DAVID: We're in Bella's house in Forks, Washington.
KIM: Our friend who actually sold us the house approached us,
and said, "Hey, you know, we have this interest going on with this Twilight thing.
"How about if, for a couple of months, we just put your house on the tour?" And...
- A few years later... - (BOTH LAUGHING)
KIM: Some people in our town are a little bit clueless about the Twilight thing,
and it is confusing. They think they're at the wrong house.
"Sorry, I'm late.
(LAUGHING) "Why do you have a 'Home of the Swans' sign in front of your house?"
DAVID: When we first were asked to be on the Twilight tour for the month...
(CHUCKLES) I think it was the month of June or something in 2008.
...they said, "We've got some interest in people wanting to go on this tour."
And so we had mentioned this to a friend of ours, who's an artist
and Kim had told him, "You need to make us a sign."
You know, "We need a sign for 'The Swans."'
You know, and, so, the next day he came with a...
KIM: Knocking at the door with a beautifully made "Home of the Swans" sign.
- And somebody stole it. - Somebody stole it.
So, if somebody has our sign...
Yeah, if you have our sign, I hope you are enjoying it.
(BOTH LAUGHING)
DAVID: The bus that they were using was like a 12-passenger van for the tour.
And they said they were gonna run it just on Saturday.
So we thought that the tour would last,
you know, maybe the couple of months they had talked about,
then they were just gonna cut it off.
But the interest grew and grew and grew.
KIM: Then we noticed that it wasn't just the tour bus.
DAVID: (LAUGHING) Yeah.
KIM: Then we had people coming at the back of the tour bus,
and it wasn't just at tour-bus time, it started to become more.
It was exciting. It is exciting.
It's great to see people from all over the world coming to our wonderful town
and seeing how nice the people are, and seeing how beautiful it is.
I think it's exciting for our small community to be noticed.
Now, you can see, we're in the kitchen right now.
But it's yellow in the book
- and this is a shade of... - Yellow.
I'd call this a yellow, a bright yellow or similar.
Bella's room is blue.
DAVID: People like to look up and see the blue bedroom.
Especially at night, when there's a light on,
you can really see the blue.
This is the first time anybody's been in our house
to see the colors, aside from the occasional straggler.
A few years ago, during homecoming, so it was October,
and our daughter had a whole bunch of friends over,
and they were getting ready, doing their hair and makeup,
and boys were coming in and out.
We had a lot of kids, a lot of teenage kids over,
and they were going in and out of the house.
(LAUGHING) A woman, a fan, pulled up and thought...
- KIM: "Oh, a tour is going on." - Yeah.
She thought she was tagging on to the end of a tour
- and followed the kids into the kitchen. - (KIM LAUGHING)
And as she was standing in the kitchen with her camera and everything,
she realized that she was probably not supposed to be in the kitchen.
- I think she even said... - "Oh, yeah, I don't think..."
- "Yeah, I'm not supposed to be here." - You could just tell on her face.
She was kind of in the middle of the line and she was just, you know, walking,
and she got here and she looked around, and you could just see her face go...
"Oh, my gosh, I'm not supposed to be in here.
"I don't think this is what I think it is."
So, she says, "Oh, I guess this isn't a tour."
And kind of weaseled out through the back door.
That was fun.
But the fans are great. They've left flowers for Bella on the porch
and they've left notes.
KIM: The fans that we've seen, a lot of the times they're grandparents
coming with their teenage grandchildren,
and there's a connection there.
And they're coming on this excursion to see the places in Twilight.
And it's a bonding, it's a...
It's a connection for families, and I think it's wonderful to see that.
As soon as I, like, read the books,
I was like, "All right, I love this. I have to go."
I got really excited and I just wanted to go.
I would say, in a day,
especially during this time of the year, vacation time,
I think it's gone up to maybe close to a hundred a day.
(CHUCKLING) Maybe over, I don't know.
I've seen more dads by themselves with their teenage daughters,
and I think, what could be bad about, you know,
dads taking their daughters on a special trip to see something that they're interested in?
It's amazing how far spread this Twilight phenomenon is.
KIM: We've had people from Australia, New Zealand...
- Japan... - Japan, Spain...
Turkey.
KIM: Come see Bella's house and come visit our beautiful town.
Great days in Forks are truly, truly beautiful.
I'm from South Africa and I moved to Los Angeles,
where I met Travis, my husband.
And we ended up doing the "movie star homes" tours.
He's a poker player, so we ended up moving to Las Vegas.
I had to mess it up by picking up a book called Twilight,
and here we are in Forks.
When I picked up Twilight, I was immediately drawn in.
Firstly, vampires and werewolves, not my thing.
But when I read the book, I was so drawn in.
The way Stephenie had described Forks totally sold me.
I wanted to know this place. Does it really exist?
I immediately did some research online and I was immediately sold.
I said to Travis, my husband, I said, "Travis, we need to move to this place.
"This is unbelievable.
"The town of Forks is surrounded by the forest...
"The coastline's close by. What more do you want?"
And also, it's where my favorite characters live.
I'm totally and utterly in love with Edward Cullen.
That's my favorite one in the books and in the movie as well.
And we came up here...
I scouted it out first, and then we moved up here,
and fell in love with the area and the rest is history.
We just had to stay. We had to stay.
Dazzled by Twilight, we have currently three stores.
We mainly focus on the tours.
We keep it very authentic.
We stay very true to Stephenie's descriptions.
I mean, she's done so much for this town, so we really want to honor her.
Not just on Stephenie Meyer Day, but also by staying true to the books.
I'm Linda Middleton. I operate the Jacob Black house
right between Forks and La Push, on the treaty line.
My dad built the house kind of piece by piece,
room by room, as they could afford it.
So, it was put together kind of randomly.
They painted it red because it was, I think a cheap paint back then,
and they didn't have a lot of money.
And I remember my mom complaining about the red.
And she would be excited to see
that it really turned into something that was really awesome.
Back then, it was a fishing and logging capital of the world.
And, as that faded, luckily, Twilight came along.
Stephenie Meyer wrote her book and chose Forks as the place
that she was going to have her characters live.
They said that she didn't come here until, I think, like the second or third book.
I can't imagine that she would've found pictures of this house.
I'm kind of wondering if maybe somebody scouted this area out for her or something
because I was very surprised at how similar it looked.
In fact, when I go on the Internet I really have to look close
to see which house is which.
The interest that this house has created here, I think is,
for me, it's more of an emotional "wow,"
because I was born and raised here.
We had lots of fun on this farm doing all kinds of stuff.
So, to me, it's just perfect to be able to use this
and to share it with people from all over the world.
KADURY: (LAUGHING) We did go to Jacob's house. That was amazing!
I was very excited. I was jumping up and down like a little girl.
It was just amazing. We stopped there twice, actually.
(LAUGHING)
MIDDLETON: Three Rivers is the treaty line.
It's a very nice resort, just half a mile away.
The sign says, "No vampires past this point."
So, we're past that point, so Edward can't come down here.
Jacob, however, is free to roam, so there you go.
(CHUCKLES)
If you really think about werewolves and going out into the woods...
Tall trees. I mean, it's actually really creepy at night.
MIDDLETON: Woods here are made up of what we call "mother logs,"
where the log falls and then trees come out of the log.
And we used to play... Oh, my gosh, we played lots on those moss-laden logs.
And when you think about that, that would've been the perfect place
for werewolves to be.
And when you're out there, a little bit towards the dark,
because it gets dark fast in the woods, faster than you think.
It can get a little bit scary, freaky, 'cause you have to...
You wanna head for the house when it starts getting like that.
We get a little tired of the rain. There is a lot of rain.
But when you look at what we have because of that,
and the logs and the moss,
and the greenery and all that stuff,
most of the days you can really look out there
and see that it's a beautiful place.
The beaches are awesome here, too.
We went down to the beaches in La Push and we went to First Beach,
and we stopped, kinda looked at Second Beach.
It was just amazing there. We actually met one of the natives there
and he was very friendly, he was very nice.
And it was very... Just all of it was just perfect. It was perfect.
(KADURY LAUGHS)
One time I went to First Beach and took the dog for a walk.
And I saw a very big paw print there, and I'm like, "That's Jacob!"
You know, and it's exciting!
I actually took a picture of it and I showed my friends,
and they were like, "Oh, my gosh, yeah, that is Jacob!"
One of our favorite beaches would be Rialto Beach.
Absolutely gorgeous.
Part of the Olympic National Park. You get to see James Island.
It's right next to First Beach.
When it's foggy over the forest,
when they go to La Push and the First Beach,
it is magical, it really is.
MIDDLETON: I'm my own little Twilight fan, yeah.
I really got caught up in the drama and the saga of the whole deal.
I'm definitely Team Jacob, yes.
(LAUGHING) How could I not be?
My name is Bill Brager. I'm married to Susan Brager.
And together we own the Miller Tree Inn, bed and breakfast in Forks.
Which nowadays is better known as the Cullen House.
My name is Sofie Lovstakken.
I'm 17 years old and I'm from Norway.
I'm in Forks and I'm actually at the Cullen House, in Forks.
Well, I have a friend of mine who lives just outside Seattle,
and this fall, I actually won a quiz show in Norway,
where I was asked questions about Twilight.
So, I won a lot of money
and the first thing I did was call my friend and said,
"I'm coming to visit you this summer. And I'm going to Forks."
The house is a hundred-year-old, white, three-story farmhouse
with a wrap-around front porch.
And the original wood door
that Stephenie Meyer described in the Twilight book.
The physical description of the house matches what she said in the book.
BILL: The house was built by Eli and Winnie Peterson.
The last owner that verified a date was Doc Leibold
and he said 1960. He was the second owner.
Dr. Leibold was a well-known doctor here in Forks, took care of the whole town.
He delivered me.
And he actually was the only doctor in town for many years.
Doc Leibold of course was taking care of all the people at the hospital
as Dr. Cullen does now.
And we believe it was Dr. Leibold who sold the house to Dr. Cullen
since they were peers for a short period of time.
Doc Leibold sold it to a big family, the Chamberlain family,
and they sold it to the Millers,
who turned it into a bed-and-breakfast in 1984.
And then we came in 1998 and took over.
Now, that's the true story.
The Leibold family had several children of their own,
plus, they had adopted one son.
You know, I never thought of that, but I guess that's right.
Yeah, Doc had two daughters, two sons, and then an adopted son.
So, I guess that's right.
Edward and Johnny, maybe, would be parallels, yes.
People were traveling to Forks to see the City Hall,
the high school, the hospital, all the places
that were mentioned specifically in the book.
And, of course, the "Dazzled by Twilight" tours,
and now the new tours, people started coming to the front porch.
LOVSTAKKEN: It's so cool. And they really embraced Twilight
without totally converting over to being a Twilight town.
It's still Forks.
But you have, like, the visiting center with Bella's truck outside
and you have all the small shops, but it hasn't taken over the town.
It's still Forks.
And I think that's important because, especially for me, I wanted Forks,
the town I've read about and seen in the movies.
So, I think it's awesome. I love it.
The tour started after we were noticing in the Chamber office,
people were requesting information on, "Where is the high school located?
"Where is the hospital? How do I get to First Beach in La Push?"
And the more people that came in
and we would see them in different places around town
taking pictures of the "Welcome To Forks" sign,
and we knew that there were just more and more people interested.
Now we have hundreds of people in the summer visiting our front porch.
I suspect that it's three or four hundred people a day
during the summer months.
It's a lot of people. (LAUGHS)
BILL: Some actually just drive by on the road
and take a picture of the house and then off they go.
But they're missing out if they don't come to the front porch
because Esme, of course, always has a message up there
to tell where the Cullen family is at that particular time.
They also take a picture through the window,
of the graduation caps and Edward's practice piano.
For some, it's just a quick trip.
You know, they're probably just here for the day, and so they zip through.
Others, they want to linger here a while
and just kind of absorb the moment that, "We're finally at the Cullen house."
There was a note on the door from Esme
and I really liked it.
I took photos of it and I was to my mother like... (EXCLAIMS)
And, yes.
It was great.
My name is Megan Neumann, I'm 16 years old
and I live in Gifhorn, a little town in Germany.
Today, we're in Forks, the town of Twilight.
I came to Forks because
I wanted to see all the Twilight things that are around here
because I'm a big fan of Twilight
and I heard it's pretty beautiful here, too.
So, yeah, I just wanted to check it out, and want to come back and say,
"I've been here."
SUSAN: Our guests come from all over the world.
We have lots of mothers and daughters, grandmothers and granddaughters,
fathers and daughters, families with teenage girls, mostly.
But there are a few boy fans of the series, too.
My dad didn't even hear about it. (CHUCKLES)
He's like, "I don't even know what's going on."
And my mom, she was really excited to go here, too,
so it wasn't just me.
And she wanted to take pictures.
And, yeah, Twilight is super good!
The real showstopper is
that fans predominantly range between ages 25 and 82.
This is not a big teeny-bopper thing as people think. Mostly adults.
We have grandmas, we have mothers, we have aunts.
And we have some uncles and fathers, too, who love Alice.
They're so into it, too, and we love that.
And they would come with the grandchildren, with the kids,
and say, "Oh, yeah, she's a Twilight fan."
Now, being a Twihard, I spot another Twihard a mile away.
I'm like, "You read the books, right?"
"Oh, yeah, I read all of them about four times."
It's just unbelievable to see the whole family together.
You know, mom, dad, brother, sister, it's just unbelievable.
Living here, when you drive
and you see the fog drawing over the forest,
you can see what Stephenie saw.
It's amazing. It becomes alive. It's magical.
You can almost envision the Cullens running through the forest
or Jacob with the pack.
It's really hard, especially for me,
and I'm sure for a lot of fans coming here and seeing the same thing,
sometimes it's really hard to distinguish between fiction and reality.
Everything she talked about in the books, down to the weather, is correct.
So, we just need to run into the characters.
The Cullens are here.
So, it's fun. It's a lot of fun.
SUSAN: We have a visiting elk herd
that comes within about a quarter-mile of our house.
We figure that's why the Cullen family would want to live here,
as they had readily accessible animals available
for their appetites.
BILL: They're about a half-mile away,
but I've seen Edward take those four fences in between fairly quickly,
so it doesn't take him long at all.
Whether you're a Twilight fan or not, it's nice to see that herd of elk up there.
In each of our guest rooms, we have little placards
with the names of all of the Cullen family on them.
And, so our guests can... After they get into their rooms
can get a feel for who they think might inhabit that room
and they can hang the name on the door.
And it's kind of fun to look down the hall every morning
and see who's staying with us.
We also have put the books in the rooms.
And a few people have come that have never heard of Twilight,
and then they've decided that maybe they would read those books.
So, we take folks to the Cullen house.
We take them to the police station where Charlie works.
There's a police cruiser outside, where they can pose by the cruiser.
Some of them have had so much fun
where they pretend to arrest each other and snap a picture of that.
We also take them to the high school.
Currently, the original building that was built in 1925
is being torn down, very sad.
But we're building a brand new school. Very excited about it.
And we moved the sign a little bit down the parking lot,
so people can still pose by the sign.
That's how much we care about our fans.
And then, once the school is completed, we will move the sign back.
We're in Forks, Washington, home of Twilight.
I am planning to stay in the Twilight room at the Pacific Inn Motel.
I've had so much fun, even though it's a small town.
I don't even know how to describe it.
They say Stephenie Meyer never really came to Forks,
but it feels like she went here and she knows the entire town for herself.
It's amazing. You see all the things you first only see in the movie
and then you have it just right in front of you.
Yeah. I like it.
I'm Dr. Romney, Ken Romney in Forks, Washington.
And we're outside at Dr. Cullen's parking place.
We have a lot of people come to see it.
In fact, we have some here that have come right now.
We have Dr. Cullen pulling in here right away.
Dr. Cullen.
Hey, how are you doing today? Good to see you.
DR. ROMNEY: Some people came to see you.
DR. CULLEN: I see that. Where are you folks all from?
ALL: Texas.
DR. CULLEN: You've come to the hospital to take pictures of my parking space.
WOMAN: Yeah.
(LAUGHING)
The hospital has the parking space that you've seen.
We don't get a lot of visitors inside the hospital.
You don't want to meet us in the hospital. You'd have to be sick for that.
Our blood bank does do local collections here
and I haven't asked if they've had much in the way of tourist contribution to that.
We keep about 30 units in the hospital.
I don't know what that has to do with the vampires locally.
It's really fun, because the type of tourists
that this brings to town, they're generally happy families,
people going where their teenage daughters want them to go,
parents following around.
Although sometimes, the parents are just as much of fans as the daughters or sons.
We had a variety of opinion
about Twilight here in town, from people who didn't care at all
to people who had strong opinions.
We had a couple of letters
in the local paper that most people read, that were very suspicious of Twilight,
or thought it would be a negative influence on the town.
And there was one letter that very effectively countered that, I thought.
And it was from a person very respected in the largest faith in town.
And he looked into it some
and he wrote a letter about the good he saw with it.
He had asked a 13-year-old tourist girl what brought her here
and her opinion was
that she wanted to be loved that way,
the way that Bella was loved.
Not for anything physical,
but for who she was.
And he was impressed by that, and he put that in his letter very nicely.
BELLES: Stephenie, I don't think she realized
how big this would be, how many lives she would touch.
The stories that we hear, you know, what Twilight means to people,
it's unbelievable. I've been in tears a few times, you know.
A mother and daughter coming in from Australia.
Mom just went through chemotherapy. Both Twilight fans
and decided, "You know what, life is short. Let's go and see Forks."
It brings families together. It's just amazing.
And I start to see in people coming to Forks
what Twilight had done for me and what it means to me.
I start seeing that in people, and it's just amazing.
And we are in Port Angeles, in front of Bella Italia.
We just got done eating.
Of course, the mushroom ravioli like Bella ate.
FELDMANN-CAYETANO: It feels, like, really cool
because it's in the book, and so you've read about this place.
It's cool that it exists, 'cause in some books they just make up stuff.
So, it's cool that you actually get to experience what goes on in the books.
I did not know that this restaurant was in the book.
I thought that they actually opened this restaurant
because of the movie and the book, and whatnot.
But the restaurant is fantastic. It was excellent service.
I mean, they were just really, really nice, very helpful,
and it was a wonderful meal.
It was very good. I loved it.
Bella Italia was started in 1996.
We've been, you know, the cornerstone Italian restaurant for Port Angeles
over the last 14 years.
And it was about three or four years ago
that we started to see this Twilight phenomenon happening,
and people were showing up and talking about this vampire
and we were kind of scratching our heads, you know.
And then they were asking about the mushroom ravioli.
At that time, it was only a seasonal dish.
It was something that we ran during the fall.
So we started to listen to this desire for people to have
the same dish that Edward and Bella had on their first date
and we soon realized that we needed to move it off the seasonal menu
and get it on the regular menu.
Subsequently, it's our best-selling item, of course.
And we're seeing people line up an hour before we open
to have their mushroom ravioli fix.
If they knew to make a reservation, they're usually pretty happy.
We can get them in.
But quite often people have traveled all day to get here
and we're only a small restaurant, we have 55 seats
and we're feeding about 200 people a day.
So on occasion, we have to let some people down.
And it's sad to see them going down to the bookstore in tears,
but we do our best to comfort everybody.
We get theatrical with them.
We feel like they're living out their fantasy.
The most common question is, "What table did Edward and Bella sit at?"
And more often than not, we let people choose that table.
We have one particular table in the corner, that we like to seat people at.
Once we get them settled down, and they know they're gonna have a meal,
it's a lot of fun to see them participate in the whole experience.
BELLES: For me, when I drive from Port Angeles to Forks,
a lot of times, it's quite a drive and your imagination wanders off.
And I do envision,
"Oh, my gosh. This is where Bella and Edward were driving in the Volvo,
"when he was driving so fast back to Forks. This is where he drove. This road."
The fans who come here,
just sharing it with them, you get somebody to talk to.
Twilight, you know? We all speak Twilight here.
We have thousands of fans coming here, wanting the same thing.
We have people from all over the world.
I'm pretty sure there is not a country we have missed.
Very big in Germany. Twilight absolutely blew up in Germany.
Uh, we have some folks from Brazil. A lot of folks from Russia.
And I started seeing from the Asian countries as well.
And South Africa.
I've had quite a few fellow South Africans come through.
One time, I got very nervous when we had some folks from Romania.
Because they're anciently known for their vampires.
So I was quite curious to know what they think about our vampires.
And actually, after they shopped I asked them,
"So, what do you think? Do you approve of our vampires?"
(WITH ACCENT) "Of course, I do. That's why I'm here.
"I like your vampires. I think it's very good."
So that was awesome to know that they approve of it.
RICHTER: We are from Germany and came to Forks.
I asked my parents if we could see Forks.
I wanted to because I'm a hardcore fan.
So, they said, "Okay, but it's only for one time."
So, we went by plane and it was very exhausting.
But now we are here and we are so happy.
Things get back to normal in the fall when the rain starts coming in
and the Twihards sort of trickle away.
But we know they're going to be coming back for years.
We've been pretty fortunate. Stephenie did her homework.
She called the restaurant when she was doing her Google research
and spoke with us.
And then, subsequently, showed up with her family
and we were pleased to buy her dinner.
It's been a huge boon for us, of course.
You almost got the sense that she was, you know, excited, herself.
For the experience, maybe, that Edward had here as well.
She was with her boys and husband. She was really warm with us.
She stepped outside with the staff and got her picture taken.
It was a great experience. We'd love to have her back, of course.
I think that dark climate
and the reason that Stephenie chose the Olympic Peninsula, a real place,
to tell this vampire story once again, really is the brilliant part of it.
(ALL CHEERING LOUDLY)
(UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING)
We're here to see Twilight: Eclipse.
The premiere of Eclipse.
The big Twilight premiere. First time it's out.
The midnight showing.
It's very exciting.
(GIGGLING)
(LAUGHING)
- It's fun. - Loving every minute of it.
You know it's fun here.
It's, I think, like 10:30. My friend got here at 11 :30 in the morning,
so we're committed to this movie.
We've been waiting so long for it.
I love the movie and so does my husband. So it'll be like, "Yeah, we were first in line."
We really do love this movie and this story.
It's a good story, so I told my wife I'd go.
It'll be 3:00 a.m. When we get home
and I'm up at 6:00 in the morning with my son.
We're serious about this.
I wanted the rights to be like, "Yeah, we were here."
FEMALE ANNOUNCER: Hope you guys enjoy Eclipse.
(ALL CHEERING LOUDLY)
(PEOPLE CHATTERING)
- I just watched Eclipse. - I just watched Eclipse.
- I thought it was amazing. - I loved it.
- It was amazing. - I love the special effects, everything.
It was a really good movie and it met my expectations, so I liked it.
Jacob Black is beautiful, and that was the best part.
I want to be in a Twilight movie.
Hmm, I have a great love affair with Twilight.
(CHUCKLING)
She's obsessed.
(LAUGHS) A little bit. Yeah, kind of.
Yeah, we might be.
(LAUGHING)
Not in a bad way. I mean, it was obsessive because you grew anxious
to read it and find out what happened.
I just became obsessed.
Anything with Edward comes on the TV, we yell, we record it.
We're, like, obsessed with the pictures and everything.
As far as I know, when it comes to...
A Twihard Twilight fan, I was the first.
Twihards are like, "Oh, my gosh, I have Team Edward tattooed on my back
"and I'm naming my child Bella."
I love it so much, I named my son Cullen. And I'm not kidding.
(LAUGHING)
It's true! It's crazy.
People either are like, "Oh, that's the dumbest thing ever" or, "That's awesome!"
My son's name is Robert Cullen.
Well, you know, there's a whole variety of crazies out there.
I had a guy who wanted to impress his girlfriend
and covered himself in glitter. He sent me a letter for that.
I have Bella's Lullaby as my ring tone on my cell phone.
I have Jacob as my screensaver on my cell phone.
(LAUGHS) I have Facebook stuff all over with just Twilight.
You think about these characters.
You start thinking about them like you would think of your family.
"Oh, I miss so-and-so. Haven't seen them in a while.
"Haven't heard from them in a while.
"Oh, let me pick up the book called Twilight and see what they're up to."
It really gets to that point.
Just obsessed Twilight fans. Some do get out of hand, but...
There's nothing wrong with them, still. They're still normal.
I don't like to read, so if I see pictures of them on T-shirts and stuff,
like, I have to have it.
Twilight, I don't think I'll ever get tired of it. I don't think so.
I've even had guys that... This happens a lot.
They email me and they say, "My girlfriend is about to break up with me
"and the only thing that can save our relationship
"is if you get Stephenie Meyer to say something to my girlfriend. Please do it."
(LAUGHS) And I feel so bad 'cause I can't do that.
I mean, they dress up in Volturi outfits. They make their own T-shirts.
My opinion hasn't quite changed, 'cause I think they're crazy,
from when I was outside and when I was inside.
Except I can see why they're crazy about it, now.
They're good crazies. They're just having fun.
I mean, we go to work from 8:00 to 5:00. We have families.
So long as our priorities are straight
and we're able to, kind of, use this as a hobby or an outlet,
I think it's healthy. I think it's fun.
Twilighters are just people who are devoted to the books.
They read the books, go see the movies, but they're not entirely obsessed.
Twihards are way more devoted.
It really becomes like a lifestyle.
You know, I can't even remember how I lived before Twilight.
I think it's just a wild fandom mentality.
You all love something and you all crowd around it
and then the hype just gets bigger and bigger.
The more hyped up your neighbor gets, then you get more...
And you just bounce off of each other until it's this mania going on.
They think we're crazy, but we're not.
We're just normal people who really like the story.
I think it's wonderful that more people are getting exposed to it
and more people are just, kind of, going sane-crazy for it, I guess.
I mean, people can be obsessed with a lot of things.
Why not be obsessed with Twilight?
There's nothing wrong with being a Twilight fan.
The story is just so amazing.
I couldn't put them down. I read all four books in two weeks.
I mean, the writing and it was just the romance of it
and you know, the innocence of how vampires could be if they were real.
It was just... Yeah.
I read each book in two days.
All four books in a month.
Probably about a little over a week to read through it.
(LAUGHS)
Uh, I purposely read the books slower 'cause I don't want them to end,
but it only took me two days.
Probably twice or three times each, yeah.
Probably a month and a half.
A week and a half. That's working full time with two kids.
SCIACCIO: I worked and read the books and slept.
(GIGGLING)
Four days, it took me.
And then over the summer, I've maybe read them possibly five times.
I just couldn't put it down
and I actually read all the books at least three times.
It wasn't something I could put down very easily
and I was reading it every night for a couple of weeks.
I couldn't put them down.
I was even reading them on my breaks at work and all night. Wasn't sleeping.
I stopped to eat and stuff but,
no, for the most part, it took me only two days to read each book.
(LAUGHING) I've never read another book in a week.
Yeah, never have.
I saw it at Barnes & Noble.
Started reading the first page and I was like, "Shoot, got to buy it."
I found time.
I loved it so much I could not put it down, so I found time.
Got the book and took it home
and stayed up most of the night, finishing reading it.
(LAUGHS) And then went and got the rest of the books and then...
I can't remember the timeline,
but the other books came out and yeah, I was just...
It's a bad pun, but I was sucked in.
So I've read the full series twice through.
And now before each movie, like a month before, I'll start reading.
'Cause that's all I have time for now. Just like a month before.
But I'll start reading the book that's about to come out.
So now I just have a few pages left.
I'm going to finish right before it starts, just to have it fresh in my mind.
Even my step mom read them.
I was enthralled. I couldn't stop.
People just really have a special connection to the books.
They read it over and over and over.
And then there's that whole side world of fan-fiction,
because people just can't get enough of these characters.
Um...
It's a toss-up.
(BLOWING RASPBERRY) Um...
Well, it's kind of hard to choose.
Uh...
Team Edward, right here. Yeah. (GIGGLES)
Team Jacob.
- Alice. - My favorite would be Bella.
Seth, I think. Yeah.
Edward is my life.
Team Jakeward. I can't pick just one. I like both Jake and Edward.
I think it would have to be Bella.
Emmett. Emmett Cullen. Definitely. (LAUGHING) He's so funny.
And if he met me, he'd drop Rosalie right away.
(CHUCKLES)
- Jacob. - Edward.
Team Edward.
I'm Team Edward.
Oh, gosh, I never like picking characters.
I like Jacob.
I love Edward, not just 'cause he's like, oh, the heartthrob,
but I love how he loves Bella, how he treats her.
I don't know, I think their story is really cool, so I think he's my favorite character.
He's not a normal guy.
He's different, he's from the old times and he's very much about tradition
and you don't see guys like that now.
He has a very strong love for Bella.
A protective love, a gentlemanly love.
(GIGGLES) And he's very proper with her,
but he protects her and takes care of her.
And I think that's really a nice thing for a man to be.
I like Edward, of course, 'cause...
I'll become a vampire for him, yeah. (LAUGHING) I'll let him bite me.
Yep, they go crazy for Edward and Jacob.
Jacob, uh, give me a call. I like you.
I mostly love Edward because of the books,
but then Jacob's kind of amazing in the movie, so...
Because he's warm and kind. And he's human. (LAUGHING)
- Your abs rock. - You have a nice body.
He's the perfect husband, really, Jacob Black. Really is.
Something about that Taylor Lautner that just, uh, gets me.
It's just like, "Yeah, yes, pick him."
When Jacob takes off his T-shirt, they go crazy.
(BOTH GIGGLING)
I loved seeing how much Bella developed.
I relate to her.
I think she's just so strong and knows what she wants.
Yeah. I don't know.
She's just your normal, down-to-earth girl.
I'm fond of the whole crew.
(ALL CHEERING LOUDLY)
(ALL HOOTING)
MATHEWS: After I read the books, I introduced them to my sister
and she loved them.
So, we found ourselves talking on the phone to each other
for an hour or two, every other couple of days about the books, arguing.
I mean, just passionately arguing about different things.
And I thought, "You know what? This would be really funny.
"I think our friends would like to listen to us."
So we actually recorded our conversations over the phone.
And then I found a way to get them on iTunes.
And it went from 20 listeners of just our friends the first few weeks,
to over 200 listeners after the first month.
And I just was like, "Are you kidding me? This is nuts."
TwilightGuy.com was invented in April, 2008.
Whenever I had been blogging on my regular site,
just talking about Stephenie Meyer, not really knowing what it was.
And I had posted something on my blog, like a spoof post,
how Kaleb Nation was cast as Edward Cullen in the Twilight movie.
And all of a sudden my website was swarmed by thousands of girls
screaming at how I couldn't possibly be Edward,
because I was just horrible for the role.
So my self-esteem was just wrecked.
All of a sudden people were asking for a fan site.
Somewhere to learn more about the news, about the books, about the characters.
So, we just started a fan site.
A website off of the podcast. We kind of did it backwards.
But, man, has it been amazing,
'cause now we have about 60,000 listeners a week, which is pretty cool.
I thought, "Why are these girls so crazy about this fictional character?"
And I had to find out what the reason was.
I didn't know any other guys reading this book.
I thought, well, I'll be the guy that reads it
and goes chapter by chapter through each chapter of the book
and finds out why girls love Edward and Jacob so much.
And that's why I started Twilight Guy. Com.
KARA O'GRADY: TwilightMOMS is a fan site that was started by Lisa Hansen
over four years ago, when she first read Twilight
and couldn't find anything on the web for anyone over 20 years old.
She started a MySpace page, just looking for anyone else
that had read the books that maybe was married,
maybe had kids, or was she really crazy?
Turned out her MySpace page grew to over 500 friends.
We moved to Free Forums and currently there's 39,000 members
and growing across the world.
For Twilight Guy. Com, I started the website and then during the night,
I thought, "This is a horrible idea, I'm going to take it down in the morning."
But I left it up, because I'd just thrown it together and had a first post up.
The next morning I woke up and 4,000 people had already visited my website,
because somebody had blogged about it and said,
(GASPING) "There's a Twilight guy out there!"
(EXCLAIMING) So everyone freaked out.
And so I thought, "Well, I have to keep this up." And then three days later,
I was actually out of town and Stephenie Meyer found out about me
and she blogged about me on her MySpace
and sent 30 or 40,000 people to me from her blog,
saying she thought it was hilarious.
She laughed buckets at what I was writing on her first chapter.
So now with Stephenie Meyer's seal of approval on my website,
I was almost instantly accepted into the fandom, and they were so nice to me.
Everyone linked to me and the reception was just wonderful. It was great.
I run the Twilight Superfan site, it's part of a hub on MSN,
where they've got several Superfans, different genres.
And the others are all wide-scope genres,
but Twilight has a big enough fandom that I have my own fandom.
It's just the Twilight Superfan site, and it's been great.
It started, like, at two, three thousand a day, then it got up to about 20,000 a day
and actually, just yesterday I passed six million hits on the website.
We're getting 75,000 unique people a day.
Now, that's not how many people a day. That's unique people a day,
- 'cause they come back three, four, five times. - Right.
And then you get to an event like an Eclipse premiere week.
I've now got over 100,000 people on the site a day.
I believe, from the last stats I got, I get about three to 350,000 a month.
It's all over the world, which is amazing.
UK, Australia, New Zealand.
- Little tiny countries that I've never heard of. - And Russia.
Indonesia.
We have fans in Dubai. I didn't know where Dubai was.
Oh, we had a contest winner in Israel.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- So, it's international. It absolutely is. - (LAUGHING)
We love our listeners with an accent.
NATION: Fandom, there's so many different types of fans.
You have the younger girls, you have the people that are just there for the movie,
you have people who are specifically there
just because they want to see Rob and Kristen.
There are so many different demographics and different types of fans in fandom.
And because there are so many different fan sites,
just hundreds of them all over the world,
everyone has their own little place that they can go
and they can feel like that's their home.
My husband and I went on a cross-country trip last summer
and we drove from New Jersey to California through Utah and back.
And at 10 different cities,
we stopped and we visited groups of TwilightMOMS, that I had talked to
on the web or seen pictures of and they opened their homes to us.
They were like, "Here's my husband, here's my kids.
"Come have dinner. You have to do laundry here.
"You shouldn't stay in a hotel."
It's crazy. It's like having extended family all over the country.
We all started reading the books at the same time and sharing stories.
My daughter got into it, then the woman I worked for got into it
and they got me into it, and we got everybody else into it. It's a fun series.
I'm over 30. I'm married, but we still don't have kids.
I live in New York, so we live a very different lifestyle from Lisa Hansen,
who's the owner of TwilightMOMS. She's based out of Utah,
and has several children and she has a loving husband,
but when we first met, if it wasn't for Twilight,
we couldn't be on more opposite ends of the spectrum.
I'm a Liberal Democrat, she's a very Conservative Republican.
I can't think of any reason of why our paths would've crossed,
if it wasn't for these books.
And together I love them to death. I'm going to get a little verklempt.
Uh, for us, this series has been something that has really brought us close together.
Friends, family. And for us to get together and have a night out,
it's been just absolutely amazing.
I've also met amazing people from the fan site groups, as well as just fans.
Two years ago, almost 200 TwilightMOMS went to Stephenie Meyer Day,
from all across the country.
People came from New Zealand, people came from Alaska,
all down just to talk about the books
and the love of the movies, and to spend time with each other.
Because we sit online every night.
People are sitting online while their babies are nursing,
while they're finally taking a cat-nap, when the kids have gone down to bed.
And we're all online talking about everything.
From not only the books and how pretty Rob is,
but, "Oh, my child's having a tough time at kindergarten."
Or, "My husband's losing his job, can you guys give me financial advice?"
It's absolutely all-encompassing. It's a very wonderful, supportive system.
So any time we can have a meet-up, we do.
The people that are in this fandom are such an amazing group of dedicated people.
I mean, literally, most of my friends in real life now,
I've actually met through the Twilight fandom.
I moved here because...
My first time to Los Angeles was coming here for the Twilight premiere.
So I moved here because of that, and all my friends that I met there.
Literally, 90% of my friends I've met because they're either bloggers
or they do videos and I know them through that.
It's a way to make friends.
I mean, I just can't even tell you how many people we've met.
It's not like that we're BFFs or anything like that.
But just to know other people and to be there as an outlet for them.
And just to either listen to us, or chat with us on Facebook,
it's just fun because your next-door neighbor might not be into Twilight,
but you can get online and hang out with other people
that love it just as much as you do.
I think every person has a reason, and it's separate from everybody else,
of why they love Twilight so much. Some people it's the guys.
Yeah, you can't help it. If you came in when the movies started,
Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner are not too hard on the eyes.
For some people, it's the books.
I mean, they really got into it before the movies ever were started up
and that's kind of where I come from.
I love Twilight because... Well, first of all, I read the books
and I was very intrigued by them because they were so interesting.
They just kept me reading and they were just riveting to me.
I think in this time, there's not very much chivalry
and I think Edward is very chivalrous.
I think that, to me, was a huge draw.
That he respects her and wants her humanity to be protected,
and I think that's really cool.
It helps fulfill the things that you don't see today.
Like, in Edward you find a gentleman. You find someone you don't see today.
Like, your average guy just wants to be a player but they never find...
They're not gallant and so I think women especially find that
a way to reconnect with something that they wish they had if they don't have it.
I think it just fulfills those dreams that women don't have yet.
It's about very close, intimate relationships.
It's about friendships. It's about sacrifice.
It's about giving their all for a cause, I guess.
(SIGHING)
It pulls at your heartstrings.
It just makes you feel like you just got this VIP ticket
to this world that you're now a part of.
And you learn to care and love so much about the characters,
that you feel like you're just part of the story.
I think the thing that draws people to Twilight a lot,
is just the idea the story represents. It represents...
I guess it's a love story that has everything against it.
You have that Bella's father doesn't like Edward.
Jacob's the best friend and he wants her.
Oh, well, he's a vampire! You just throw that in there.
And if you put all of that stuff together, from natural to supernatural things,
that real teenagers deal with to things that they don't,
the message behind it is that true love will pretty much conquer anything.
It'll break down all the barriers, even barriers between humans and vampires.
Reading Twilight inspires you again.
It sparks that fire that reminds you of when life was the most important thing.
Not, "Oh, should we refinance the mortgage on Tuesday?"
I think it was mostly the romance. Just like the old-fashioned,
"It doesn't happen like that anymore" kind of thing.
Just the respect in between Edward and Bella.
I don't know.
I think it just was a nice change in today, you know?
Today's society.
I think what's so amazing about Twilight,
is that sometimes the media assumed, "Oh, they're all tweens"
or, "They're all goths."
- There is no, "They're all" fill in the blank. - Yeah.
BYRNE-CRISTIANO: You had people who were moms and 40-year-olds,
next to 20-year-olds from Australia,
next to girls who were into the dark, goth thing,
next to girls who couldn't be bigger girlie-girls if they tried.
You know, it's something that relates across the board.
And that's what I think is so awesome,
is that it breaks down barriers and there isn't a type.
I mean, you've got 11-year-olds that are freaking out
(LAUGHING) and you've got 55-year-olds that are freaking out.
I love it, personally.
I think that it's a way for moms and daughters and grandmothers, even, to bond,
to remember that time of first love.
And also opening conversations between those different generations
about what that feels like.
I can identify with this movie as much as any of my students, really.
So many mothers and daughters have bonded over this.
We've seen fathers and daughters bond over this,
because it is something that crosses generations.
There's something in it for everyone. It appeals to an older generation,
because we all remember what it was like to be young and in love.
It appeals to the young generation,
'cause they're putting themselves in Bella's position.
So it crosses that generational gap.
We all, at some point in our lives, have been like, "Oh, I want that true love."
Even if it's a vampire. (LAUGHING) You know.
For me, it's not going to be.
But, it's one of those things where we all want that.
You know, it's funny. I joke with the guys that I see that are fans.
And I say, "Oh, you're a brave soul to be out here."
But just like every girl wants to be in love, I think every guy wants that perfect girl.
And so I think that's where they fall into it.
Plus, what guy can go wrong with being surrounded by several women
that are looking for that perfect guy? They can't lose.
I think I love the idea that there are things in this world that are unseen.
I think it's cool that Stephenie Meyer put a perspective to it
that hasn't been before.
The author, she's a really great writer.
She knows how to tell a story really well.
And it's a very simple read.
She just loves her work. She loves the fans.
She's super grateful to the fan sites.
And just, you know, for her to come and talk to each of us was really great,
and we really appreciated that. So, she's a great lady.
One of the greatest things about Stephenie Meyer is,
she wrote the stories and you can still see
what a fan, in a sense, she is of her own work.
She's still passionate about it. She's not blas�.
She's not like, "Oh! Doing another event."
I mean, you see her eyes light up.
We just got done interviewing her on the red carpet
and she was so excited to see us, to share, to talk about it.
That's fantastic. You don't feel like she's jaded in any sense.
And certainly, with this being the biggest thing in the world right now,
that could be such a natural reaction that you would expect.
And she's not. She's totally down-to-earth, totally excited.
What more could you ask? That's so fabulous.
She was really sweet. Stephenie just looked us all in the eye.
She was like, "Thank you very much for coming.
"Thank you for buying my book."
And we were like, "Whoa. No, thank you for writing them.
"You're the genius here. Thank you."
She's just a real person. She doesn't have that sense
of holier-than-thou "look what I created" kind of a thing.
- I think she's still amazed at what this is. - Yeah.
Because nobody sits down and writes a book
and says, "I'm going to write the next big thing."
She's just a cool person with an awesome brain.
(LAUGHS) She's just got a lot of ideas.
And I love that she's able to put them on paper in a way that we all can enjoy it.
It's just good storytelling.
And I think that's what people want more than anything else,
is just solid storytelling that takes you on an adventure.
- And I think that's what this has going for it. - Mmm-hmm.
It filled the void, and it just ran.
(INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC PLAYING)
---the end---