Proof We're All Going To Die A Very Stupid Death

I know this might be beating a dead horse that's already in the third stage of decomp after it's been picked clean by a pack of wild dogs, but goddammit do I get pissed off by the state of the modern publishing industry.
It seems like any novel that's new or interesting or has something important to say immediately gets co-opted by Hollywood and turned into some kind of period piece chick flick that jettisons all pretense of deeper thought in order to "up the sexitude" so that those long strips of celluloid can be transformed through dark alchemy into huge piles of cash.

Heaven forbid you happen to have a simple character drama, or something that has a Sci-Fi or Fantasy theme and yet still adheres to simple practices like plot, spelling, and saying something meaningful outside of "in the future women will totally wear bondage gear and use magick [sic] to entrap men in their web of sexiness." Even if your book does somehow sidestep that fanboy landmine, you'll still end up getting [redacted due to frightening sexual reference] by your publishing company when they put a dragon and two half naked models who took a day off from hocking margarine in order to do the photoshoot for the cover.
"But I don't even have a dragon in this book," you'll say with a note of confusion.
"This'll sell more," they will tell you, tossing you a stack of money which you will nervously put in your pocket as a little piece of your soul shrivels up and falls to the ground, to be consumed later by the publisher when they take their true reptilian form.

I bring this up because last night a friend of mine introduced me to a Web site whose sole purpose it to read and review and talk about romance novels. At least they have to decency to acknowledge in their URL and Web site name that the books are "trashy," and in truth I don't blame them for the jaw-droppingly appalling number of terrible books that get published every year, but this just goes to show a fundamental problem with the world.
Someone with something real and telling to say about the human condition will be told There's No Audience For This while someone who has some girl and some guy who can't have sex until the evil wizard is defeated or something like that will get signed on in a hurry.

You see, when something like Twilight hits the center stage and does an awkward preteen striptease for the world, most people - myself included initially - simply shrug and look away in embarrassment while muttering for it to please stop, you're making a scene.
However, four books, soon to be two movies, and several bleeding eardrums later, it's gotten kind of hard to ignore.
Now, I know what you're going to say, Roan, look, they're young girls and they can use some escapism in their life. When they grow up they will realize the error of their ways and read something better.
Wrong! Wrong for two reasons.
First, let me tackle that "young girls will be idiots" argument. While I readily admit that your youth is a time to do reckless and stupid things, Twilight, unlike, say, a heroin addiction, is something that will severely alienate you from meeting anyone worthwhile. I have met some really cool heroin addicts, junkies who can cook like some kind of Greek deity of culinary wonder and yet also wax philosophical on existentialism and the Dead Sea Scrolls. The only Twilight fans I have ever met are people who can barely be bothered to wonder about whether or not God is, in fact, dead, because omigodedwardissohot. If you have trouble reading that, imagine an entire conversation in which every sentence is pronounced like that is spelled.

Secondly, as this article with a hilarious title points out, they aren't all little girls. Grown women are reading this tripe and eating it up. Women who, for all intents and purposes, are raising other women as we speak, passing this thing down so that soon all we will be able to hear about from any woman from 16 to 89 is omigodedwardissohot.

Ok, wait, just thought of a third argument, what I like to call The Harry Potter Defense.
(Before I begin, let me start off by saying that I have no problem with Harry Potter. It's writing is nothing special, but at least it is not stomach-hemorrhage-inducingly bad, and it's got a good message at its money-pumping heart.)

So this is the argument that says, "Yea, its a terrible book with no real value in the long run, but at least its getting people reading, right?"
Yea. There's a sound argument to take to court with you. "Sure meth will slowly destroy you and lead you to a life of trailer park prostitution, but at least it's got people injecting something, right?"
See, it doesn't matter if the fundamental vessel for transmission is inherently good (books can bestow knowledge, needles can bestow intravenous medicine) if you take the vessel and fill it with detritus.

What's even worse are the people who attempt to defend Twilight by saying that if so many people read it it must be good. Well hell, if so many Nazis thought the Third Reich was awesome, who are we to disagree?
The most grievous of all of these transgressions of logic was when I was talking to a friend of mine about why she liked Twilight.
"It's really well written," she told me over crabs and cold beer (wooo, Maryland!), "and the characters are awesome and it's just a good story." Ok, so far so logical. "I think you would like it," she said, instantly making me wonder if she weren't a pod person sent to kill me. "I mean, I hate books and I like it, so that must mean it's good."

Jesus, I think Aristotle just entered a chess game with God to try and win fifteen minutes back on Earth so he could slap this girl. That's like saying "I hate ballet but this YouTube video of an epileptic spasming on a theater stage is just really awesome!"
Simply because you don't like to take part in a certain form of media doesn't mean that if you actually like something that takes that form it must be awesome. It means you have no leg to stand on and should shut up.
"Books are, like, lame and stuff" has been the bane of my existence since I started reading. And the most galling thing is that people think "He likes books, this is a book, ergo he must like this!"
And the overwhelming popularity of terrible romantic fiction only leads me to believe that at the end of the day there is only a select group of people who are intellectual enough to create and appreciate anything worthwhile.

I pray that when the bombs drop, anyone who ever did more than walk very quickly past the store displays of Twilight and other such trash romance literature for fear of passersby assuming they were interested in it will be given a nice pair of sunglasses and told to enjoy the view while the rest of us huddle in the bunkers and pray that the North Koreans worked out those targeting software problems.

Obligatory Rant Against New Vampires

You know what was sweet about vampires?
They fucking murdered people.
The basic formula for the creation of the vampire mythology played out thusly:

(Zombie-like failure to die fully + human intelligence + werewolf like love of night) X (Man-eating cannibalistic tendency + no natural expiration date) = Vampire.

See how simple that is? My God, a child could figure this out. Vampires are the culmination of everything that is unholy and evil in the human imagination. They were great at scaring people into states of almost incomprehensible fear. They come into your room and drink your blood! Your 98.6 degree blood! You know how disgusting beer is when its room temperature? Amp it up another twenty degrees and that is how hot your blood would be. What kind of sick, twisted hell-spawn could enjoy that?
Sure, they had a deeper evil to them. They were dehumanized in that they killed people (can't stress that one enough) but they retained their intelligence. So unlike the zombie, which could honestly be just too damn stupid to realize he is eating his best friend, the vampire can rationalize the evil he is committing. The purpose of this isn't to cause him Anne Rice level angst. It was to make them even more terrifying.
"Yes, I eat people. Damn right. Do I care? No. Why not? Because fuck you, that's why. I'm higher on the food chain." A zombie kills without reason. A werewolf can't control himself either. A vampire knows what he's doing. He's not the 7-11 clerk who shoots a robber because he has no choice. He's the thrill-killer who can't wait to rip open another carotid artery.
So answer me this: Why do lonely housewives and under-developed teenagers find vampires so bloody (pun fully intended) attractive?
Because vampires have been changed from monstrous to misunderstood. No longer are they to be fear, but nurtured and brought back to humanity.
And this appeals to women, who love taking in wounded and terrible men so that they might change them for the better.
(By the way, let me point out now that this post is in no way saying all women are like this. Just most of them. 97%. And if you're reading this you totally aren't one of them.)
In a way, catering to this idea is dangerous. It basically says, "Sure, honey, you love a man who hurts people and will most likely end your life, but if you stay with him, excuse him all of his faults, and love him a whole lot his humanity will shine through and even if he harms you he will repent and most likely say he only did whatever because he loved you."
...
Yea. There's a healthy message. And if he gives you a rose you owe him a sexual favor.

I honestly can't figure out what pisses me off more about Twilight, Anne Rice, and (to a lesser extent) TrueBlood.
On the one hand, we have the idea that people of all ages are being fed the covert idea that abusive, terrible people should be excused all of their wickedness because of their past (they were bitten by a vampire! their dad never hugged them!). Not to mention that whole, tired "love will conquer all" sentiment. Can we please stop spreading that lie? Let's go back to the Old Yeller approach to the love of something potentially deadly - namely, no matter how much you love it and how much it will hurt to let it go, you should still fucking murder that thing before it gets you first!
On the other hand, though, we have the death of the vampire as a creature of nightmare-breeding terror. And honestly, I don't care if another girl gets into a stupid relationship with an asshole because she wants to feel like she's overcoming something in the name of love (note to you: You're not) as long as some kid wakes up in the night, roused by the sheer, bladder-vacating horror of a vampire-oriented dream.
We don't have many monsters left, people. Zombies have become a fanboy obsession and fodder for video games. Werewolves were never that cool to begin with once you realized they were only a problem once a month. Frankenstein is somewhere in the Arctic. Vampires are our last, best hope for an embodiment of evil to frighten our children with.

This is a moment in history that requires decisive action. Will vampires live on as the life-draining, night-loving, virgin-raping (they did that, right?) hellfiends that we all know and fear, or will they become our children's version of Romeo and Juliet, the symbol of ridiculously misguided love?
It's up to you. You have the power to end this.