MANILA, Philippines--``Ondoy.” “Pepeng.” The earthquake and tsunami in Samoa. As one disaster after another struck, people started asking themselves, “Is the end near?”

Then came the flame-fanners. People who posted scriptures from the Revelation on Facebook, people spreading links about doomsday predictions, people scaring the crap out of other people.

The icing on the scary cake? The trailer of the movie 2012.

Volcanic eruptions

The film explores the series of catastrophic events that will supposedly devastate the world in 2012, according to Mayan predictions. The trailer shows tsunamis, glaciers, volcanic eruptions and people struggling to stay alive.

We saw it a couple of weeks after “Ondoy” hit and got goosebumps as we watched the havoc nature could wreak on the world. Sure, the big scenes of destruction are to be expected. After all, the movie was directed by Roland Emmerich, the same guy who worked on “Independence Day” and “The Day After Tomorrow.” But the trailer was deeply affecting–because after “Ondoy,” it seemed all too real.

That evening, I started researching about 2012—the movie and the real-life predictions people have been making.

The people behind the movie made sure they have a strong online presence, using the Internet for viral marketing. They created several websites including one that allows users to register to join the survival lottery and win a spot in a 2012 survival shelter.

Distracted

But I didn’t spend too much time on that site—because I was distracted with another. This other website asks, “If the human race were to survive, what works of film, art, literature and music would you choose to preserve?”

For weeks, people from all over the world voted.

What is scarier than the apocalypse? What do people want to include on the preservation list?

First up, movies. Sorry, Steven Spielberg, Sorry, Alfred Hitchcock. Cry your eyes out, Woody Allen. No, Stanley Kubrick. Start the pity party, Quentin Tarantino and Francis Ford Coppola. I’m sorry, Krzysztof Kieslowski. The people of the world have enjoyed your films but no, they do not want to preserve your masterpieces. The one movie they want to save if the world indeed comes to an end is—drumroll, please— “Twilight.”

I am not kidding. Honorable mentions? “Moonwalker” (yes, that Michael Jackson movie) and the “Star Wars” series.

Twilight, Twilight, Twilight

For literature, Stephenie Meyer’s the “Twilight” saga took the backseat to J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series. Rowling and Meyer both bested Shakespeare, whose “Romeo and Juliet” came in only third on the list of great works of literature people want to preserve.

The Beatles grabbed the top spot in music. The second spot went to Robert Pattinson who stars in “Twilight,” as every screaming teenage girl would know. Funny, I didn’t even know Pattinson made music. Michael Jackson was only third. I wonder how he would have felt about coming behind a guy whose claim to fame is looking like a vampire and having disheveled hair.

The answers for the art category were the most normal of the bunch. The top choice was “Mona Lisa” by Leonardo Da Vinci followed by “The Last Supper” and Michelangelo’s “David.” Art was the only category that wasn’t infiltrated by “Twilight”—and probably only because Pattinson has never made any finger paintings public.

Chill out, you could be thinking, it’s just an online survey.

But the answers represent what this planet’s population deems to be the most important pieces of our culture.

The answers can only mean two things—one, the world’s Internet population is composed mostly of Stephenie Meyer apostles, or two, our tastes need a serious upgrade. I seriously hope it’s the first one.

Sure, “Twilight” was entertaining—and I’m not just saying that so “Twilight” fans won’t throw rocks at my house, I actually enjoyed the books. But this survey is asking us to choose the only things we want to save from this world, the masterpieces we want to preserve, the things that will show the theoretical new world what we were about, what we produced, the best we had to offer.

Vampire love

And as entertaining as it is, I don’t think a love story between a teenager and a vampire is the best we have to offer.

Will the world end in 2012? Maybe, maybe not. One thing’s for sure, I don’t want this civilization to be known just as the civilization that spawned Bella Swan.