The Oatmeal Explains Twilight

Author: THEbrittina  //  Category: Short Stories

The below content belongs to TheOatmeal.com – One of my fave LOL sites….

Now… I love the Twilight series… But I love sarcasm and I totally laugh along with some of the humorous puns on this series… Sure Twlight kinda does teach you that a 107 year old vampire dating a 17 year old girl is perfectly normal… and no it’s not glorified pedophile-ing in my mind… But I can totally see why people say that and I will definitely laugh along with it… :)

THE OATMEAL EXPLAINS: HOW TWILIGHT WORKS

A few weeks ago I had the miserable experience of reading Twilight. A friend bought it for me and I took it with me to read on a long flight from Seattle to Houston. I knew it was going to be crappy, but I thought it would be a guilty pleasure kind of crappy – where you know it’s bad but you still get enjoyment out of it. I actually managed to power through around 400 pages until I gave up and started reading Sky Mall. I’ve been seeing Twilight everywhere lately, especially with Vampire Teens II New Moon’s release, so I thought I’d break down why chicks go apeshit for it.

The fans

First off, the author creates a main character which is an empty shell. Her appearance isn’t described in detail; that way, any female can slip into it and easily fantasize about being this person. I read 400 pages of that book and barely had any idea of what the main character looked like; as far as I was concerned she was a giant Lego brick. Appearance aside, her personality is portrayed as insecure, fumbling, and awkward – a combination anyone who ever went through puberty can relate to. By creating this “empty shell,” the character becomes less of a person and more of something a female reader can put on and wear. Because I forgot her name (I think it was Barbara or Brando or something like that), I’m going to refer to her as “Pants” from here on out.

Pants

So after a few chapters of listening to Pants whine about high school, sucking at volleyball, and being the center of attention, the second major character is introduced. Imagine everything women want in a man, then exaggerate it by ten thousand – and you’ve got Edward Cullen. The level of detail that the author goes into while describing Edward’s appearance is remarkable. At one point while reading I started counting the number of times the author used the expression “Edward’s perfect face,” and it was far into the double digits. The author excruciatingly details his muscular pecs, clothing, hair, eye color – even his damn breath (I’m not joking).

Edward

Edward intensely listens to everything Pants has to say, even if she’s bitching about she had diarrhea on Christmas or her preferred method for cutting a sandwich in half. As far as the reader is concerned, Edward cares about nothing in the world more than Pants. What the author has done is created a perfect male figure – a pale Greek statue which the reader can worship and in turn be worshipped by.

Edward

So what about men that like Twilight?
If you’re male and you like Twilight, you’re gay. I don’t mean that in the derogatory sense, I mean it in the “you want to put your testicles against another man’s testicles while gripping handfuls of chesthair” kind of way.

And the movie?
The movie is just the same uninspired crap shat out onto a film reel. If you like the taste of horse manure on your bologna sandwiches, you’re probably gonna like it on your birthday cake as well. The same principle applies with Twilight.

Beyond that, it’s just a romance novel with the occasional vampire teen drama bullshit peppered here and there. It doesn’t really break any new ground in the realm of vampire fiction, other than portraying vampires as a family of uncomfortable retards who prance around the woods eating deer and bunny rabbits. There’s lots of nervous lip-biting, tender kisses between Pants and Edward, and lengthy descriptions of every feature of Edward’s body. Pants is a static character who never really progresses beyond being an insecure vampire fangirl who obsesses over Edward. Whether her character grows beyond that is unknown to me, I’d stopped reading by then and shifted my attention to an electric butt-massaging chair in Sky Mall.

The Twilight formula

This was written and illustrated by The Oatmeal

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9 Responses to “The Oatmeal Explains Twilight”

  1. Beth Says:

    Are you a professional journalist? You write very well.

  2. Alex Says:

    Arent you like the biggest Twilight fan out there?

  3. Bert Says:

    Yep… pretty much :)

    Definately one of the first Twilight Fans… I started the First Book, Met Stephenie at a Signing for the First one, then met her again at the New Moon book signing… about a year later… things got crazy and everyone knew who she was and she was a tough woman to meet…. lol.

  4. noneyeh Says:

    how the hell can you say youre a twilight fan and call it crappy

  5. Bert Says:

    Um… I’ve never called it “crappy” and I’m definitely a Twilight fan…
    You can think something is incredible but make jokes about it… come on how would we all survive if we didn’t?

    Chuck Norris even laughs at his own jokes! :)

  6. Danny Says:

    You called it crappy in the first paragraph…

  7. THEbrittina Says:

    That was written by “The Oatmeal”. Not by me. I’m re-posting a fave post that humorously explains how many men feel about Twilight and the weirdness they are witnessing….

  8. THEbrittina Says:

    You will notice that it reads in bold letters at the top of the post ” This content was created by THE OATMEAL” then the post goes on to read:
    “THE OATMEAL EXPLAINS: HOW TWILIGHT WORKS”…

  9. Valera9 Says:

    Great information, I will be linking back to you and going to look around at your other posts.

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