Professor Elam

Twilight is the series of smash hit novels from a 34 year old mother of three in Phoenix, AZ, hardly the Valhalla of vampires.  Yes you read that right, Twilight is a series of books aimed at teens about teenager Bella (not someone in Seventeen Magazine) who meets vampire Edward on the first day at her new high school. Sure sounds reasonable to me! Anyway, rather than recount all this  to you, please read the article at the hyper link. And you might want to surf

stepheniemeyer.com

twilightlexicon

twilightguy

twilighters.org

Elam observations

Here is a perfect example of socionomics, the study of how popular culture drives social trends, at work.
The magic of Harry Potter, which occurred during a move up in the stock market, is now followed by  stories with a much darker content, vampires versus magicians. The reason for this is that social mood is the opposite of what was happening during the Potter series when a roaring stock market was presided over by Mr. Happy Go Lucky Bill Clinton.  now the country is being pummeled by politicians telling us either that the country is in the worst shape since the Depression or, if that view is adopted we really will have the Great Depression again. Bank and brokerage melt downs, $4 gasoline, GM and Ford rumored to be bankrupts, global meltdown warming, take your pick!

In Education Class we have viewed movies including the Cannes short film winner this year and the 1940 His Girl Friday. My point was that schools and students are communicating using digital media to express their thoughts, and that is a trend schools should embrace rather than run away from.
Sure enough one student and then all of you commented that the school was spending a lot more time blocking internet content than promoting anything in particular. My comment, that won’t work. Sure enough read how fans, the author, and the boook publisher are using the net to spread teen fascination with the, er ah, couple.

And sure enough, this article details how fascination with Twilight is all over Facebook, MySpace Youtube, the net, etc, a teenage girl and a vampire, the Brady Bunch this ain’t.  The author even arranged a Twilight Prom to promote the third book, at Arizona State University no less, so much for where higher education is going….

But from a socionomic perspective there is no surprise here.  The mood has turned down as gasoline prices and unemployment numbers head up.  IN our EDAD class here on campus, grad students mention  that school officials would want to control the internet access to hopefully prevent pedophiles from learning more about their potential targets. And as long as we are legislating wishful thinking in that arena, no doubt other ‘adult’ sites for the kids are excluded.So what is included?   And so we have, come on in at Arizona State, the Vampire Prom.

Anne Rice began her run in 1976 with Interview With the Vampire.The timing was great as the DOW dithered and gasoline prices again were heading up. The Vampire Lestat however did not appear until 1985. By that time the gasoline crisis had calmed down, the DOW had bottomed and the bull market was underway. She did well with Tom Cruise no less starring in the movie, but her novels were fighting an upward stock market, and aimed at adults.More novels between 1976 and the bottom in 1981-82 would have found a more ready audience.  Meyer started in 2003, post 9/11, during a counter trend up move to the bull market. Graph the DOW in terms of the gold price and you will see the rally that wasn’t. Somehow it just does not feel the same. No kidding, now with the DOW headed down, with  each political party feasting on the gloom and doom warnings of their opposition, the stage is set for  a much more rapid acceptance of vampire tales. Indeed Meyer has wisely chosen to make hay while she can, the rapid downturn in expectations by the public drives the reality that perhaps there are occult figures in our midst, why else the sudden change in fortune for so many?

While one can dismiss this as harmless fun, this is a move from Harry Potter the Magician to a Vampire. Potter followed the classic Beowulf, Odyssey, Star Wars story of orphaned kid turned hero against evil forces, Valdemort in this case. But then Harry is quite at home in daylight, Vampires are only active at night, lurking in the darkness.   Indeed the very darkness that the Vampire requires speaks legions about the enthusiasm for shall we say, The Dark Side of the Force. 

I will be learning more about Edward and Bella, and Ms. Meyer who by the way graduated not from Berkley but Brigham Young, hey, I can’t make stuff like this up!

DLE