How Twilight Rescued Hot Topic

Like much of America, Ylan Q. Mui had forgotten all about Hot Topic, the mall mainstay for baby Goth merchandise—and then Twilight came along and made the store relevant again. The uber-popular vampire franchise “accomplished what the store had tried but failed to do: It made goth mainstream,” Mui writes for DoubleX. And thanks to Hot Topic hawking Twilight merch before any other outlet, sales are up for the first time in 5 years.

“My Hot Topic phase came and went faster than you can say Nine Inch Nails—and, apparently, so did everyone else's,” Mui continues, but after becoming a Twilight fan, she decided to give the store another shot: Her take? A cotton cuff with the Cullen crest and a Team Edward T-shirt, rung up by one of the tattooed employees who used to frighten her as a kid. “Was it fun? Not really. But at least I can say that I wasn't scared.”