Clearly it’s just a joke, but a bad joke. Washington Post writer Monica Hesse writes of the irresistible nature of the Twilight book series about vampires written primarily for teenagers.
“Twilight” came for the tweens, then for the moms of tweens, then for the co-workers who started wearing those ridiculous Team Jacob shirts, and the resisters said nothing, because they thought “Twilight” could not come for them.
If that phrasing sounds familiar, it purportedly comes from Pastor Martin Niemöller, lamenting the lack of action of German intellectuals to do anything to prevent the Holocaust:
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Though the line has frequently been borrowed and rewritten to demonstrate the dangers of incremental totalitarianism, using it to explicate just how catchy a popular book series seems a bit disproportionate.
