I'm a vampire, bitch.

So you've written a book, have you? It's a fairly soppy, romantic thing and it's got some supernatural creatures in it because it kind of turns you on. Basically what you've done is put all your fantasies down on some paper in the hope that a load of teenage girls will feel the exact same way. You get lucky, because they do, and you go on to become one of the most successful female authors of the 21st century. Well done!

But now what? You want to make it into a movie franchise? Well check you out! But in a time when Harry Potter is top dog is fantasy movie circles, how are you going to convince people that they should come and see your stuff instead? Let's find out!

I am of course talking about Twilight, the book that tells girls that if they're unhappy they should probably start looking for a vampire boyfriend to cheer them up a bit. The first film came out in 2008. This is the trailer:

Ain't it nice? RPatz saves Stewart's life and she loves him forever and ever because of it. Millions of people flocked to see this film as the phenomenon that was the books took over their minds, but what was it in particular that made young girls think this was the best thing ever? What can I learn from it? (Ha, no, not really. That's sick.)

To figure out what it did right we can compare it to something else that makes the same target audience go weak at the knees: One Di-effing-rection.

Here is the latest video from the prepubescent pop sensation. Note the similarities in tone.

What can we see? Well for a start let's state the obvious: Neither Twilight or One Direction are very good. They're not offensively bad either, but they're certainly no more than average. The cast of Twilight are average actors, the members of One Direction are average singers. But apart from the shared lack of talent they have something else in common too: Girls bloody love them. They don't love them in a conventional way; they love them in a psychopathic 'I'll kill anyone who disagrees' sort of way.  

Why?

They both offer things that young teenage girls feel they need. The Twilight Saga offers the idea that if you're struggling with life there will be a big, strong man there to help you out. People will still see you as beautiful even if you don't. You will be protected, you will be loved, you will be adored above anyone else.

One Direction tell you that it's totally plausible that a group of vaguely attractive boys will fancy you. They sing love songs with lots of ambiguous lines in that could quite easily be talking about any individual (but obviously they mean you. You're their favourite.) They wear the sort of clothes you see in the window of Topman and they refer to your fan base on Twitter in a way that totes makes you feel super important.

They shamelessly chase after that one section of the market because they know that if they get it right the rest will be easy. It does sort of ruin most ideas of feminism, but that's alright. These girls don't want to be independent, they just want Harry Styles to follow them.   

PS: I quite like Twilight, but there's a vastly more troublesome theory behind that.