The Secret Of Why Twilight Fans Love It And Why Everyone Else Hates It

Today we’re going to talk about Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. It’s a dark Paranormal Romance Series. And if you’re wondering why I chose it, it’s because she knows her audience so well.

You’ll see what I mean in a moment.

Twilight is the story of a human, Bella, and her love triangle between two different supernaturals; a vampire and a werewolf.

Now, I’m going to say upfront, I did not like Twilight. I didn’t get all the way through the first book. I normally don’t say bad things about books but I can in this case because nothing I say is going to alter her sales in the slightest.

But there’s a simple reason I didn’t like this book. It wasn’t written for me.

By that I mean I’m not her target audience by a long shot. Her target audience was 16-year-old girls.

More than just a demographic, Twilight appeals to a psychographic. Specifically, it appeals to people who are feeling lost and want to be saved. Bella felt lost and unmarketable and was redeemed through Edwards’s love for her.

In other words, she became special without much effort. She was saved. It’s an escapist fantasy, and sometimes you need that.

At various points in our life, we all feel lost and want to be saved, and this brings up the psychographic. High school is a rough time in anyone’s life, but particularly for a girl. Many teens commit suicide before they are able to graduate and understand that high school doesn’t define them.

They psychophysics that Twilight appeals to is the one of feeling broken. When you’re a high school girl, you often feel broken and have fantasies of someone cool coming to your rescue and making you worthy and cool by way of his love.

This is exactly what Twilight did. Through Edwards’s love, Bella went from broken to healed.

Now, real-life doesn’t work that way of course, but books do. And this book was able to vicariously fill a need for millions of teen girls who feel lost and alone. Through the saga of Bella and Edward, they themselves became whole and held onto a future of a better tomorrow even though they know vampires aren’t real.

So it doesn’t matter if I liked it or not.

It resonated with her target market, and that’s all that matters. I was already an adult when I read half of the first book. However, I remember what it was like to feel broken and depressed as a 16-year-old girl. There’s a chance that if I had read it then, it might have been one of my favorite books.