Writer's Block: "The New Twilight"?

How many times have you heard that?

The new twilight, hunger games, gone girl, harry potter, etc.

And how many times have you raged and started saying mean things about the person who said it?

Because, Mortal Instruments isn't Twilight.  Divergent isn't Hunger Games.  They're different!

I know the feeling.

After finally being fed up with all of this "new" idea, it got me thinking.  Why do people say something is the "new" whatever?  To help sell it.  When you read the back of a book (or movie, or whatever) there are always quotes depicting what's awesome about the book (or movie) and reviews do the same thing.  They try to grab the attention of people who liked the first thing by saying that the "new" thing is just as good or right up their ally.  And it works!  If people weren't comparing Samantha Shannon to JK Rowling would she be getting as much attention as she is?

But then there's the darker side.  When reviewers write it's the "new" to tell people it's a copy off of the "old".  These are the people you take offense to.  They're being harsh and negative, so you're not going to like them already.  By drawing unfair comparisons, they really just piss you off.  And there isn't anything you can do but stop reading.

When I saw an early review for the Mortal Instruments movie (a negative one) my first thought is, "Why is it bad?"  Well, the writer's answer was because it was just another copy of Twilight.  Yes, the production company was targeting the same audience- teenage girls- and yes, the main character was a girl, and yes, there are vampires and a love story (but not a love story with vampires) and a bad guy and good guys and.... what the hell?  Those really aren't comparisons.  They're vague and, honestly, rude.  It's saying one author's work isn't good enough to be original, they copied something else and it's not as good because it wasn't first.

But really?  They're nothing alike.  Readers and fans of the books know that.  We know that Clary and Bella are pretty much polar opposites.  We know this and that makes us angry.

I'm getting angry just thinking about it.  And I'm losing the point of this post in all this ranting.

What I'm trying to say is, sometimes it is a good thing to say the "New Twilight" because it can help.  I'm also saying, I hate it when it happens negatively.  It's rude and unfair and if copies were really a bad thing would 50 Shades of Gray have been so popular (it was Twilight fan-fiction for heaven's sake)?