Harry Potter and Twilight

Okay, I'll admit it I do not understand the hype, the obsession with Harry Potter and Twilight, especially Twilight!!  I mean as a youth I may or may not have fallen victim to the boy band craze but honestly they were attractive (in that late 90's hipster way) and if you didn't like boy bands you weren't cool. 

But honestly, there is everything from Lego's, to books, angry church groups burning books, girls in their 20's calling their friends sobbing that the Twilight characters aren't together.  ITS NOT REAL!!!

Granted they allow their viewers to escape their own lives, experience adventure, love, fantasy but at the end of the day it is a story.  It got people reading again-wonderful but the over the top marketing empires need to stop.  Girls falling all over themselves because they want to be some character out of a book and being a certain "team" again these are fictional characters the actors aren't those characters in real life. 

Can anyone explain this obsession to me?  How do you feel about these summer and fall blockbusters?