vibe with the the aesthetic of the green trees, cloudy days, rain all that add to the story and makes it twilight.
yeah i can totally relate to someone as flat as a cutting board
@@Megafreakx3 haha nice
The aesthetic for real is very very calming.
I enjoyed reading it when I was younger, and it was very enjoyable to imagine myself sitting in Meadows under blue skies and driving through endless roads walled by dense forests.
But I'll say this, Edward was an IDIOT in New Moon for leaving (forgive me, I don't remember the premise) and what was the point of Eclipse, even?
Also, in retrospect, climbing in through Bella's window and watching her sleep was so so creepy
Sohini Dutta He left because of a snafu that happened at her birthday party. He figured they were only going to make things worse by being there, so he decided it would be better if they got away from her as far as humanly possible.
Same. I'm literally like Bella on the outside.
*your pop feminist hot takes CAN have elements of internalized misogyny*
((louder for the people in the back))
dude. I'm really glad she said this. hell i'm happy she made this video at all! it really shows that just because your a feminist doesn't mean your above criticism and that yes... you can screw up. I actually respect her even more now and she was already on my youtuber top 5.
So, that part of the essay had me cocking an eyebrow. The observation being presented was essentially women who are self-described feminists attacked Twilight, but later gave Transformers a pass. While I am not someone that has his ears to the ground when it comes to the dialogue surrounding specific movies, my only response to that is "Really? Is that actually the case?"
🖒🖒🖒🖒
If this is only thing you get from this video, you are sad person.
Yeah, when the movies came out I was a kid (or the first movie at least by the time the last one came out I was in high school) but even I was uncomfortable with the kind of vitriol directed at the films. I've never watched them or read the books because I wasn't interested, but it seem like people were personally offended by this book to a point that I just couldn't understand.
I just want to come back to this video to say that I remember it very clearly as a well-deserved slap in my face. This video called me out hard and really made me re-examine my past behavior and how I engaged with the things that young girls like.
I still feel the affects of being made fun of for what I loved as a tween girl. As if being twelve and awkward and insecure wasn't bad enough being pointed at and laughed at over what I loved was hard and something that still lingers. Now I remain much more private with the things I love and that's a direct result of this hate culture. I worry about being judged on some small level still and that's not okay. The bottom line was Twilight was the first book series I ever loved. It turned me into a reader. I now have a degree in English Lit and I cannot say that is the path I would have taken had I not picked up those books and fell in love with literature back in 2008. I think it's important that we stop this mindless hate culture and consider the effect it can have on a person, especially someone so young.
Honestly I’m just starting to openly admit what I like at the age of 25. It seems most things I passionately liked have had a hate train, like Twilight, Kpop etc.
I feel you so much. Hating on people's interests is so harmful and has lingering effects, especially when they are young, but frankly, we shouldn't do it to people of any age. To think there were grown ass adults pointing at and laughing at a (pre)teens book is kind of sickening.
I heartily agree, I really like Twilight, it's not perfect but the level of vitriol people spewed at it was wrong, especially as it wasn't just being mean about the books, it was verbally attacking people for reading them/watching the movies, hateful comments can ruin people's lives especially a teenager girls confidence, so I never admitted to liking Twilight until now.
@Ooohbopbopboppadoohwah I'm a millenial and it all sounds exactly the same as the generalizations towards us that I had to grow up with... except the interests are swapped for something else, the emojis or slang changes, but at its core, it's never the problem. It's just excuses. And of course, it makes kids turn against other kids because they need to prove they are "better than that." (Frankly, many comments in this thread demonstrate it really well.)
THIS OMG
I'm SO GLAD that you touched on the significant sexism in the "criticism" towards Twilight.
Turns out, you can be against a franchise for "demeaning women and girls" (which Twilight and most YA does anyway and those criticisms still valid), but not actually care about women and girls, and I wish more people were aware of that.
I still don’t buy that the criticism is sexist. It’s not hated because it was made to appeal to young women but because it offers nothing more than a mediocre romance and shallow scenes. Stuff being made for young guys in a similar way only escapes criticism if it offers some base level of fun (such as action movies, which people of both genders can still enjoy) otherwise it ends up being criticized to hell too like Zack Snyder’s Suckerpunch.
8bitdiedie Twilight wasn't all that great, true, but everything that has young girls as a demographic is instantly labeled as bad, and it has to move up from there.
That's where the whole "I'm not like other girls" stereotype comes from.
Boudicca The Sleeping Lion your comment really has nothing to do with the original post and it seems you just wanted to come in and talk about how you're "opressed" as a man in this situation; you can like what you like, but that doesn't invalidate other people critiquing the misogyny that's targeted at young girls. Just because you like a genre or film or whatever, that's depicts some hyper masculine guy preying on a younger vulnerable figure, doesn't mean that isn't detrimental to the vulnerable young audience it targets
Disney Princess movies, despite a bit of modern backlash, are still seen as impressive works of art so I wouldn't exactly say everything with young girls as a demographic is instantly seen as bad.
I do agree Twilight got a lot of exaggerated backlash because of it's fandom (which is mainly young girls) but most media with annoying fandoms get exaggerated backlash regardless of audience gender.
I never read the Twilight books, or saw any of the movies, but at a San Diego Comic-Con a few years back I got a chance to talk to a couple of adult female fans of the series. The thing they keyed on about the series was the return to romantic ideas of their youth, where everything was about yearning and forbidden fruit and we-want-to-but-we-musn't. For these women, who had crossed the line into sticky sex and relationships and motherhood and responsibility, it was refreshing to return to that sweet innocence without complication. As an adult, I can appreciate that; it's the same kind of thing I like when going back for a Narnia re-read. We put away childish things... but it IS nice to splash around in puddles every so often.
Too bad the main audience for them wasn't adult women, but young, impressionable tweens who don't yet realise it's childish.
I totally understand why a lot of people find twilight to be awful, but I gotta say, it’s been my guilty pleasure ever since I was 14. It was the first book I actually read on my own accord and something about it drew me in. Even after discovering better books like the hunger games, I still find myself re-reading the twilight saga 12 years later and remembering how it felt to be a teenager relating to a fictional clumsy human who falls in love with an immortal sparkling guy with exceptional powers who’s obsessed with safety. As a lot of twilight fans know, the films didn’t do the books justice but real fans can still appreciate the films and their cheesiness.