Throughout history there’s always been
a fad. Whether it’s Shakespeare, Charles
Dickens, The Beatles or Elvis, we’ve always had someone that’s set our hearts
racing and our pulses rocketing.
In the same vein we’ve always had
people who hate the latest fad. And
that’s okay. Our chosen forms of
entertainment are a reflection of the society from which we emerge and we need
people to have different tastes.
Imagine a conversation between a
couple in London in 1594.
“What will thou do tonight Helena?”
“Shall we watch the latest Shakespeare
Timothy? My heart beatest a thousand
beats for that saucy playwright.”
“Oh Helena, thou art such a
woman! Shakespeare is for thou silly,
uneducated peers. Let us entertain ourselves with proper fair. Tonight we shall watch a cock fight. To watch animals fight to death is a proper
celebration of our love.”
Yeah, well, perhaps entertainment was pretty slim
pickings back then but you get the jist.
Currently the most dominant fad seems to be
Twilight. I admit I watched the first
movie but I wasn’t caught up enough to watch any of the others.
“Eh,” I thought to myself, “sparkly hot
vampires. I think I’ll stick to True
Blood.”
And that was that.
To my mind at least.
One day, seemingly overnight, I woke up to social
media frenzy. Facebook and Twitter were
littered with funny pictures, status updates and comments about Edward and Bella. I have to admit I joined in, laughing at the
absurdity that is Stephanie Meyers and her obsessed fan following. In fact, I threw in a couple of those funny
pictures and updates. Somehow my mind jotted out the memory of my high school
self, pre-ordering the new Harry Potter while all my ‘cooler’ friends made fun
of me.
But it didn’t stop there. Twilight haters soon started dominating
conversations. It seemed that it was
inevitable that social events would not include some reference to Twilight.
“It’s utterly ridiculous how many people are reading
this rubbish. I mean in the last book (spoiler
alert) Jacob fell in love with a baby!”
I wonder how much rubbish these books can be if the
haters are making it all the way to the third book/movie.
The next argument that always comes up is a long
monologue about what a terrible influence Bella is for little girls. Again, it’s always of interest how much
detail people know about the characters that they profess to hate so much.
I’m not going to argue about the virtues of
Twilight. I have never read the books or
watched any of the other movies. From
what I’ve heard about Bella, I would probably hate her as well.
What I will say about the books is that there’s
obviously something there that appeals to people. A reflection of our society, whether good or
bad, is something that we have to acknowledge. Years ago I found out that Harry Potter had
been banned from my primary school library because of its ‘unchristian values.’
It’s that vein that I’ve decided to celebrate the never ending debate between
the haters and lovers of fads. It’s okay
to dislike something, it’s also okay to make fun, but the freedom that comes
from choosing whether or not to like something is a valuable part of
society.
And, to Twilights credit, at least it kicked High
School Musical off the fad list.
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