Twilight Week – What Makes Star Wars Fans Any Better Than Twilight Fans?

For today’s article, I was planning on doing a collection of the most freakish looking Twilight tattoos available.  However, upon looking for pictures of said tattoos, I found this one.

That’s devotion.  Evil devotion, but still devotion.

I’m going to take a guess and assume that many of you are cheering and in admiration of such a hardcore Star Wars fan.  Why wouldn’t you be?  It’s Star Wars!  A major movie franchise that has made billions upon billions of dollars, has conventions, cosplayers, a dedicated following, and merchandise of every description.

So does Twilight.

Yeah, I just did that.  What, you wanna fight?  Bring it.

What makes Star Wars fans better than Twilight fans?  Why is it infinitely more acceptable to have a Boba Fett tattoo than a Edward Cullen tattoo?  (Did you just cringe when I compared Fett to Cullen?  C’mon, take it like a man.)

Why, when Episode One came out, was it considered cool to have a ticket to a midnight showing months in advance, but an adult can’t even admit to seeing one of the Twilight movies in theaters without being subject to ridicule?

Star Wars was an epic saga tracking the growth of a whiny boy into a man, complete with political commentary.  It has lightsabers!  They’re glowing laser swords and they make “whoosh” noises!  And people can move things with their minds!!  Twilight is just about some pale girl with dark hair falling in love with an older man.  It’s stupid.  

In every fanverse, there are going to be extremists.  There are going to be those beyond socially awkward creatures that inspire future conventions to instigate a Febreze rule.  There are going to be those people who spend every last available dollar on a doll that has the most inconsequential defect on it.

So what about the hardcore fans? You certainly can’t compare them!  Twilight fans are silly young girls that shriek and buy anything with Edward’s face on it while writing endless amounts of scary fanfiction, while Star Wars fans are… well…

This argument isn’t going too well for the Star Wars fans.

For some reason, the geek community has decided to turn its backs on it’s budding little sister geeks, the TwiHards.  These are girls just as obsessed as the next nerd with their topic of choice.  These are the girls that, in a few years, are going to start popping up at conventions even more than they are now and begin changing the face of the fandom.  

Girls like the TwiHards and the Harry Potter nerds are going to help level the skewed gender ratio at conventions, and it’s happening already.  Our younger geeks, men 26 years of age and below, are likely going to be dating a TwiHard or an ex-TwiHard sometime in the future.  You may cringe now, but think of how lovely it would be to date someone who actually wants to go to the conventions with you, who shares not necessarily the topic of your passion, but the simple overarching nerd passion that we all possess.

If these girls are able to get so into “Twilight”, think of how much they’ll enjoy other parts of the fandom they’ve been neglecting out of unintentional ignorance.  Think of how you could introduce your favorite comic book series to a girl and have her love it as much as you do.

So stop mocking the Twilight franchise and the girls that love it and, instead, reach out a hand.  Help unite with your fellow geeks and  try not to be so elitist about the things you love.

Me?  I love this.