I have friends who refuse to on some sort of principle to see (or read) some popular culture phenomenon. Harry Potter books and movies. Lord of the Rings books and movies. Titanic. Star Wars. (Although how that particular person managed to have a 70s childhood and 80s teenagehood and still never see Star Wars amazes me to this day.)

Key is that you have never tried to watch or read the thing yourself, and then determined you didn’t like it. No, you just decided, based on what you heard about it, that it wasn’t for you. Then you go to whatever extremes to never see it, no matter how popular.

For me, it’s Twilight. Even its fans admit that the books are, frankly, badly written. Bitch Magazine wrote a scathing overview of it as “abstinence porn”. No movie reviews ever seem to be particular positive. Overall, nothing I want to spend time or money on.

The problem is, though, that because I was a big Buffy fan, a lot of people somehow  think that Twilight would be just my cup of tea. I’ve come within a hair’s breadth of getting the DVD as a gift. I keep being asked my opinion of it. It keeps being recommended to me.

Yes, Buffy had vampires, but that hardly means I therefore enjoy everything with vampires in it. I’ve read no Anne Rice, do not watch Vampire Diaries, and have yet to try anything Sookie Stackhouse (though I know it’s supposed to be good, and I may try it at some point). Vampires were frankly, fairly incidental to my enjoyment of Buffy, because Buffy also happened to have great writing, compelling characters, heavy philosophical undertones, and plenty of humour. None of which, from what I can tell, Twilight shares.

So I was particular delighted to come across this YouTube video, wherein Buffy reacts to the stalkerish Edward in the way he deserves: