• Are 2000’s trends making a comeback in a big way? 

The very first ‘Twilight’ movie came out all the way back in 2008 and now, nearly 15 years later, the franchise is experiencing a strange little comeback moment. 

With much thanks to TikTok, ‘Twilight’ has been experiencing what has been dubbed the ‘Twilight renaissance’ and it is a trend that has been slowly gaining traction for some time now, with incredibly obscure references from the movie starting to go viral on the app.

If you grew up during the boom of Young Adult (YA) novels and the burst of their subsequent film adaptations, then you are aware of how this type of content was perceived at the time. With ‘Twilight’ especially, it was not particularly ‘cool’ to be a fan of this franchise. If you were caught reading the books or talking about it, you would get made fun of. However, nobody could deny that many secretly enjoyed it. 

According to Google Trends, Google searches in early 2023 for ‘Cullen’ and ‘Bella Swan’ were at the highest that they have been since 2013, the year after the final ‘Twilight’ film was released. ‘Bella Swan core’ and ‘Twilight core’ have been all over social media, especially TikTok. 

It would seem the resurgence that ‘Twilight’ has been experiencing in the past few years could be chalked up to a few major points. While there are definitely varying factors, having spoken to some pop culture enthusiasts, avid social media users, and most importantly, ‘Twilight’ fanatics, we could potentially narrow it down to TikTok trends, the revival of Y2K, and the rejection of misogynistic tropes. 

The public’s thoughts 

Parnita Chandrasekar, a 22-year-old marketing student, shared that one of the major components of this resurgence was definitely thanks to TikTok. 

“From late 2021 I have been seeing videos referencing the ‘Twilight’ saga or mimicking that blue-green filter those movies had been using. People were rewatching those movies, especially people my age who were actually watching it for the first time,” she said. 

The Gen Zs a really making it happen for ‘Twilight,’ as Business Insider published that the #twilight tag had received over 10 billion views on TikTok, while the ‘Dazzling Look’ filter on the app, which gives users the famous diamond skin of the Cullens, had been used over 100,000 times. 

Parnita also shared that a lot of the songs from the movie had also been trending on TikTok: “‘Roslyn’ by Bon Iver has been trending a lot. ‘Supermassive Black Hole’ by Muse paired with that really iconic clip of the Cullens playing baseball has been everywhere.”

Some of this popularity could be, at least partly, aided by Stephenie Meyer, the author of the original novel series, releasing the highly anticipated ‘Midnight Sun’ in 2020, a novel that retells the events of ‘Twilight’ from the perspective of Edward Cullen instead of that of the series’ usual narrating character Bella Swan. This book has been a long time coming since some chapters were leaked all the way back in 2008. 

‘Midnight Sun’ was largely consumed by adults in their late 20s who were teens reading the ‘Twilight’ saga back in the early 2000s. However, since everybody has access to social media and TikTok is scarily accurate in delivering the exact type of content you need, even content that you may not have even known you wanted to see, the app was able to create a considerable community around ‘Twilight’. 

Then, as is the way of TikTok, things seem to have snowballed, becoming a trending hashtag that attracted a lot of newcomers with fresh eyes. The Gen Zs learning about ‘Twilight’ were having an entirely different experience to what the initial readers experienced. Gen Zs are not ashamed of anything and unlike the rest of us who read ‘Twilight’ in shame, the new kids were able to embrace it and love it with passion. 

The younger generation, especially young women, have begun to reject the tropes that stigmatises media that is widely consumed by teenage girls. At the time that these movies and books were popular, media that was primarily meant for teenage girls, like boy bands, were ridiculed. 

The idea that girls who read romance novels or enjoyed YA fiction or any other such activity were boy-crazy and airheaded made it so that many of us did not feel that we could openly enjoy those things without people thinking we were one of those caricatured teenage girls. 

However, with age and maturity we have come to realise that ‘I’m not like other girls’ is not something to be proud of and that it is inherently misogynistic. We are now making attempts to reclaim these pieces of media from our childhoods that we previously felt ashamed to enjoy.

In addition to millennials experiencing healing and learning to be unashamedly enthusiastic on TikTok, it is evident that the Y2K fashion trends have also lent itself to the revival of these early 2000s media. 

Malshika Warnapura, a 23-year-old fashion enthusiast, also shared her thoughts, noting that there was a revival of Y2K fashion trends happening at present, and given the ‘20-year rule’ for fashion cycles, it made sense that the early 2000s were making their comeback. 

“The styles that are considered ‘in’ today draw their inspiration from what was trendy two decades ago. Clothing trends of the early 2000s like low waisted jeans, baby tees, miniskirts, and even the thin eyebrows seem to have made their comeback,” she said. 

“‘Twilight’ films came out around that time I think and they embodied that fashion in those movies, so with this 20-year rule it just seems obvious that what was popular at the time would have a bit of a comeback. It is actually not just ‘Twilight,’ even shows like ‘Gilmore Girls,’ ‘One Tree Hill,’ and ‘The OC’ are all very popular online, even though we have never actually watched those shows,” she said.

Malshika shared: “The ‘Twilight’ costumes have become an aesthetic of their own – that is what we call Bella Swan core or ‘Twilight’ core. Pinterest has been buzzing about ‘Twilight’ core. There was also a guy who pretended to be a suave real-life vampire who was sort of a romantic Edward Cullen type on TikTok.”

Nostalgia and capitalism 

While Gen Z has had a lot to do with it, the generation that is embracing the comeback of ‘Twilight’ the most is the generation that grew up in the late 2000s/2010s. ‘Twilight’ is a source of nostalgia that transports us. Many of us have fond memories watching these movies and reading the books. This alone has been reason enough to fuel a ‘Twilight’ renaissance. 

Those of us who grew up in the 2000s/2010s are easily baited by nostalgic content. On top of ‘Twilight’ making a comeback, with some studios even discussing doing a TV series, there has been a boom in reboot shows over the past few years that exist exclusively to profit off nostalgia. 

‘Gilmore Girls,’ ‘Full house,’ ‘iCarly,’ ‘Sex and the City,’ ‘Gossip Girl,’ ‘Charmed,’ ‘Charlie’s Angels,’ ‘That ’70s Show,’ and many others have all been rebooted to catch the nostalgia market. Although many of these shows have not even neared the success of their predecessors, they all managed to make some money for their respective studios before sizzling out. 

Commenting on the ‘Twilight’ resurgence and the role of nostalgia in its reemergence, Shashi Karunathilake, a film enthusiast and proud ’90s kid, shared: “It’s really nothing too surprising. The next big thing would likely be the ‘Hunger Games’. I think we are suckers for nostalgia and as long as we – those of us born in the ’90s – continue to live in the past, chasing the high of the ‘good old days,’ there will be plenty of revivals for these shows. However, there is something to be said about how we can now enjoy them; given our better, more informed worldview, we can truly experience these types of content the way we should have the first time.”