Ever since I voiced my own disdain for all things Twilight, I've been on the receiving end of some wildly entertaining hate emails in addition to some equally hilarious emails from readers who sent me links to Twilight-themed decor...
From what I can tell, the vast majority of these items are either manufactured by diehard fans on Etsy or Hot Topic; and my general opinion is that in about ten years, there will be a lot of embarrassed women reminiscing over their Twilight obsessions--quite like how us thirty-somethings bond over that New Kids on the Block ice cream cake from our 11th birthday or how we manage to forget appointments and names of new people, yet still know all the words to Ice Ice Baby.
Unfortunately, that day can't come fast enough, and it seems to have infected not just teens, but women of all ages and relationship statuses. And the mayhem will just become worse since it appears they are making movies out of all the books--and quite possibly taking a cue from Harry Potter and splitting the last book into two. If that is really, truly the plan, I pray that Robert Pattinson follows the lead of Jake Ryan (aka Michael Schoeffling) and escapes to Pennsylvania to become a carpenter. I mean, look at this:
Yes, it's an Edward Cullen shower curtain. The only thing scarier than the actual product is that it is noted in the description that it was made "by request." But I still think this takes the cake:
The first time I saw this bedding, I was rendered speechless: My friend's daughter Maggie insisted on having it before she went off to summer camp, so we spent a weekend trying to locate it. Seriously, it was one of the most ridiculous trips I've ever made to the Arcadia shopping mall, and I have to admit that I almost had a panic attack at the Hot Topic because it was overrun with moms and daughters all fighting to get their hands on a set. I had to leave the shop and get my bearings at the Dippin' Dots kiosk. Anyway, with that kind of record-breaking sales figure, it's no surprise that Hot Topic has already geared up to release yet another blanket to coincide with the release of the sequel. Unfortunately, it's not as hilariously bad as this one--but it's still bad:
Like most things, Twilight-mania will blow over (...eventually); and while we may laugh about it now, here's the real question of the day: What is the most embarrassing thing you had in your room as a child?
(For the record, mine was probably a Garfield poster with the saying, "Tact is for Wienies.")
(Images: Twilight Guide, Hot Topic, Vinyl Fruit Etsy shop, Custom Shower Curtains Etsy Shop)
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i had a wall of boy band posters - backstreet boys, nsync, 98 degrees, etc.
I had a few relatives that insisted on getting me creepy glass eyed porcelain dolls even though I was clearly a tomboy. The embarrassing part is that I got my hands on a nylon Slayer flag to cover them up. It clashed with the pink rose wallpaper so nicely.
that is some of the creepiest stuff i have ever seen. i thought this was a "twilight"-bashing post. i have recently sampled all thing "twilight" and am not amused.
further, it is my contention that the band of serious actors who were roped into the sequel did so (excepting young dakota fanning) at the likely threat of being murdered by their own children.
Posters of U2 and Patrick Swayze (had a severe crush on the latter thanks to the "North and South" miniseries; crap, am I dating myself?).
@coyotbeck: I was/am a tomboy too. I took over my brother's room after he moved out and apart from taking down the Farrah Fawcett and Cheryl Tiegs posters, I didn't change a thing. He had a black furniture and gray-black paneling on the walls. So no girly wallpaper here, thank gawd! ;o)
Teen heartthrob posters like Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Andrew Keegan. *cringe*
To my credit, I also like Greenday, so I had one of their posters up too.
Star Wars bedsheets.
OMG, Gvinton, JTT. My girlfriends and I had him and Devon Sawa and Brad Renfro posters all over the place. So embarrassing.
I had many a picture of Corey Haim torn from the pages of Tiger Beat and the like and stapled to my walls. And, the piece de resistance, a Nelson poster. Yes. Nelson. The blonde-twin-brother rock band. Embarrassing.
But my redemption is that I eventually traded the Nelson poster for a poster of The Lost Boys (the movie)-- which rocked hard core. So, I've still got a shred of my dignity (unlike my friend, who actually traded the awesome Lost Boys poster FOR my Nelson poster--poor girl).
I was a weird kid. I had a 8x10 picture of a the bust of Julius Caesar (bought from a museum gift shop), postcards of random Egyptian artifacts (also from the museum), a map of Alexander the Great's empire that I copied from a book onto a piece posterboard, a poster of Lord of the Rings (this was way before the movies, so it the one painted by Jimmy Cauty), and a giant poster of a unicorn (my only girly obsession).
Apartmenttherapy posters would approve of the rest of my room though. My parents got most of my furniture second-hand except for my bed, which had a bookshelf headboard type thing. I never noticed the furniture - it was utilitarian, which was all I cared about. The nesting instinct or whatever I seem have now that causes me to read apartmenttherapy.com is relatively new. ;)
Oh, and that was a description of my room as a tween. By the time I got to high school all I had on the wall was the Lord of the Rings poster and a calendar. White walls. Guess I've been fan of minimalism for a while.
#JeffC: Dude, I still have Star Wars bedsheets. Or more accurately, my daughter has them. Mickey & Minne Mouse bedsheets, too.
As much as I hate Twilight, I have to admit that the shower curtain has a lot of irony potential. Especially since the character is such a creepy stalker bastard, having that giant head watch you during your morning ablutions strikes me as really funny.
You know, not funny enough to actually buy it, but funny.
Much like Twilight itself, Twilight's products are hilarious.
I've gotten friends Twilight candy hearts (with choice words like Sparkle) and eau de Bella fragrance (with genuine notes of whatever Edward finds irresistible about her scent). It's just so entertainingly tacky
That "Be safe" Edward decal would scare the bejesus out of me at night.
Ok, I had Nsync posters, and my sisters old Johnny Depp and the two corey's posters up! At least they were some good eye candy. lol. I think if my hubby would let me get away with johnny depp still, i might have him up!
Giant photo of a smiling Kurt Cobain, with the words "I hate myself and I want to die" underneath. First poster I ever purchased for myself. It was up on the wall for most of my adolescence.
That "be safe" thing makes it seem like Robert Pattinson is watching over you, making sure you remember to use a condom.
OMG....what is this world coming to?
Craziness
A D.A.R.E bumpersticker. There are still remnants on the door.
@kellylc, me too. That is one of the creepiest things I have ever seen.
a colleague and i purchased an edward standee for a twilight-obsessed coworker - and had it delivered to the office. her face when she opened the box? priceless!
@beth.b - Hahahah, and THAT is truly scary.
I actually really like that first bedroom...minus the public service message for promotion of birth control from our friend Edward the blood sucking vampire, of course.
I definitely had New Kids on the Block posters. I wrote them a fan letter and got one of those mass produced replies and safely stashed them in between my Babysitters Club books and Archie comics. Jordan was my favorite, btw.
And yes, I loved Patrick Swayze because of Dirty Dancing and North and South (I'm with you, Annegret!).
I also had a lot of teen magazines like Teen Bop lying around. Corey Haim was hot, the other one was not.
Ugh...those memories...I'm so glad no one knows me here :)
http://www.donkeehouse.com
Grace, you are officially my favorite AT blogger.
Oh man, Twilight sure brings the crazy...
*looks shifty*
If sparkly vampires are impaled on a wooden stake do they bleed glitter?
Some of the "embarassing" stuff I had as a kid I still have up. Namely my Pee-Wee's Playhouse stuff. I still use the towel when I work out. The most unusual thing I did as a kid had to do more with my obsession with Tim Burton movies. I had some of his movie posters up but the jewel in this box was the photo montage I did of the man himself. Just pictures of Tim Burton. I'm kinda proud of it since he wasn't exactly the most photographed individual in the world.
asdf3001, probably my favorite thing I've read all day. Actually, probably my favorite thing I've ever read relating to Twilight, just...ever. My sister-in-law is one of those obsessed "Twilight Moms"...I'm trying to figure out how my brother-in-law would react to a Christmas gift of that shower curtain.
I had posters of Mulder and Scully up all over my room. I believe I have officially out-geeked you all.
Only poster I had as a kid was a giant John Coltrane ( A Love Supreme) album cover 5'x5'. But I did have H.R. Puffinstuff stickers on my wall *shivers*...
Vampires do not have blood HELLO
asdf3001, you just MADE my day.
I'm going to use that line on all my twilight-crazy friends. Thank you.
Well, it's hard to judge when I had my walls plastered with Backstreet Boys posters and was jealous of my friend's New Kids on the Block sleeping bag. I love the Twilight movies and I do think Rob is cute, but this just doesn't work for anyone over 12.
clampers, they do. in "twilight" their full of whoever/whatever's blood they have drunk. and if they're newly turned, they're still full of their own human blood for a year.
i had a new kids on the block sleeping bag when i was 5, when i got a little older it was JTT and devon sawa posters from teen beat on my walls. then in junior high it was posters of gavin rossdale and blink 182.
in highschool i started to get over plastering my walls with boys-
Allowing kids to put stuff up all over their room was saved for college when I was a teen-ager. Otherwise ... it would have been the Beatles, specifically Paul.
When I think about it, my high school bedroom was almost out of Chekhov. My mother allowed me to choose the color and the interior, limited as it was. The walls were painted a color called Alice Blue. The woodwork was painted white. Instead of curtains, I asked for shutters, which had blue material screening the bottom row. The shutters were white. The furniture was an old double-bed and matching dresser from my grandmother's farm-house. It was a heavy dark wood, very much out of style at the time but I wanted it because it was "different" and I was in to old things.
Mid-century modern was for my parents' generation, and no young person in his or her right mind wanted it in their room.
The really fashionable went for curvy old Victorian pieces, but that was mostly in college. Most kids had mass-produced generic type furniture in their bedrooms.
My desk at the time was a piece of modern furniture, a flat slab-top in some kind of ash-blonde wood, held up by ash-blonde sputnick style legs. I'm sure it wasn't solid wood because I remember noting the strange fakeness of the veneer. It had no storage capability whatsoever other than a single middle drawer at the top.
The desk was the first piece of furniture that I can recall being assembled. Furniture wasn't assembled before then; it was delivered.
The one weird thing I did was paint "Little Sheba" in gold letters on my pristine white bedroom door. I have no idea what it meant. I just wanted to irritate my mother and make her realize that I was a sexual being. Of course, it accomplished both purposes, but it was still weird.
Wow - I must be the old lady on the block here! I had monster movie pictures on my walls - ripped carefully from the pages of Famous Monsters of Filmland plus a few Teen Beat photos of various flavor of the month (mostly British invasion) bands. But my most embarrassing item was the room decor itself - my mom painted all my furniture ORANGE! The wallpaper was tiny orange stripes, the rocker was covered in orange vinyl - even the linoleum rug was orange! ~cringe~
@ clampers
hello, apparently you haven't been watching twilight or true blood where vampires cry blood.
GIANT NKOTB pin. GIANT. on my denim jacket.
I'm sorry, is this a joke? That bedding set is just awful! When I was a tween, I never got into fads or even cared what my bedding looked like! I'm amazed that these little girls are going crazy for this crap!
Hey, I would not be embarrassed about having a Patrick Swayze poster! I believe I had a Michael Bolton one I got for free somewhere. Gross!
Leave it to a good mormon mom to write an abstinence series that has the girls on fire!
@undercover -- me too.
Mulder, Scully and also a huge picture of J.D. Salinger that I printed off on the printer at school.
even further back in my past was a Tiffany poster. *hides*
Wow. That bedding. Just, wow. (in a BAD way, of course.)
Refuse to read the books, even though I am a librarian, and everyone asks if I have. (Hey, my free time is my own, and that's not going to be part of it!)
I can't remember any specific embarrassing decor, unless maybe it was my own art when I was young and it was awful. I might have had something but I don't recall it.(Never any fad stuff, there were no stores for such and I had no cash for such where I grew up).
... well, I still love the xfiles, but I had some of that crap all over the place lol
Jonathan Brandis was the guy for me back in the day , I too shudder at that thought lol
Sailor Moon posters. Like, ten of them. BLECH!
Although these items are horrific, it is difficult to say much after our New Kids On the Block obsession.
Now, granted we were 10, and I have a feeling that custom shower curtain was not for a child.
THANK YOU GRACE! I despise twilight and refuse to read it because I know if I read it I would end up hating it more. I don't understand why anyone over the age of 13 would ever own this twilight stuff.
To all you twilight fanatics please keep your obsession to yourselves, its getting a little ridiculous.
At least New Kids on the Block stuff had some color to it, compared to the black depressing twilight memorabilia..
I had a HUGE poster of the Spice Girls. lol
I don't know if I can really get all uppity about this Twilight merch!! Maybe none of us bought crazy stuff like Edward shower curtains and wall decals back in the day, but that's probably just because it wasn't available. I had a friend who got a picture of her favorite Backstreet Boy iron-transfered onto a pillowcase. Though I think my friend's Nick Carter pillowcase is beyond gross now, at the time it didn't seem that far out.
Xanadu, Free to Be You and Me,Wham!, John Travolta in "Staying Alive", Gypsy (the musical) stuff,Seventeen magazine fashions, but mostly E.T. (adolescence was better with Cyndi Lauper, Grace Jones, Siouxsie the Banshees pics...file under no need to come out gay/state the obvious).
It was a mixture of Sailor Moon posters and Hanson pictures. EVERYWHERE! I feel so awful on having my parents buy me all those awful magazines that were like $4 each!
BAHAHAHAHA
Thank you for this. That shower curtain made my day.
Most embarassing thing in my room? Maybe the curtains. My dad worked really hard as a single parent but interior decorating just wasn't his thing. He refused to put any decent money into getting us "real" window coverings so he got this furry zebra fabric from the FabricLand discount rack, folded over the top to make a rodpocket, and hung them above my window on a metal pole from Home Depot. They weren't hemmed and those fuzzy 'hairs' would fly all over EVERYTHING I owned if I dared so much as crack open my window.
That, or like, the 50 'Cherished Teddies' figurines. When I was a kid I was throughly "gawth".. black clothing and metal and the whole bit. Little porcelain collectables didn't really go with my 'look'.
nelson posters, kirk cameron (which I would blow kisses to and really kind of regret now)... not so much the corey's but definitely kiefer... (omg, i can't believe i'm writing this) a michael bolton & richard marx cd covers (remember they used to come in those huge paper boxes). i was so lame...
My parent's wouldn't let us hang posters in our rooms nor would they buy us themed bedspreads, but they did feed my collection of unicorn and pagasus knicknacks when I was in grade school. Thankfully all of that was passed on to Goodwill.
A b/w pastel portrait of myself when I was 6 years old. Not in caricature style but I looks so sad (I'm sure I had to pose for a quite a while) you'd think it was one. Still have it and it makes me wonder just what were my parents thinking? Must dig it up and have a chuckle.
I laughed so hard that I spit a little on my computer screen!
I would be completely freaked out by the "Be safe" and the shadow of that guy!
I had pictures from Vogue and shopping bags from Esprit on my wall. I also had pictures of Jon Bon Jovi and a picture of a Jaguar xjs. Weird.
I actually had all my Backstreet Boys and NSync posters up in the basement and not in my room. I think girls under 14 should go all out on their Twilight obession, it's the last time in their lives they'll be able to indulge in lunacy without actually seeming like a lunatic. People over 13 and obsessed with Twilight should know they're much, much further down the lameness foodchain than Trekkies and they should think about that.
beth.b: I thought the same thing. That sillouette is definitely encouraging condom use, which is strange because those books are about celibacy. None of this is as fucked as the Twilight vibrator though (http://tantusinc.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TD&Product_Code=VAMP). Necrophilia anyone?
The shower curtain is kind of cool.
I made a collage (an entire wall's worth) of 311 (the band) memorabilia along with some not-so-obvious stoner posters. That was from age 13-17. Before that? I shared a room with my two older sisters, so I probably didn't have much choice. What little space I had probably had some random things that were not girly... I was a tomboy too.
JeffC, Star Wars posters are nothing to be embarrassed about :) They're awesome. My grandparents had a treehouse in their backyard that was wallpapered with Star Wars paper, I would so KILL for a roll of that stuff now. I would also totally have Star War sheets now, but my fiance isn't super into Star Wars. I tried to explain that his office needed one of the classic movie posters, nicely framed (since my office has literally no space to hang posters with floor to ceiling windows and floor to ceiling bookcases) but he wasn't feeling it. I think he'd be creeped out by sleeping on Darth Vader or Han Solo. I'd totally love it though! The vintage designed sheets though, not the newer stuff.
I'm not ashamed of my NKOTB-ness days (I had one of the 'ken' dolls that I carried around, that part IS kind of embarrassing though. I think it was Jordan, but I preferred Donny, the 'bad boy' - my parents would not buy me anything Donny as they did not want to condone that fascination, ha!) but I am kind of embarrassed about my floor to ceiling JTT, Andrew Keegen, Brad Renfrew, Devon Sawa posters. Literally there was no wall showing. I wish I had a picture, it would be great for a laugh!
Cyn
Ok, guys. I'm going to out myself as a 27 year old twilight fan. I got suckered into reading the books by a couple friends and have been hooked ever since. That being said, I am enough of an adult that I would never seriously contemplate using twilight in my decor. I have way too much pride in my home to do something like that.
However, I was a teenager once, and I went to boarding school for high school. My dorm room was plastered floor to ceiling with NSYNC posters and memorabilia. That is all. :p
I'm 47 now,so I had a poster of Donny Osmond,but it appeared as if he had a big booger in his nose.I didn't really like him,but my friends did.I was secretly in love with David Bowie which would have been hard to explain.
"Twatlight." And, no thank you.
Christian Slater posters EVERYWHERE...it was close to the end of his hey day though...around the time of Kuffs and Robin Hood.
and Brad Pitt and members of the NEW Mickey Mouse Club!
never had the teeny bopper sleeping bag or bedding...my bedding was usually floral with matching colored blinds....eek!
omg tarsengreen, I clicked your link and that product description had me in hysterics!!
@undercover - I can do one better than you!
My cousin painted an X-Files mural on her bedroom wall, complete with Mulder's catchphrase, "I want to believe."
Yeah.
Oh my. I don't begrudge tweens & teens having Twilight-mania, but it embarrasses me when grown women do.
That said, I had a few giant NKOTB posters on my walls as a junior higher.
I like the saga, but hell no I would even attempt to touch my walls or change my stuff for THAT merchandise, I mean, it would scare the sh**t out of me to wake up with that shadow in front of my face or bath with a huge Edward-headed shower curtain!