“Twilight is so anti-feminist that I want to cry:” Twilight fans finding and defining feminism on the World Wide Web

In this article, I study a discussion thread started in February 2009 on the “official” Twilight series web site entitled “Twilight is so Anti-Feminist that I want to Cry.” As of April 2009, the thread contained over 490 posts and had consistently been among the 15 most popular discussion threads about the novels. In light of sometimes conflicting scholarship about what kind of Internet spaces are available to and constructive for women, this discussion thread provides an interesting case study of ways that a group comprised predominantly of girls and young women negotiates not only what it means to be feminist but simultaneously what it means to be young women on the World Wide Web. Through a review of recent scholarship of women on the Web followed by an analysis of the rhetorical and interpersonal strategies employed on the discussion board, I argue that because of the agency encouraged by transmedia narratives and the possibilities for dialogue created by online discussion forums, this discussion thread reveals the practices that make it possible for young women to negotiate feminism in a space that simultaneously enacts a feminist vision for online environments.