Socrates Stamatatos
Bedrotting is trending for all us “online girls” as I am writing this text, and suddenly I am transferred back to the OG bedrot queen, or to be more precise the OG chair-rot queen.
OCTOBER (there’s a possibility…)
NOVEMBER (there’s a possibility…)
DECEMBER (there’s a possibility…)
Does this seem/sound familiar? The twihard girls that get it, get it, the ones who don’t, don’t. There is something captivating about the scene in the Twilight sequel New Moon, where Bella is passively sitting on her chair staring at the street. She’s yearning nostalgically for “girlboss” Edward Cullen, while being a rat and “not like other girls”. This scene is deeply cemented in my brain and seems like a liminal space, a portal to chaotic yet simpler times.
I sit on the same imaginary chair inside my brain, and I time jump back to the mid/late 2000s and to the Twilight fan forum I used to co-moderate.
At the ripe age of 11-12, I was finishing Elementary school in Greece, while in an early journey of self-discovery around gender and sexuality. My forever friends back in the day were the Greek MTV channel and my old laptop, which I used to spend most of my time in front of at my grandparents house, unsupervised. I was obsessed with Twilight since the first trailers of the movie came out on MTV, and as a chronically online person I e-invested deep into the goth-mormon-momporn lore early on. Coming from a deeply religious background—my grandpa is a Greek Orthodox priest, very Ethel Cain of me—, vampires, witchcraft and all this type of fantasy was forbidden, so I couldn’t even imagine asking to go to the cinema to watch Twilight. Thankfully, my English teacher at school, Ms .Penny, had downloaded Twilight illegally, and burned it to a DVD as a gift to me. So thank you Ms. Penny for confirming the stereotype of English teachers, being a lonely, queer students’ unconditional supporter, and for enabling my obsession with Twilight. Which at this point, is equal to my nicotine addiction.
For some reason the erotic fantasy of a suppressed Mormon wife became my problem, Twilight was my getaway… I remember devouring the books in no time, highlighting quotes to post as cringe Facebook statuses. “What are you thinking?”, asked the Facebook status box and I would copy-paste the most unhinged quote from the cuck-tent scene in Eclipse. Engaging alone and individually with the Twilight universe was not enough, and both my school peers and friends were not interested in the Twilight craze. I needed more, I needed the community. Searching online I found a Greek Twilight Forum, in its early days.
During my first days at the forum, I was frantically commenting on each and every one of the posts, in a way that was almost spam. The goal was to get noticed by the admins of the forum. I wanted them to experience my dedication and grant me the “golden ticket” to become an admin myself. Luckily I did! That was not the only goal though… I wanted more, I desperately needed to be the no.1 fan. I started obsessing with the cast—to be fair, I obsessed mostly with Kristen Stewart; maybe my Queerdar was picking up. I definitely had a parasocial relationship with her and with Robert Pattinson. In a weird way I fantasised about being Bella, having a creepy vampire boyfriend that plays piano and guitar, that sings to me in gibberish and watches me in my bedroom as I fall asleep.
Screenshot from forum’s Portal page where the stats of the most active accounts are being shown, alongside with other stats. ( HYPERLINK "https://greek.twilight-mania.com/"https://greek.twilight-mania.com/ )
The distinct line between reality and fiction was blending. My brain at times couldn’t decipher Bella from Kristen and Edward from Robert, me being Bella, me wanting to be a vampire, or even me wanting to be part of this alternative universe. I wanted to be both Bella the innocent, rat girl, the lamb that the lion falls in love with. But at the same time, I wanted to experience being Bella the vampire, the indestructible. The urge to become the girldator (girl+predator).
Simultaneously, my behaviour as a forum admin was becoming more and more authoritarian. I got into different fights with members of the community. Older admins were leaving the forum for unknown reasons, and I began laying down the most extreme rules, thus effectively expelling many of the participants. Do not write all caps. Do not double comment. Do not comment in Greeklish (Greek with English characters). Do not comment just emoticons.
It was as if I wanted to stay alone at the forum. Like a vampire I was blood thirsty for newcomers, fresh meat was to devoured and to later discarded.
The final form of my digital ‘vampire’ transformation was when all admins left and I was granted access to the main admin account that was named “Forum Founder”. “Forum Founder” became my alter-ego. Like a God, I had access to everything, knew everything and had the privilege to make special actions that the rest of admin accounts couldn’t. Gradually, my main account “Socki Cullen”, became less active and its post/comment count was outnumbered by the “Forum Founder” account. Being the “Forum Founder” felt like the scene when Bella emerges as a newborn vampire, opening her wide red eyes and experiencing the world as a new entity. Revisiting this period in my life now, I believe it was the first time where I felt I was existing more like a concept rather than a body that is fully stacked with identities.
Time passed and the forum was abandoned by most of its users, as the Twilight craze was winding down. My interest in the forum was fading away each day, and my relationship with the Twilight universe switched from obsession with it to a softer admiration of a cult classic. I abandoned the forum as well, and I only revisit it every now and then. To me the forum resembles an ancient temple: you know it’s always there and from time to time you have to go back just to stan the glory it once had. Can’t say the same though for Twilight as a form of media. As I have the urge to rewatch the entirety of the saga when the hoahoahoahoahoa weather1 starts every year, or when I am feeling low. It is after all, my all time favourite-comfort medium.
Screenshot from my ‘Messages' section of the Forum, where my PM is bombarded from porn-bots.
Sometimes I wonder what happened to the rest of the people that were part of this community and where they are now…
The only “online girls” that right now reside inside the dark alleys of this forgotten Greek Twilight Forum, are spam-porn-bots of horny milfs waiting for you to please them, just 4 miles away.. As for me, I’m rotting on my rat chair, yearning irrevocably to RETVRN to the almost “good” old days.
1hoahoahoahoahoa weather: Gloomy weather similar to the weather of Forks, the town where the saga takes place . Hoahoahoahoahoa refers to the opening melody of the song ‘Eyes on Fire’ by Blue Foundation, that is part of the Twilight OST.