My first paying job was at a public library, and I worked that job for almost four years. In that time, I had a lot of exposure to the Twilight books, mostly via people asking me where they were.* Initially, my instinct was to dislike the books just because I was sick of hearing about them, but after I read the series, and the icky feeling wore off, I kind of fell in love with them. This wasn’t because of the writing, which is horrendously purple, or the characters, who (with a few notable exceptions) are abhorrent, or the underlying themes, which make me want to watch Skins just to be contrary. I enjoy the Twilight books with the kind of glee that can only come from reading something ovary-crushingly fucked up (see Cleolinda Jones’ recap of Breaking Dawn for a near-perfect example).

When I ask a lot of guys I know (not all, but a lot of them) why they Don’t Like Twilight, they don’t explain that they find the prose awful, or the characters unlikeable, or the message detestable. They say it’s because “the vampires sparkle.”

Now, there are no hard and fast rules about what makes a vampire a vampire, aside from the blood-drinking thing (and that’s not really necessary either—the vampires from Peter Watts’ Blindsight are cannibals). Even the “No Sunlight” rule is a 20th century invention. Any writer who chooses to introduce vampires into their story is going to have to pick and choose what traits they want for “their” vampires. So if Stephenie Meyer really, really wants to make her vampires sparkle, she can go right ahead. Edward the Sparklepire’s meebling about what a monster he is becomes doubly hilarious when he’s wearing the kind of body glitter most women (and a lot of gay men) would kill for.

I explain all this to the guy friends, and they adamantly reply, “vampires do not sparkle.”

See, in modern pop culture, the classic vampire is a masculine power symbol. The vampire is sexually potent. He has mesmerizing power over people (especially women). He easily, and happily, disobeys the laws and breaks the taboos of humanity because they are weak and he is not. His interaction with these weak humans he has power over is penetrative: fangs into the neck. He doesn’t require your love, only your deference.

(The same rules apply to female vampires. Vampire lesbians!)

So when men see this masculine power symbol being in any way feminized (by, say, sparkling), their reaction is immediate and vehement. All of us, men and women, are still ruled by the principles taught to us in elementary school. Tattling, sucking up to the teachers, and being into “girly stuff” will get your ass kicked. When girls get their gross girl cooties all over a masculine idol, it’s diminished in the eyes of those who revered it.

That’s not to say that all men think this way. MovieBob, a male critic, did an excellent review on the unpleasant implications of the Twilight series’ approach to sex, and a significant amount of guys read into the books and movies on the same level. There are plenty of reasons to dislike Stephenie Meyer’s work, excellent reasons. But “the vampires sparkle” is the most superficial and telling of them.

*Incidentally, the answer to that question was never, “on the shelf,” because the queue in our hold system was so mind-bogglingly long that no book with “Stephenie Meyer” on the spine ever stayed in one branch for more than an hour.

I do not fly well. This is a known fact among the people who love me, the people who know me, and the people who spot me huddled, weeping, in the airport terminal. Psychologically speaking, I’m perfectly fine with traveling 35 000 feet up in the air inside a huge metal tube with jet engines strapped to it, but my body reacts somewhat poorly to rapid changes in altitude combined with cheap pretzels.

Symptoms I’ve noticed myself include:

(Here’s a cleaned up and slightly edited version of an old post of mine on Zeros 2 Heroes. I still want a microchip.)

I want a microchip in my hand. No bones about it. After enduring a 1-hour lecture from the travel agent about the dangers of pickpockets and how I’ll apparently need to keep all my money and electronics in my undergarments, I have decided I will be first in line for a subdermal RFID money chip.

Just think about it. Imagine the speed of it. It’d be like those PayPasses they have at gas stations, but even quicker ’cause you won’t have to dig out your keys. Just wave your hand at the detector and off you go. Solves the problem of theft, too. Now, instead of having your wallet snatched on the train, they’d have to dig the chip out of your hand or possibly cut off the whole limb. I’m not saying it wouldn’t happen, but it takes more effort, which is what thieves are trying to avoid by stealing wallets in the first place.

Environmentally friendly. Less oil needed to manufacture plastic cards. I mean, they’re putting RFID tags in credit cards anyway, all they have to do is take the chip out of the card and put it under your skin instead. Less trees needed for paper money, too. Unless I’m missing something and the oil and forestry industries have Visa by the balls. Which is entirely likely.

People complain about privacy issues. Personally, I don’t care if the government tracks my movements. My movements are from home to classes, classes to work, work to the mall, and the mall to home. If Big Brother wants to watch that all day, he’s welcome to it.

Those guys who are actually paid to predict technologies in the future promised 20 years ago that we’d have hand-microchips by now. The technology exists, it just needs to be implemented. So I’m claiming my spot in the line-up right now.

I want a microchip in my hand.

“Well, actually…”

These two words are enough to instantly destroy any camaraderie, cheer, and goodwill built up in casual conversation.

The situation is familiar: meaningless small-talk takes place between sociable people who don’t quite know each other yet. At some point, often in jest, some kind of factoid is mentioned. Perhaps someone (the fool!) refers to Humpty Dumpty as an egg. Immediately springs the cry:

“Well, actually…”

The hunting call of the wild pedant.

“Well, actually, the character of Humpty Dumpty was only depicted as an egg in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, while evidence from the original nursery rhyme points toward the name being given to a cannon during the English Civil war.”

Unspoken goes the implication, “… and if you were an educated and intelligent person like myself instead of an uncultured swine wallowing in your own ignorance, you would know that.”

This is the point of no return. The conversation is effectively over. The small group of sociable people will disperse. Perhaps they will speak again before the night is over, but an element of awkwardness has been introduced that will not dissipate anytime soon.

The pedant, meanwhile, gloats and moves on.