Sparkly Vampires: Communists?

So, I've been following this debate around, and it concerns vampires of the sparkly sort. These days, I can't swing my walking cane around without striking someone who has some emotional connection to Twilight, good or bad. I've known some people who absolutely love it and some who absolutely hate it. So, I couldn't help but wonder: Why's that?

I've read the book myself, you see. When it started rising in popularity, noticeably that is, about a few months before the forth book came out, everyone I knew was reading it. I felt like the odd man out for not even knowing what it was. So, my friend's parents, who had both read the books, took me aside and explained it to me very honestly.

"It's an interesting book," they claimed. "Very mushy and overwritten, but it's enjoyable."

"What's this interesting book about?" says I.

"Sparkly vampires."

Okay...

They didn't have the first book themselves, as they had gotten it from the library, so I used my vast amounts of wealth to buy it myself. At that point, the only reason I was going out of my way to read it is because it sounded like good conversation could come of it. There's nothing better than discussing, positively or negatively, a movie or book that you and your friends have read.

So, I read it. Reading Twilight in its entirety took all but a couple casual afternoons. I finish it. I set it aside. Think about it for awhile and come to the decision: It wasn't half-bad.

Go over to my friend's house and we talk about it for a while. At the time, I got my ex to read it as well, and she finished all four books in a few days. Then I pushed it on my cousin, who got more of our family to read it.

Everyone read it! No one seemed particularly angry that they had done so, and most of them even went to go see the movie when it came out (me included). Even then, nothing negative.

Lately, though, there's been a disturbance in the sparkly Force. With the sudden and epic popularity of the Twilight movies/books (which is probably more focused on the movie's lead actor more than anything else) has come this division. A wise young man named Romper Stomper once said that there are two kinds of people in this world: those who like Animaniacs, and those who don't like Animaniacs. Nowadays, I think that division has blurred some.

It's an enigma to me. The book is not good enough to be loved so ravenously the way it is, yet, it's not bad enough to deserve the hate centered toward it. Twilight just IS. It's that book that you find crammed into the same section that holds Harry Potter books, that's there simply as a means to an alternative. But this year, one of every seven books sold in the United States was a book by Stephenie Meyer. Did it deserve it? I'm tempted to say no, purely because Watchmen should never be topped by sparkly vampires. But...

It's one of those books that just got everyone and their mother reading again. Kids were falling head over heels for it, and parents were reading it to see what caused such a clumsy reaction. Emo kids finally found characters to relate to (I've seen this first hand. Boyfriends fell into two categories: Edward-like or Jacob-like). Teenage girls finally found a new idol, and the Jonas Brothers lost their fanbase...heh.

I'm typically always against blaming the work itself for a reaction in popular culture. It's like blaming the radioactive spider for the atrocities that occurred in Spiderman 3. That spider was just being a spider. That book was just being a book. If it bothers you so much, do your part to ensure that something like this doesn't happen again. Spread the word about books that actually have substance, and start reading more yourself to find those particular selections.

Go forth and conquer, Blog Reader.