CNN.com has an awesome new article giving insight on how the Twilight Saga novels, and movies, are not just for teenagers -
They don’t call it “Twi Crack” for nothing.
Lisa Hansen, for example, thought she had lost her mind the first time she read “Twilight.” Partly because she’s 36.
“I was absolutely worried that something was wrong with me,” the Utah mother of two said. “I just couldn’t put it down — I was obsessed completely.”
She picked up the first of Stephenie Meyer’s vampire novels — recommended by a teen neighbor — with few expectations. After devouring it, she couldn’t get the images of doomed love between a vegetarian vampire, Edward, and an awkward teenage girl, Bella, off her mind. Hansen thought about the books so much she seriously wondered if she was experiencing some sort of midlife crisis.
“I thought I was the only woman in the world who was my age and was just obsessed with books,” she said.
In reality, far from it. Hansen is just one of the thousands of women around the world who have gotten caught up in the vampire frenzy.
While they resemble the youthful, squealing “Twilight” fans on occasion — Kellan Lutz, who plays vampire Emmett Cullen in the films, admitted some of the mail he gets from older fans makes him blush — they’re still not the typical fan girls.
For starters, being so in love with “Twilight” when you’re “of a certain age” can come with a healthy dose of shame.
“The stigma of it being a teenager’s book was the biggest issue,” Hansen said. “Everyone felt the same way I did, like, ‘What’s wrong with me? Why am I obsessing over this teenager thing?’ ”
But, one by one, the women began to find each other online, relieved that they weren’t the only ones.
“As grown women we know that we never forget our first love, the first time our heart was really broken,” Hansen explained of the often indescribable pull of Meyer’s work. “I just think that so many women can kind of identify with the experiences and emotions and underlying message of how difficult it is to make choices in life.”
Since so many of “Twilight” fan sites were overrun with teenagers, adult women have erected their own digital havens for fans who could take only so much of the “OMG Edward’s so hot!!!” reaction to “Twilight.” There’s Hansen’s Twilight Moms Web site, which she started for married women and mothers who want to revel in their “Twilight” fandom, and sites like 49-year-old Patricia Kopicki’s, which is for any adult “Twilight” fan, parent or not.
Both of them say they get steady streams of messages from women thanking them for helping them come out of their “Twilight” closet.
“Many of us [fans] are happily married with kids, some as old as the male leads in ‘Twilight.’ Some of them jokingly refer to themselves as ‘cougars’ because of this, but it’s used as a humorous way of saying we realize we are old enough to be Robert Pattinson’s mother [and] we still find him attractive,” Kopicki said.
I’m glad that CNN touched base on this subject. And it comes with great timing after hearing about some nasty signs that snot nosed teenage girls had at the premiere last night about TwiMoms. They are soooo lucky LMC wasn’t there …
You can check out the rest of the article here! They also touch base on the whole fan fiction genre 
[Thanks, Jill!]
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Many of you have probably already heard Ms.MS’s story. For those of you who have not – EdwardCullen.net received a letter from a very ill fan who wanted to thank Robert Pattinson for signing her copy of New Moon. She was unable to meet Rob (due to health reasons) and a lady from Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital had the book signed for Ms.MS while Rob was in New York Filming Remember Me.
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