How Twilight Went From Guilty Pleasure to Cool Trash

It has been 15 years since the first Twilight film came out, but a short clip posted earlier this month of a young girl getting her hair cut to emulate one of the characters’ signature hairstyles currently has over 14 million views on TikTok. The ‘Alice Cullen Hair’ (a quirky mix between a pixie and a bob) is now trending thanks to TikToker Kayla Noel uploading a video of her daughter, who insisted on getting the haircut. “It's her canon event,” said Noel in the caption.

This is but one in a long list of viral moments that signify the curious resurgence of the Twilight saga on the internet over the last few years. The books, written by Stephanie Meyer, performed well when they came out in the early 2000s, but it was with the release of the first film in 2008 that the series became an international phenomenon. But along with valid criticism of the story’s problematic relationships and absurd plot points (how could we forget Jacob imprinting on Bella and Edward’s new-born baby?) came the inevitable barrage of vitriol that is directed at most things that have a target demographic of young women. With scores of Facebook groups and WordPress blogs dedicated to hating on Twilight, the series has essentially been pop-culture’s biggest punching bag of the last decade. Frequently pitted against its cooler and better-liked contemporaries in the young adult/fantasy genre (like Harry Potter and The Hunger Games), Twilight was, for the most part, never more than the guiltiest of pleasures. 

Until now, apparently. 

Revisiting Twilight in the 2020s

YouTuber Sarah Z, in her video essay entitled ‘Everyone Is Into Twilight Again’, noted that the Twilight rebirth really took off in 2020, “wherein people who were Twilight fans — and sometimes even Twilight haters back in its heyday — returned to the fandom once again, with a fresh perspective on the story.” In a recent episode of her podcast Sentimental Garbage, best-selling author Caroline O’Donoghue and musician Maisie Peters discussed how the new wave of Twilight has invited people to do a closer reading of the series, from its unfavourable representation of the Quileute tribe to models of toxic masculinity in Edward and Jacob.

Moreover, Twilight’s unapologetic appeal to women and its portrayal of female desire is drawing unexpected praise. YouTuber Nathan Zed, who has hilariously dubbed the Twilight resurgence the ‘Renesmeesance’, observed in a video, “Watching [Twilight] for the first time now, I kind of like how they didn’t even try appealing to anybody else [other than teenage girls]. If you’re a guy or a girl that likes to say she’s ‘not like other girls’, this movie isn’t for you. And it’s not even going to try to be.”

Twilight takes teenage yearning seriously. For Peters, what is enduring about the series “is the drama of the love story.” Bella and Edward’s love story is characterised by powerful emotions, major sacrifices, and life-or-death stakes. O’Donoghue and Peters noted that while Bella is not a typical feminist heroine, she is never a pushover. She consistently resists Edward’s traditional notions of marriage, and pushes back against Jacob’s unwanted advances. She is vocal about her desire to be turned into a vampire, and in the final instalment, her wish comes true. To many readers, Bella feels like a reflection of themselves, articulating their longings in a sparkling fantasy world of vampires, werewolves and undying, eternal love.

Was Twilight a Good Film?

“Back in the day, it was a rite of passage to hate on Twilight,” said Zed in one of his videos. “Every joke has been run into the ground, every negative thing has been said. So imagine my surprise when I’m watching this first movie and it’s low-key not that bad … Watching Twilight feels like watching a movie.” Possibly helping the resurgence is the shift in the public image of Twilight’s lead actors, who have since gained recognition and goodwill for their performances – like Robert Pattinson with Tenet (2020) and Batman (2022), and Kristen Stewart with Happiest Season (2020) and Spencer (2021) (Honourable mention: Taylor Lautner’s cameo in Taylor Swift’s newest music video, ‘I Can See You.’) 

Rewatching the Twilight films in 2023 is making many people appreciate aspects they hadn’t really noticed before, particularly the cinematography and soundtrack. O’Donoghue pointed out how Twilight was visually distinct from other teen movies being made at the time. The infamous blue tint (which disappears after the first film) makes Forks feel like a pocket outside our time and reality — gritty, gloomy and enchanting. Catherine Hardwicke, who directed the first Twilight film, makes use of Dutch angles, extreme close-ups and dynamic camera movements to convey the surreal urgency of Bella and Edward’s love. Twilight’s score is thoughtfully put together to fit the vibe of the film, with a haunting original theme and a selection of alternative rock songs — setting the tone with ‘Full Moon’ by The Black Ghosts in the opening, and taking the excitement up a notch with Muse’s ‘Supermassive Black Hole’ during the iconic baseball scene. YouTuber Dominic Noble, who breaks down book-to-movie adaptations on his channel, remarked, “One can simply not judge this movie without mentioning how the baseball scene, with its unapologetically goofy fun and excellent choice of soundtrack, rocks way more than anything associated with Twilight has any right to.”

Haters to Lovers

Perhaps the best part of the resurgence is the collective epiphany that the Twilight films are really quite funny in retrospect. “There's something so fantastic about that first movie because it's weirdly camp?” said O’Donoghue. “It's self-serious to the point of being absolutely hilarious." Picture Edward exaggeratedly retching when he sees Bella for the first time, or him jumping around the forest and running up the mountains with Bella on his back. Sarah Z noted, “Returning to the movies reveals a certain level of humour that a lot of people didn't register back in 2008,” due to heavy focus on the romance itself. As such, an affectionate sense of nostalgia and the evolution of meme-culture on the internet have caused several scenes and dialogues from Twilight to go viral for how absurd they are in hindsight: “Hold on tight, spider monkey”, “Where the hell have you been, loca?” and “You nicknamed my daughter after the Loch Ness monster?!” Fan edits and compilations of these moments (with titles like “Edward Cullen being a gaslighting, gatekeeping, girlboss” and “Twilight being an iconic comedy for 10 minutes straight”) have hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube. Excited fan communities regularly host Twilight watch-parties on Twitter.

The real fun, however, is on TikTok and Instagram, which have been flooded with Twilight commentaries, parodies and cosplays over the last few years. Elizabeth (@twilight_talk), who used to make videos about the fashion in Twilight, now shares trivia, theories and deep-dives about the series in her wildly popular TikTok videos. Blue-filtered videos of popular creators enacting some of the most ridiculous scenes from Twilight have accumulated millions of views. Charles Brockman III’s (@c.b.3) videos feature him wearing a wig and exaggerating Bella’s twitchy, awkward mannerisms in the films. Brody Wellmaker (@brodywellmaker) has watched Twilight so many times, he can imitate the characters right down to the way they walk. Yasmine Sahid (@ladyyasmina1) is famous for her “Jasper face”, as she pulls the vampire’s stiff, constipated expression in increasingly hilarious scenarios (like when the people around him have nosebleeds or get their periods.) Rose Frankel (@granolagirlpottery) occasionally chats about the series as she makes clay mugs and bowls, many of them Twilight-themed. 

TLDR: Twilight is Cool Again

Besides the jokes and memes, the Twilight resurgence has given older fans the opportunity to re-experience and earnestly re-contextualise a work from their youth, while introducing the vampire saga to a whole new generation. It has allowed for more nuanced conversations around the series and its flaws, which are juxtaposed against the sense of nostalgia that surrounds Twilight. TikTok user @twilight_talk has shared about how, despite her love for Twilight, she can’t stop picking apart some of the more objectionable elements in the series: “I have a really good time engaging with people about the things that are problematic that we should call attention to as well.” Even as @ladyyasmina1 pokes fun at Jasper’s pinched facial expression, she constantly reminds her viewers that the vampire was canonically in the Confederate Army, and potentially fought to uphold slavery. 

In her podcast episode, O’Donoghue highlighted how Stephanie Meyer’s conservative Mormon values possibly coloured her writing of Twilight, as well as the fact that the Quileute tribe received no compensation despite their identity and culture being appropriated in the series. Like Sarah Z pointed out, “Twilight renaissance fans are still fans, but it's less in a ‘worship the ground Twilight walks on’ sense and more in a ‘this may be trash, but this is my trash’ sense.”

For many, the dreary world and slow-paced plot of Twilight is a source of comfort, a reminder of a simpler time. Whether or not you enjoy the series, it cannot be denied that Twilight has had an indelible cultural impact, one that is still felt to this day. After all, even Pattinson, who famously trashed the films back in the day, has come around to Twilight. “It's not even cool to be a hater anymore,” he said in an interview. “That’s so 2010.”