Twilight Renaissance

For other uses, see Twilight.

Event
Event:	Twilight Renaissance, Twilight revival
Participants:	Twilight fandom
Date(s):	Early 2018-Present (Still ongoing)
Type:	Fandom Occurrence, Fandom Renaissance
Fandom:	Twilight
URL:
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This article documents a currently unfolding situation within the fannish realm. Content may change quickly, and the page structure itself may undergo major revision. New details are very welcome.

The Twilight Renaissance is the name given to the resurgence of the Twilight fandom in 2018. It originated on Tumblr and expanded across different social platforms, gaining special relevance during the 2020 pandemic. The Twilight Renaissance is considered a new era for the Twilight fandom because it happened after the fandom went through a period of hibernation, and because it resurged with a sense of self-awareness that drove fans to take a critical stance in regards to the canon material.

While the original Twilight fandom found a strong response from anti-fans who ridiculed Twilight, the fandom during the renaissance takes both the role of fan and anti-fan: they find enjoyment in mocking the canon text while also professing a renewed sense of fondness for the characters and the story.

Timeline

Before 2015

After the premiere of the last movie in 2012, the original wave of fanaticism declined and the Twilight fandom faded from the mainstream eye. Casual fans lost interest once there was no more canon content to engage with, while others left the fandom after P2P became a common practice for fanfiction.

Furthermore, the initial intensity of the fandom was toned down due to the original backlash that the saga caused, as fans who were ashamed of being identified with the feral conduct of the fandom relinquished their interest in favor of criticizing the bad aspects of the saga. However, the few who remained were able to reconcile the criticism with their love for the saga. Panlight Tumblr has been active since 2011 and they describe the early days of Twilight fandom on Tumblr as:

[...] When this blog started, the Tumblr Twilight presence was either “Twilight is the greatest love story of all time, Edward/Bella are goals, SM is a genius, I like my men cold dead and sparkling” or “If you enjoy Twilight on ANY level you are irredeemably stupid and bad, it is the Worst Thing in the Universe, lololol sparkling vampires, still a better love story than Twilight, etc.”

I never fell into either of those camps, and I found a pleasant group of likeminded “critical/LOL fans” who liked to talk about the parts they like, but also critique it both in terms of writing/style/plot as well as point out problematic elements, and to joke about it. But I’d still get asks once in awhile that would be like “LMAO YOU LIKE TWILIGHT HOW EMBARRASSING” and also “why do you blog about Twilight if you hate it so much?” and it was always like, how am I getting both of those responses from the same content???? I don’t get that much anymore with the Renaissance; we’re on a similar wavelength. [...]

Life and Death, and the Pre-Renaissance (October 2015 - 2017)

The 10th anniversary of the book and the publication of Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined made some fans want to revisit the saga. The majority of the responses to the book were not positive and the use of the genderswap trope incited the opposite response to what Stephenie Meyer intended . Lesbian!Bella rose in popularity and Bella x Edythe became a doable pairing among the fans who rekindled their interest in Twilight. Two fan projects were born: Twife or death (re-imagined lesbian romance) and Twilight Revamped (re-imagined gay romance).

twifeordeath blog description:

This is a blog dedicated to combining Twilight + Life and Death into the ultimate queer vampire romance novel without the abuse and more added diversity. All rights belong to Stephenie Meyer. This is a non-profit fan project for fans.

gaysparklepires blog description:

[...]This is a fan rewrite of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, combining Twilight and Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined with some additional adapting to create a Twilight centered around Beau Swan and Edward Cullen. Yeah. Gay Twilight. Let's call it... Twilight Revamped [...]

Around this time the returning and remaining fans who were critical of certain aspects of the canon showed more interest in side characters, like the wolf pack and the Volturi. The criticism of the saga focused on highlighting the issues of the canon (mainly racism and misogyny), and fans created new content (headcanons, memes, meta, fanfiction, fanart, etc.) to uplift the native and female characters that the canon mistreated.

From 2015 till 2017 the Twilight fandom content was not widely circulated outside of the closed online circle of fans. But around 2017 people started talking about how cringe culture had been used to mock and shame fans of media that was primarily female oriented. In January 2018 Lindsay Ellis published her video "Dear Stephenie Meyer" in which she addressed how the backlash against Twilight had been unfair and biased.

"Cringe culture is dead" launched a wave of anti-cringe culture stances and fans who had been ashamed of liking Twilight started to feel allowed to show interest in the saga again.

The beginning of the Renaissance (Spring 2018 - Winter 2018)

The 10th anniversary of the film drew some mainstream attention to Twilight, with the publication of some think pieces about the legacy of the movie, Catherine Hardwickes' struggles to make Twilight happen, and the mainstream frenzy that followed. But the appeal of the saga wasn't rediscovered until the memes and shitposts flooded social media.

Cockmcstuffins' 17 April 2018 tumblr post is credited with kickstarting the Renaissance. As of 2022, the post has over 400,000 notes. It was very short:

bella was lucky she didn’t have a cell phone of any kind because you know ya boi edward would be blowing up that phone 24-7 going “saw a snail today…. effervescent” or some shit equivalent

It was one of the first posts that widely circulated outside of the Twilight blogs and incited a myriad of Twilight shitposting focused on Edward's love for snails and the use of the word effervescent.

The term "Twilight Renaissance" was probably coined around the summer of 2018. The blog twilightrenaissance was created in August 2018, hinting to an already established term by then. In one of their first posts they summarized what had been brewing since 2015 and crystallized during 2018:

i’ve been trying to figure out why it seems like suddenly a lot of people are drawn back to twilight and this is what i think it comes down to:

1. nostalgia
   
2. growing up and realizing that nothing can be stupid or cheesy if you’re having fun and that life is too short not to have a good time and genuinely enjoy things that make you happy
   
3. the powerful potential twilight has once you realize everyone is actually gay

"Renaissance" was coined to capture the idea of the rebirth of the fandom. It was a rebirth from inactivity, but also a rebirth as a fandom self-aware of it's controversies and against the previous media fan bash. The main characteristics that define the Twilight Renaissance are:

1. Rejection of canon. The Renaissance is open about their criticism and dislike of certain elements of the canon. There is a widely spread anti-Renesmee sentiment and she received the Benedict Cumberbatch mispronunciation treatment (ex. Resumeme, ^{Archived version}, Resentment, ^{Archived version}). Imprinting is considered one of the most problematic aspects of the canon and JacobxRenesmee is rejected from fanon.
2. Focus on side characters. The Renaissance fosters great interest for the side characters and wants to redeem the ones that were mistreated by the canon (ex. Rosalie being written as a vain bitch by Stephenie, or Jacob's terrible character evolution after New Moon). It is also common to examine the deconstruction of the biases that lead to characters being generally misrepresented (ex. the wolf pack being wrongly portrayed due to Stephenie's racism, ^{Archived version}). The fandom took special interest in the character of Leah, since she was the unhappiest character at the intersection between racism and misogyny.

   forever mad that leah: was dumped by her fiance, he immediately began pursuing her best friend/cousin, said best friend/cousin betrayed her by actually beginning to date and eventually marry ex-fiance, was indirectly the cause of her father’s death, and then became the first female shapeshifter in history, which threw her into intense doubt over everything she felt she was “supposed to be.”
   and then on top of all of that, she was forced to constantly be in a pack of 10+ men (including the ex-fiance) that openly hated and ostracized her. she could read their every thought and they could read hers.
   and the reason they all hated her? because she was a woman that dared to have feelings and be upset over the incredibly unfair hand she had been dealt in life.

   renegadepack on Tumblr.

   every day i think about how rosalie hale was so powerful and so controlled that as a newborn she murdered her rapists and managed not to drink their blood. jasper could never. bella looked like she struggled more with that mountain climber dude than rosalie did in her flashbacks. and EDWARD could ABSOLUTELY NEVER. so he should keep his bitch ass mouth CLOSED when referring to rosalie bc she has more power and control and influence in her pinky finger than he does in his whole body. god bless.

   lesbianstwilight on Tumblr.

3. Meta and discourse that condemns the negative elements of the canon. The racism, misogyny and general negative religious undertones are highly criticized (ex. Jasper's confederate past, although never forgotten by old fans, is brought up as an unnecessary and incredibly unlikable decision by Stephenie). The appropriation and misrepresentation of the Quileute tribe by Stephenie is denounced repeatedly and is often mentioned as one of the legit reasons to hate the saga. Donating to the Move to Higher Ground Project is encouraged in posts, memes, bios, etc..
4. Self-awareness, self-mocking and nostalgic indulgence. Fans actively post about their own past relationship with Twilight. They remain self-aware of their past "cringe" behaviour but approach it with a nostalgic indulgence.

Meme on Tumblr about how everyone is ignoring the main characters in favour of the side characters

These changes in the fandom attitude were not something that happened out of the blue in 2018, but rather is the culmination of what a smaller group of fans had been practising before 2018. Fandom practices changed in part due to the fact that most of the fans that had been pre-teens or teens when the movies and books first came out, had grown up and gained more experience in fandom and stopped acting feral. The activism and social education that happened online during the early 2010s and 2017 were crucial to shaping the way fans interacted with the content and helped pave the way for a re-approach to Twilight under a different light. Fans were now able to find the middle ground between loving it for what it means to them and hating it for all it's faults.

That’s why [the controversies] Amanda “tried to distance [herself]” from the series. “I realized that it was OK to be a fan of something problematic, as long as you acknowledge its flaws,” she said. “I used to think that the only way to be a proper fan was to defend it to the end. I don’t see it that way anymore, and the @twilightrenaissance [instagram] account reflects that mindset.”

Amanda for Daily Beast.

The principal fanworks of the Renaissance were memes/shitpost and meta. The main format followed by the fan content was short text based with images that ranged between funny dunks of the canon and the characters to imagining what interactions between characters would be like (incorrect quotes, modern AU, and everyone is friends AU).

the pack has a swear jar and all the money goes to seth’s college funds

quillayute on Tumblr.

Edits and headcanons were also popular, but they were mostly focused on side characters. Fanfiction popularity didn't return to what it was during its heyday, but brief formats like reader insert imagines resurged on Tumblr. They were mainly focused on Jasper (who became a controversial character both loved and hated), the wolf pack, and the Volturi.

In October 2018 online clickbait webpages started making compilations and writing articles about the memes. Screenshots of the popular Tumblr posts appeared on other social media, like Twitter and Instagram, and the mainstream public started becoming aware of the resurgence. This paired with the 10th anniversary of the movie in November, drew in even more old fans who wanted to participate in the creation of content and expressed their joy and excitement of revisiting the saga. The fandom grew steady across all social media during 2019, but it was primarily hosted on Tumblr where it gathered a lot of popularity.

[...] The Twilight Saga book series first appeared on Year in Review at #20 in 2019, while the film series premiered that same year at #15. Since then, the films have bounced up and down many of our Fandometrics lists as the fandom’s jokes evolved. [...]

Quarantine and the Renaissance on TikTok (2020 - 2021)

In March 2020 when the world pandemic caused a global self-quarantine mandate, the Twilight fandom revival hit its peak. Three things contributed to the explosion in popularity:

• The self-isolation triggered a demand for escapist content and nostalgic consumption of media. With the limited social interactions, worldwide uncertainty, and fear of the pandemic, people sought entertainment on their own but wanted to engage in a collective consumption of it. Twilight provided them that: it was an escapist fantasy, that was both somewhat related to the current events (Edward died from the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918) but also unrelated due to the fact that it is set in a fantasy world with vampires and romantic cliches. Because it was once well known by everyone and it's basically a staple of popular culture, it was very easy to find online engagement by discussing the movie. And building upon the 2018 memes and shitpost, people could find light-hearted comedy when re-watching the movies.
• In May, Stephenie Meyer announced that she would be releasing the awaited Midnight Sun complete book. In the context of an already ongoing conversation about Twilight, this peaked the interest of those who were already in the fandom renaissance, but also raised mainstream interest as the saga was getting new canon content. But the book wasn't hyped for it's potential literary quality. Fans who had been awaiting the book since the draft leaked were excited to finally read it, but also anticipating mocking the book. This led to August and September becoming very active for fans as they interacted with the new canon content, made memes, created new meta and in general enjoyed reliving reading a Twilight book.
• Although TikTok was already a very popular social media among Gen z, in 2020 TikTok gained popularity outside of that generation. When people started posting Twilight content and engaging with it, it exposed Twilight to a whole new generation of young people who had not participated in the original fandom of the late 2000s and early 2010s.

Twilight became very popular on TikTok throughout 2020, but it wasn't following the original renaissance wave and could be considered a second renaissance. In TikTok the fandom became more impersonal. A lot of the content of the Tumblr renaissance was in direct conversation with the original fandom; it was based on nostalgia and fans' past experiences with Twilight. But on TikTok people were discovering Twilight for the first time or engaging with content because it was popular. The media coverage of the TikTok renaissance is greater than that of the Tumblr renaissance, and it speaks heavily about the influence of the 2020 pandemic in the popularity of Twilight on the platform. While the first renaissance is based on fans seeking the content, the second renaissance is based on content reaching fans.

Meme on Tumblr that summarizes the connections between Twilight and 2020

Nevertheless, the second renaissance maintained the principles of the first renaissance with memes and critical readings becoming more popular. Although a lot of the fan content was still ironic and comic (memes and critical readings of the book/movies, ex. things that don't make sense in Twilight), it merged with an un-ironical content format from TikTok, changing the way the TikTok renaissance engaged with the canon and official content. Some examples of Twilight in the TikTok format are outfits "inspired by" and dances. But TikTok also prompted other fan practices not common on other social platforms, like buying merchandising, visiting the locations, doing cosplay and watching behind the scenes content.

The 2020 Renaissance in other platforms

On Tumblr, the fandom had a significant growth during 2020. It was covered by Tumblr Fandometrics and was a recurrent topic in the weekly fandometrics lists. However, after 2020, the fandom content of Tumblr was no longer limited to content created within the platform. It saw a surge of content from TikTok being exported to the platform, as well as Twitter screenshots.

On Instagram twilightrenaissance is one of the most followed Twilight memes account which has been active since 2019, but became very popular during 2020, reaching 34k followers (as of August 2021). The account curates memes taken from Tumblr and Twitter. Instagram is notorious for lacking original content and it is mainly used as a gallery of screenshots from other platforms.

On Twitter, twilightreborn is one of the most popular Twilight meme accounts. It was created in August 2020 and has 55.9k followers (as of August 2021). Some of their most popular tweets gathered as much as 634.2k likes (see twilight characters as cats - a thread:). The account shares content daily and is not always limited to memes about twilight but it references current events. In November 4 2020, twilightreborn tweeted a meme in relation to the on-going US election, effectively merging twilight shitposting with politics (and showing their support to the Democratic candidate). Another notorious Twilight meme crossover with non-Twilight content was the Tracksuit Robert Pattinson Standing in the Kitchen meme that first appeared on Twitter in 2020 and made its way into the Twilight fandom when fans started posting manips of that Robert Pattinson in different Twilight scenes.

In general, the Renaissance during 2020 and 2021 across all social media platforms still favoured the memes/shitpost type of content. Other forms of fan works which were predominant during the original fandom days (fan art, fanfiction) are absent except for a few fan fan accounts that share unironic content that adheres to the canon material like screencaps, aesthetic edits, throwback behind the scene photographs, etc..

Discourse

Fans started questioning several aspects of the saga and debating the logic behind the world construction of Stephenie Meyer. Some of the most talked examples:

• The Vampire sperm debate. Fans debated the logistics of vampire dicks and how venom and sperm work in vampires.
• The Nobody likes imprinting on a baby. Stephenie's decision to make Jacob imprint on Renesmee is generally considered to be a bad move.
• The Irredeemable past of Jasper Hale.

do i love jasper hale? yes, obviously, look at my url or icon or half the things i’ve posted. but im gettin REAL TIRED of my fellow whities on here defending the things he’s done like we can pretend he redeemed himself at any point. [...] Yes, I do like to imagine that he learned and grew from the things he did after getting changed, but in canon thats not even implied, and he seems proud of his time as a human, so as much as I love the idea of jasper ‘the southern gentleman’ and i would drop to my knees anytime any place for jackson rathbone, jasper is a highly problematic character and ANYONE poc or otherwise who has a problem with him is not only 100% valid in that and all of their critisms of his character [...]

jaspersyeehaw on Tumblr

• The Jacob deserved better.

just to be clear my saying “jacob deserved better” does not mean “jacob should have been loved and forgiven even though he harassed bella and imprinted on an infant and generally became manipulative as he developed” i mean that jacob deserved better than racist ass stephanie meyer writing him that way in the first place when he had so much potential to be a good and healthy friend for bella and a generally loveable character.

cherrywinecullen on Tumblr

Example fanworks

Fanfiction

• Jasper x Vampire!Reader imagine by hyungbean on Tumblr (July 14, 2019).
• Dating Jasper Hale Would Include… imagine by exquisitley-obsessed on Tumblr (May 5, 2018).
• Being Mated to Felix Volturi Would Include… imagine by boodalinski on Tumblr (June 6, 2019).
• Unexpected (Pt.1) - Paul Lahote x Reader imagine by tertiaryembarrassment on Tumblr (May 30, 2018).
• Twilight: Bi Brown Boy Bella AU! fanfiction by Phantom_Diamond on Archive of Our Own.

Further Reading

• Everyone Is Into Twilight Again, video by Youtuber Sarah Z.
• Dear Stephenie Meyer, video by Youtuber Lindsay Ellis.

Archives & Links

• Works tagged "Twilight Renaissance" on Archive of Our Own.
• Fandom In Context: Welcome To The Twilight Renaissance on Know Your Meme.
• Tumblr year in review compilation of the best post of the Renaissance during 2020.
• Twilight Saga Revamped on Archive of Our Own by gaysparklepires/JGluum: Twilight: Revamped, New Moon: Revamped, Midnight Sun: Revamped, Breaking Dawn: Revamped.
• Twife or Death by twifeordeath on Tumblr and Google docs.
• tumblr tag
• tumblr post by thejakeformerlyknownasprince, ^{Archived version}, 05 May 2020