Person of the Year 2009

It's been at least a decade since we had a pair of authentic, shriek-inducing, catch-me-when-I-faint teen idols on our hands. But suddenly, OMG, they're back. What makes the stars of the Twilight series so idolizable? It's partly that ineffable combination of dirtiness and innocence: they're sexy, but they're not sexual. They're also not generically beautiful. God knows they're hot enough, but they look interesting too. Intelligent. Slightly askew. You don't just want to look at them or sleep with them; you want to talk to them. Like the vampire Pattinson plays onscreen, you can see that once upon a time they were merely human, just like us.

— Lev Grossman

See what the selection meant to past Persons of the Year.