The Twilight Saga: New Moon - why resistance is futile

Biggest. Midnight opening. Ever. And on a school night! God, where were we before the Twilight saga stole all our neurons, with its hormone-detonating tales of supernatural events in the rain-sodden town of Forks, Washington?

Who knows, but there will likely be some of you who are still holding out against surrendering to the teen phenomenon, little realising that your principled resistance is in fact nothing more than the series' clunking abstinence metaphor in microcosm, and that not giving in to it is basically as frustrating as not losing your virginity to Edward Cullen because it'll turn you into a vampire. (Incidentally, can a Professor of New Moon Studies get in touch and clarify whether Bella can do it with Jacob Black without catching werewolf? Lost in Showbiz is a little hazy on the theoretical sexual perils of the Twilight universe.)

Yet whatever your objection, know this. Every time you type the words "what is Twilight?" or "why is the Guardian writing about this?", not only does a fairy die, but a little more definition finds its way to Taylor Lautner's hairless lycan abs, and will continue do so until his rectus abdominis stands out in such shocking relief that the mere sight of it or any of its attendant muscles will prevent anything about war, pestilence, famine, death or the truth about 9/11 ever being covered again in this newspaper – and indeed any other. So at some point you need to decide whether you're going to be part of the problem or part of the solution.

Once you've picked the right lane – welcome, age-inappropriate Twi-hards – you will realise that was merely the first step, and that you're still quite the awkward stranger in your new domain. Just like Bella! Fiddling really awkwardly with your hair should help, though you might care instead to attend your first over-18 New Moon prom – there's one on in Newcastle tomorrow night – or perhaps to join the ineffably troubled community that is twilightmoms.com.

For the less damaged, there are other ways in. The Guardian's legions of Wire fans who laughed knowingly into their martinis when the drug dealers called their packages names such as WMD, or Pandemic, may find something they can latch on to in this week's news that Twilight-branded heroin baggies have been seized on Long Island. Fo' real, and so on. There's an idiosyncratically rendered likeness of Robert Pattinson on the wrap, so ask yourselves if there's any face you'd rather see before you slump back into diamorphine-facilitated oblivion? Except the fashion-forward hoppers among you, who will of course be looking to tighten the ligature around your upper arms while gazing at the packaging for the as-yet unreleased Jacob Smack.

Needless to say, Twilight heroin is far from being the most disturbing unauthorised Twilight product. At present that would probably be a toss-up between the vibrating Edward doll and the babygrow reading "My Mommy is a Bella" – but we'll deal with those once your stabilisers are off.

For now, it's time for your primer on perhaps the defining quality of the New Moon juggernaut: the total and utter inability of any adult mortal to put a dent in it. "Charisma by Madame Tussaud", fumes venerable film critic Roger Ebert, as the film prepares effortlessly to hold its position at the top of the box office on both sides of the Atlantic this weekend. "We struggled to see in New Moon a metaphor of teen conformity and longing but found only a muddle," sniffs the Hollywood Reporter. "We tried to locate in it some comment on post-Aids, Christian rock-era abstinence and found nothing you couldn't get in a church-group public service announcement." A verdict that will merely have prompted a thousand Twi-hards to ask: "Can I get a supersize serving of Wolf Pack abs in a church-group public service announcement? In which case, sign my ass up for a silver ring now. It's only one orifice that's sinful, right?"

"Sorry girls," sneers the Boston Globe, "the thrill is gone." Um, sorry Boston Globe or whatever, but the thrill just got his chest waxed. Do you see, entry-level Twi-hards? Never mind abstinence. It's an impotence metaphor. Every single thing any middle-aged man writes is useless – powerless! meaningless! – in the face of a gazillion teenage girls. Time for this week's gratuitous literary analogy: it's like that bit in A Passage to India when Mrs Moore visits the Marabar Caves and discovers that whatever is spoken into their dark recesses, it all comes back as the same terrifying echo of nullity. "Hope, politeness, the blowing of a nose, the squeak of a boot, all produce 'boum' . . . The echo began in some indescribable way to undermine her hold on life . . . it had murmured to her 'Pathos, piety, courage – they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value.'"

Boum, boum, boum . . . This is the Twilight industrial complex, my darlinks – and you're living in it. You may as well offer it your neck today.