There are many definitions which apply to the popular culture and one of the simplest ways to determine what is popular culture is to observe congregations in society, large groups and what their common interest is. There is a particular group of people that do not know one another, that come from all walks of life, all different religions, but they came together for the one thing they do have in common -the "Twilight" saga. There is no judgment withheld on my part upon individuals that engage themselves so deeply in the storyline that they wish the story was theirs. This is not even entirely about Stephenie Meyer's novels; it is about what vampires represent inside of a story, their actions interpreted in relation to sex, how Mormon values are used in the story to reveal hidden sexual repression within Mormon religion. In today's popular culture one of the only ways to reach many people is through media and I feel that even though Meyer did not overtly intend to include anything about her faith, certain values important to her (which are also the values of the LDS) were bound to slip in somewhere within the story. .
Dracula, written by Bram Stoker in 1897, a fantastic book partially based upon the congenital fears of a people in the Victorian era; the night, perverse sexuality, compulsion, blood lust, aggression and impurity. He feeds on, particularly, (young) women. After he sucks upon the erogenous necks of his innocent victims, they are forever his in body and mind as an unconscious collective. The character, Count Dracula, is a serial exogamous, an adulterer; every woman he bites becomes a sexual partner at his beck and call. This speaks to the morbid fear of sexual repression and the aggressive impulses man fights to have and to possess, but that vampires naturally embrace. "The physiology of vampire sexuality literalizes a connection between sex and eating"" (Stevenson).
In relation to Meyer's vampires, the character Edward Cullen, is a part of a Clan of vampires that do not drink human blood and regard it highly as animalistic and primitive.