Seriously, Twilight Fans — Thorazine: Look Into It.

Yesterday, an event with droolworthy Twilight star Robert Pattinson turned into a bloody stampede outside of a San Francisco mall.

For reals, am not making this shit up:

Girls beat the absolute crap out of each other for the chance to see an actor who plays the admittedly alluring, but fictional vampire, Edward Cullen. In a mall. In Hot Topic. Like, surrounded by Emily the Strange licensed gear and crushed velvet gothic wear. I'll pause while you compose yourself.

Truly astonishing.

The Stonestown Galleria was set to host a t-shirt signing event yesterday morning. The first 500 rabid teenagers would get a Twilight shirt and the chance to meet Edward Cullen in the flesh. Naturally, this led to thousands — THOUSANDS — of teenage girls clawing their way to the front of the mall entrance to be counted among the first 500. As you might imagine, things got bloody. Literally. At least one girl got the ever-loving crap stomped out of her in the ensuing push to the front of the line, resulting in a broken nose. As a result of the mayhem outside the Galleria, the event was hastily canceled, lest the cyclone of adolescents get within spitting distance of Pattinson and subsequently tear him limb from limb.

(Actually, the event was rescheduled for later that evening with better management, and reports indicate no one, including Pattinson, was harmed.)

Hot Topic management were stunned and ill-prepared for the turnout. According to fans' accounts on the Twilight Lexicon Blog, only four security guards were posted for crowd control and it was clear that the overzealous fandom surrounding the movie and its star was grossly underestimated. However, horrific mismanagement aside, I mostly wonder: what the fuck is wrong with these girls?

First, let me establish that, like many here at MamaPop, I am a hardcore Twilight fan. I am beyond excited about this movie, in a way that is both embarrassing and pathetic. I read the entire Twilight series in five days. I may have even encouraged my husband to bite me during sex once or twice to make my Edward fantasies a bit more vivid. Ahem.

But to stampede with such fury that noses are broken, just to get a t-shirt and a fleeting glimpse at a British hottie with meticulously disheveled post-sex-hair? Have these girls no decency? When I was a teenager, we saved that kind of destructive energy for mosh pits like civilized people. We did not unleash it for a mere mall publicity event surrounding a movie based on a chaste vampire romance novel. Good grief.

The Hot Topic/Twilight tour continues today in Dallas. Here's hoping the Dallas Galleria responds appropriately with more security, a system for actually determining the *first* 500 girls to arrive and ensure their safety. Perhaps they could also rent some sort of fog machine that can pipe out horse tranquilizers in aerosol form into the surrounding air to keep all that teenage hysteria at bay.

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