Doesn't This Sound Familiar To You?

Did you ever wonder what people saw in Obama?

I think this gives an insight into mass mesmerising hysteria that would help understanding the phenomenom:

There are times when the limitations of the printed word come into focus, like when there is a need to convey how it sounded when Robert Pattinson, who stars as the vampire heartthrob Edward Cullen in the forthcoming movie “Twilight,” stepped onto a riser at the King of Prussia Mall outside Philadelphia on Thursday evening in front of more than 1,000 mostly teenage girls.

In collective pitch, frequency and volume the sound would make a shuttle launching seem demure, a Jack White guitar solo retiring, a jackhammer somehow soothing. To reach into history, it may have approached Beatles-at-Shea-Stadium loud, replete with the weeping, swooning and self-hugging, and only the ambient flutter of cellphone cameras and furious texting by way of modern update. All of it was arrayed over a mostly unknown British actor who plays a character in a movie that will not be released until Friday.

“What is with all the screaming?” Mr. Pattinson asked when he came out. He absently ran his hand through his hair. Pandemonium ensued. He tugged at his white T-shirt in response, ever so nervously. Oh, boy. Then he laughed good-naturedly at the absurdity of it all. The smile was just a bit too much. A girl in a “Team Edward” shirt fell into the arms of her friend. “I can’t stand it!” she said.

Along with other members of the “Twilight” cast, Mr. Pattinson is touring stores of Hot Topic, a retail chain that mines the sweet spot between teenagers and pop culture, in malls across the country this month. It’s not so much to gin up interest in the film but to feed the monster it has already become. For his Thursday appearance fans arrived outside the mall the night before to get a ticket. The first 500 would receive a quick autograph on a poster and the rest a chance to see Mr. Pattinson make a brief appearance.

And when he did, the crowd didn’t see an actor. They saw Edward Cullen, the perfect boyfriend who just happens to live on blood.

...When Mr. Pattinson appeared at the Apple store in SoHo the week before, one young fan asked him to bite her.

“The connection that I am an actor playing this character is sort of skipped,” he said, laughing during an interview before the throng was admitted to the Hot Topic store here. “They are in denial. They think I am Edward Cullen.” Mr. Pattinson, 22, said he had no idea what to make of his situation, about to meet thousands of teenage girls — and many of their mothers — who were flat-out in love with him.

“It is bizarre,” he said. “People come from three states away and walk up to you trembling. I feel that I am at a disadvantage here because I can’t provide this mystical thing that they came for in the two seconds we have.”