About

This Is The Skin Of A Killer, Bella is a quote from the film Twilight in which Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) reveals to Bella (Kristen Stewart) that as a vampire, he has skin that twinkles in the sunlight. In 2021, the quote became a catchphrase with which people would post shiny objects in a parody of the film, particularly an image of Tracksuit Robert Pattinson edited to have a star-filled jacket.

Origin

In 2008's Twilight, Edward Cullen reveals to Bella Swan that he is a vampire by showing her how his skin twinkles in the sunlight. After she says he looks beautiful, he replies, "This is the skin of a killer, Bella" (shown below).

The phrase did not start seeing use in memes until December 26th, 2020, when Twitter user @r0sexcl0uds^[1] posted an image of a woman whose face was covered in plastic jewels with the phrase, gaining over 38,000 retweets and 212,000 likes (shown below).

Spread

Over the following months, the meme spread as people paired the phrase with various shiny objects. On July 17th, 2021, user @vampphics^[3] posted the caption along with a picture of a shiny cat, gaining over 930 retweets and 3,700 likes (shown below, left). On July 19th, user @naichelizzette^[2] posted the phrase along with a picture of a girl in a disco ball costume, gaining over 2,000 retweets and 8,000 likes (shown below, right).

On August 2nd, 2021, Twitter user @baddiewitches^[4] posted what would be one of the more popular iterations of the meme, showing Tracksuit Robert Pattinson with a photoshopped jacket comprised of stars. This gained over 20,000 retweets and 101,000 likes in less than one month (shown below, left). This was later made into a shirt, which was purchased by user @bluescabeswater,^[5] who gained over 55,000 retweets and 454,000 likes showing off the purchase (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References