Listen, we love pop culture and all the fandoms it has to offer just as much as the next person. There’s nothing quite like finding a community at the behest of your favorite fictional characters, worlds, ships, magic systems, and continuities.
But thanks to the unescapable cosmic grasp of duality, there are dark sides to fandoms as well. Engraining one’s favorite stories as part of one’s personality is a one-way ticket to getting offended at even the most sensible criticisms; offense that can even snowball into violence depending on the depth of devotion. There are plenty of examples out there, but none take the cake quite like the Twilight–loving (hating?) pup of TikTok‘s @charismafowlie.
It’s a tale as old as time: the most feral member of Team Edward is made to watch one of the later Twilight films, and their unbridled fury towards the mere acknowledgment of Jacob’s existence prompts them toward total destruction. In this pooch’s case, he sat and watched this Twilight film, waiting for the exact moment Jacob finished his wolf transformation before delivering a swift, destructive haymaker to the corner of the screen. The job is done; Jacob can no longer be viewed.
It’s a stupendously curious act of defiance from the pup. You’d think a canine like himself would declare his loyalty to the hot guy who happens to be a werewolf. But no, this dog is so alternative and so countercultural, in fact, that he’ll proudly wear the Team Edward hat to make doubly sure that those expectations are subverted. He probably ignores squirrels, too.
But let’s put aside the diva energy of this Twilight devotee for a second. Can we talk about how fragile a television needs to be to collapse from a dog’s love tap? The televisions of yore could shield you from an atomic bomb, so what happened?
Well, television vulnerability can, among other things, be traced back to the fact that the more complicated something is, the more complications it can play host to. Popular Science notes that as televisions become wider, thinner, and put increased emphasis on LED screens whose pictures can be manipulated via settings, they’ve come to require more nuts and bolts than older CRT televisions, which means there’s more opportunity for error as the television strives to give you the picture you’re looking for.
One of these components is a single, enormous piece of thin glass not meant to be touched, let alone jabbed at with a paw full of sharp nails. And that’s just one of the many lessons Charisma learned that day, including but not limited to: Don’t put your television within punching distance of your Edward fanboy of a pooch; don’t activate that same pooch’s protective instincts by letting a wolf appear near you; and don’t you dare give Jacob a single moment of your attention when you could be watching a playlist of Bedward edits while sharing your snacks with your furbaby. Remember these things, lest you get outed as a poser with a broken television.