How TikTok Fell In Love With The Twilight Saga
2008 was a year of cultural resets. We elected the first black president, Barack Obama, Disney Channel blessed us with "Camp Rock," the Jonas Brothers were on the rise ... and there was also this little movie called "Twilight." Set in Forks, Washington, a girl named Bella Swan moves in with her dad and meets this hot gaslighter named Edward Cullen. Turns out, Edward's a vampire, and Bella couldn't be more in love. "Twilight" had everything: hot vampires, sexy werewolves, and attractive guys fighting over the blandest girl to ever grace the screen.
The thing is, 2008 was quite a while ago — like, a whole 14 years ago (Feel old yet?), but somehow, "Twilight" is more popular than ever. How, you might ask? Enter an app called TikTok, where millennials and Gen Zers run wild — and let's just say they've taken the "Twilight" saga and run with it, vampire style.
Twilight becomes streamable
If you want a movie to become a viral sensation, you have to make sure people watch it first. Gone are the days of DVDs and Blockbuster. (May we have a moment of silence for Blockbuster — gone, but never forgotten.) With the digital age came streaming platforms, and these streaming platforms have some of the biggest movie franchises. "Twilight" initially found its home on Netflix, but it was removed on Jan. 16, 2022. The vampire romance saga then moved its way over to Hulu, but it wasn't long until Peacock swooped in and grabbed them. (They're also available on Tubi as of this writing, for those without a Peacock subscription.)
With the franchise at the world's fingertips, it became rather easy to take screenshots, make posts, and take clips from the movie for fun internet purposes — and boy oh boy, were the "Twilight"-inspired memes going to be fun.
TikTok and the power of hyperfixation
TikTok is a rather powerful app, and for some reason, millennials and Gen Zers found a way to harness that power creatively. You see, the first thing the TikTok community banded together to hyper-fixate on was the 2007 Disney picture, "Ratatouille."
It was 2020, and at the peak of a global pandemic, TikTok decided it was time for a "Ratatouille" musical; yes, a musical (via Vulture). It began with user @e_jaccs writing "Ode to Remy." The song took the app by storm, and before we knew it, there were dance numbers, harmonies, sets, and more.
This wouldn't be the only time that TikTok manifested a musical. In 2021, users Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear created "The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical" inspired by the Netflix original series which would win a Grammy for the best musical theater album (via The New York Times). Now, it's only a matter of time before there's a "Twilight" musical, and honestly, we're here for it. Until then, on to the glorious memes.
A dance to Bella's Lullaby
In a blue-tinted montage, Edward plays the piano for Bella. It's a song he composed himself, titled "Bella's Lullaby." For a classical piece, the song is a certified banger — and we aren't the only ones who think so. Content creator Issa Twaimz, or Twaimz, also thought "Bella's Lullaby" was a bop, and perhaps needed some choreography.
TikTok is infamous for its dance content, thanks to the likes of Charli D'Amelio and Addison Rae who inspire dance trend after dance trend. So, Twaimz decided to start his own trend, and just like that, the trend of twerking to "Bella's Lullaby" was born. In the 15-second clip, Twaimz goes hard, and the dance is insanely catchy — so much so that when you look at the sound's 212.5K videos, most of them are variations of Twaimz's dance.
Our personal favorite is from Keyla Carter, who performed the dance outside the actual Cullen house with the caption, "Trying to get Dr. Cullen's attention to invite me in." Who doesn't want the attention of dreamy Dr. Cullen?
The iconic baseball scene
The "Twilight" baseball scene might be one of the silliest, coolest, and funniest scenes in cinematic history. If you haven't watched it, then you're missing out. To give you the general idea, the Cullens can only play baseball in a thunderstorm, because when they hit the balls or clash together, it sounds like thunder and lightning. Yes, it's as stupid as it sounds, but it's also ridiculously iconic.
One iconic moment, in particular, is when Alice Cullen, portrayed by Ashley Greene, throws the first pitch. She does this high kick number and it's a sight to behold. Naturally, TikTok decided it was time to recreate that moment. User @maryalicebrandon shares an uncanny resemblance to Alice Cullen, so she had to do scene recreations. In a TikTok set to Olivia Rodrigo's "enough for you," the user included the caption, "Knowing I'll never relate to this lyric because I can pitch like Alice Cullen," before demonstrating her ability (via TikTok).
User @2cooljess also recreated the baseball scene for none other than Miley Cyrus, saying, "Reply to @mileycyrus here u go please don't bully us this took too long to make," (via TikTok).
'Bella, where the hell have you been, loca?'
The moment you've all been waiting for. A throwaway line that has somehow become a disgustingly popular phrase: "Bella, where the hell have you been, loca?"
You see, in the second installment of the series, "New Moon," Bella spends a lot of time with Jacob Black, played by Taylor Lautner, after the Cullens leave town. This is the first time that Jake has seen his friend in a while, which naturally begs the question: Where've you been? The "Twilight" writers couldn't stop there; it just wasn't spicy enough. Instead, they opted for "Bella, where the hell have you been, loca?" — and the world would never be the same.
There are tattoos, there are t-shirts, there are stickers, but more importantly, there's a TikTok with Jimmy Fallon and Taylor Lautner. In the video, Lautner walks in on Fallon reading "Twilight" and says, "Jimmy, where the hell have you been, loca?" We're living for it.
'It's the fluorescents'
Edward makes in known to Bella that his family "isn't like others of their kind." By that, he means that the Cullen clan only drinks the blood of animals, not humans, calling themselves "vegetarians" — which is sort of ironic, but we'll let it slide. When the Cullens have recently fed, their eyes go from a dark black to a golden brown, something Bella notices in "Twilight." So, our gaslighting king Edward lies and says "It's the fluorescents" when Bella points out his sudden eye color change. Mind you, she asked if they were contacts, so why not just go along with that perfectly reasonable explanation, Edward?
Naturally, TikTok found a filter that lets you live your Cullen fantasy — it's called "Dazzling Look," but users aptly nicknamed it the "Cullen filter" (via Dexerto). Beauty guru Manny MUA was one of the first to hype up the "Cullen filter" with a TikTok saying, "Apparently this filter is what you would look like if you were in Twilight as a Cullen," and honestly, he's not wrong. He'd definitely do the Cullens proud (via TikTok).
What did Jacob nickname Bella's daughter?
So, Bella has her half-human half-vampire baby Renesmee in "Breaking Dawn Part 2," and Jacob imprints on her. Now, imprinting is essentially a werewolf claiming someone as their property — the saga tries to make it seem cute and romantic, when in reality, it's just weird. Bella knows what imprinting is, and gets rather mad that Jacob imprinted on her daughter of all people, as conveyed beautifully by the Try Guys on TikTok. At some point during their argument, Jacob says, "It was Nessie who wanted me there."
Who's Nessie, you might ask? Well, that's a cute nickname for none other than the Loch Ness Monster — but also for Renesmee, since Jacob felt that was a fitting nickname for his imprintee. This led to Bella's infamous line, "You nicknamed my daughter after the Loch Ness Monster?" The #younicknamedmydaughter hashtag on TikTok has 5.2 million views. You can check this abbreviated clip to get the gist of the original scene.
That weird wolf scene
Obviously, vampires and werewolves aren't real (at least that we know of) so a little movie magic was in order for the "Twilight" movies. However, the scenes looked pretty weird when they were being filmed, as illustrated in some of the behind-the-scenes footage. The most memorable was a scene from "Eclipse" in which Bella is petting Jacob when he's in wolf form — except that to film this scene, Kristen Stewart had to pat a green-screen suited Taylor Lautner on the head.
Why Taylor had to be a stand-in for his werewolf counterpart is a mystery, but it's a funny image to look at. The Lionsgate official TikTok, one of the companies that produced the "Twilight" franchise, also agreed that this scene looked ridiculous with the caption, "there's no way I would keep a straight face," (via TikTok). Can you blame them? Kudos to Kristen and Taylor for keeping it together, because if it were us, there's no way this scene could be shot in any amount of takes without laughing.
Twilightcore and dressing like Bella
In no way was Bella considered a fashion icon in her day, but she is definitely considered one now. Dressing like Bella, or Twilightcore, is the new Gen Z obsession. A Bella-inspired outfit tends to include long sleeves over laced camis, dark denim, and tons of flannels. It's a more autumnal style, which makes sense since it's rarely summer in the "Twilight" universe.
Youtube channel ModernGurlz did a Twilightcore deep dive in a style analysis video. They pointed out that Bella Swan of the "Twilight" franchise and Elena Gilbert of "The Vampire Diaries" share a similar aesthetic (via YouTube).
This aesthetic does give a "my boyfriend's a vampire and I'm just your average girl" energy. TikTok fads come and go, so who knows how long Twilightcore will stay around, but it's another example of Y2K fashion making a massive comeback, and we're not really mad at it.
Jasper looks uncomfortable, always
Bella's friend Jessica said it best when explaining Jasper Cullen: "The blonde one who looks like he's in pain" (via YouTube). Jasper's wide-eyed stare tends to make him look like he's always in distress and fans took notice, which made a new avenue for TikTok memes.
Most popular is user Yasmine Sahid, who's created several Jasper impressions. She really sells it with the yellow contacts and the intensely wide stare, admitting that she'd be more interested in Jasper if she was Bella (via TikTok). In fact, Sahid's videos are some of the first you'll see when you explore the Jasper hashtag. Another user named Evelyn admitted her cat had an uncanny resemblance to Jasper, photoshopping his hairstyle onto her cat (via TikTok).
Like, we get it, Jasper was the last Cullen to get on board with the "vegetarian" lifestyle, but must he always look so distraught? Was that a director's note or the actor's choice? Someone please explain!