Twihard with a Vengeance

I mentioned in my intro post that I did not want to review Twilight.  The reason I gave was that it was reviewed by everyone and their brother.  While that’s true, that’s not the entire reason.  I got to thinking about it, contemplating what it was about the Twilight saga apart from the popularity of its critique that I wanted to avoid, why I wanted to hide my personal feelings about the series from the world, and I came to one conclusion.

Twihards.

Even before I read the books, I was mortally afraid of these fanatics.  My introduction to the Twilight series was from a couple of Twihards at school, one my teacher and one a fellow student in a different class.  Both would not shut up about it, ranting about the more “romantic” aspects of Edward.  Shortly afterward, I heard numerous rumors about Twihards actually attacking people who did not think Twilight were the best books ever.  Even simple comments about plot holes or someone just not being into the charming good looks of Robert Pattinson gets fangirls up in arms, at least outright insulting people for disagreeing with something they like.  I don’t know if any of the physical attacks are true, but the verbal attacks most certainly are.

People can get overly defensive about their interests, and with the large communities that internet access creates for these interests comes an overwhelming backlash of and against “haters”.  This is certainly not exclusive to Twilight.  Hard core fans of anything (*coughBiebercough*) experience this phenomenon.  The thing is, even if the abuse is only verbal, or even just comments on the Interwebz, it is still abuse.  There is no reason to hate someone because they like or don’t like the same things as you.  Calling someone gay or jealous because he/she doesn’t find your favorite celebrity talented or attractive, saying they are stupid and don’t know absurdity when they see it because they like a certain book or movie or TV series that you think has a stupid premise or bad writing is not only immature and insensitive, it’s arrogant.  Bullying someone for liking or disliking something of popular culture simply because you don’t agree with that person is not an acceptable excuse or behavior.  Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, and certainly beating someone up about it isn't going to change his or her mind.