there's a lot to be said against teen vampire culture.
why so popular though? I think there is a fabulous subtext to teen vampire culture, which in its various incarnations usually features an innocent yet free-thinking girl who falls in love with a vampire many times older than her (though still cute, virile and age-appropriate, b/c of the undead/immortality thing) with much more experience who has an overwhelming desire to suck out all her innocent life-blood but resists, resists out of love... and who would give his life to protect her from all the other blood-suckers out there.
curiously enough, all these girls have at least one absent parent.
teenage girls used to dream of princes to rescue them from dragons and too-restrictive castles.
now they want the dragons to care about them enough not to kill them.
progress?