Yesterday I met a man, one who is probably in his mid-forties and from Westchester, New York, with salt-and-pepper scruff and horn-rimmed glasses. My first mistake was trying to continue engaging in a conversation about this very project when he sat down next to me and asked ‘what we (my friend and I) were talking about’. My second mistake was thinking that I should ever do this project at all.
Apparently, everything I thought I knew about Twilight is wrong! I’m so happy to report that the mass hatred of Twilight actually has nothing to do with misogyny! And this man only needed to have seen the movie once, quite recently, to inform me that Twilight is a Bad Movie because it is green (I was pretty sure it was blue, but who am I to determine color boundaries) and includes a ‘toxic relationship’. Here I never knew that a relationship between a 108 year old vampire and a 17 year old human girl could possibly be setting some unrealistic relationship standards. Or that depicting an imperfect relationship makes a movie bad. I mean, I’m just a woman. I have no ability to discern between fantasy and reality, and when I watch a film I immediately internalize all of its messaging, so its way too dangerous for me to watch a movie with a relationship worthy of criticism.
'"renaissance" is a really big word'
And get this! Apparently the Twilight renaissance isn’t even happening! Because ‘renaissance’ is a really big word. Did you know that? I didn’t. When I tried to tell this man that if he googled ‘twilight renaissance’ he could see a bunch of articles discussing this phenomenon, he rightfully scolded me with the rejoinder ‘oh, because everything on the internet is true’. Here I was thinking that a plethora of news outlets writing about the increased popularity of a film franchise was a pretty good way to tell that said franchise is indeed experiencing a resurgence of popularity, but I guess they were all lying about it, since they are on the internet!
'oh, because everything on the internet is true'
I also learned that post-ironic relationships aren’t a thing, and that if people are watching Twilight right now, its only possibly because of nostalgia. Did you know that everyone loves pieces of media they enjoyed in their childhood? I didn’t! But back to post-irony. When I asked this man if he had any experience whatsoever with meme usage, he proudly responded, “no”. Since he doesn’t engage in the exchange of memes at all, that makes him the most qualified to comment on phenomena like trends in internet humor, because he is ‘disinterested’ and ‘unbiased’. So, sorry guys! I guess all this stuff was me just being silly. I’m done with this project. Guess I have to think of something else!
Since he doesn’t engage in the exchange of memes at all, that makes him the most qualified to comment on phenomena like trends in internet humor
He also informed me that more people have opinions right now than at any previous time in history. I didn’t want to risk upsetting him by directly disagreeing, so I politely asked him if he really thought this to be true. My friend, who was also listening to this conversation, helpfully pointed out that maybe we just see more people’s opinions than we have previously, because the internet sort of makes it so that we have an unprecedented level of access to content created by everyday people (this was, in fact, the point I was hoping he would come to, but its okay if he needed a little help). Apparently though this wasn’t convincing enough, because he doubled down before telling me that ‘real discussions only happen face-to-face’, like the one he and I were having, wherein he was ‘making an effort to understand me’. ‘Don’t you think you’re more likely to be charitable to someone you’re speaking with in-person than you are over the internet?’, he asked me. Not feeling very charitable at that moment, I attempted to demur. I carefully told him that in my decade plus of internet use, I had never actually gotten into an internet fight with someone, nor had I cyberbullied anyone. I guess I don’t need a person’s physical body immediately before me to realize that they are a person deserving of respect, or something?
he was 'making an effort to understand me'
I shifted the conversation towards the form of social media sites, attempting to discuss the impact the character limit on Twitter has on the possibilities of discourse. It was at this point that my interlocutor informed me he had ‘never used Twitter’, with a little scoff and a smile. I wondered how someone who had apparently not used the internet very much had formed all of these opinions about the internet! I figured he must be smarter than me to not even need to use a thing to know all about it. I tried to say something about being weirded out by a tweet from an author I like, to which he responded, "who? Stephanie Meyers?". He was correct in assuming I have read no books besides Twilight. I was barely even able to read that!
I didn’t dare ask, lest he think I was stupid!
Alas, it came time for my new friend to leave. He made sure to share with me one last thing before departing, his ‘unpopular opinion’. He told me that generations are just arbitrary constructs made to market products to people. He didn’t elaborate on why he thought the only possible function of ‘generations’ was a marketing one, but I didn’t dare ask, lest he think I was stupid! I reassured him that that was a pretty popular opinion. Indeed, I am definitely familiar with criticisms of strictly demarcated generations, but am personally more sympathetic to the idea that generations are useful categories of organization which can be helpful in noting general trends but do not hold any sort of ultimate truth-value or causal power. But I guess that’s wrong. It’s really all just about marketing!
image credit @twilightreborn on twitter
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