8 ms·

Young Adult Literature Became the Playground, and Battleground, for Adults

26 points by lando2319 3y ago

Zeratoss 3y ago
I don't really understand the connection between increased adult YA readership and the culture war stuff that the article tries to make. Seems to me the author just dislikes YA. Pretty sure the "think of the children," hand wringing would occur regardless
- lincon127 3y ago
  Well that makes sense if you think the author dislikes YA, as she obviously does not. She just very much dislikes the idea that grown adults can co-opt a genre not made for them and then police it by only taking into account their own stunted values. Most importantly though, it seems that she mostly hates that there's so many excuses for these people's behaviour, and that adults partake in YA circles so unapologetically. The connection, knowing this, is then quite clear.
  - fatfingerd 3y ago
    It doesn't seem to me like it is a direct choice of adults to consume juvenile media, rather all media has adjusted to the curse of the marginal user and prefers to market garbage that can be sold to anyone.
    - lincon127 3y ago
      That doesn't apply to books though. As books aren't advertised the same way as any other media. Most books are advertised just through reviews and word of mouth. People decide to read juvenile media because their juvenile friends recommended it to them.
      - fatfingerd 3y ago
        That didn't apply to books, plans for movies and the multi media franchise are faster now, discussions on day time TV might be manipulated with largely false controversy to imply parents should read all this stuff, etc. That being said, I don't see much connection between the G/PG blockbuster related adult readers and the coming-of-age book auditors.
  - mathteddybear 3y ago
    I've read TFA, she obviously dislikes YA
  - watwut 3y ago
    I read article and author dislikes both YA and adults. Autor also conflates kids books with YA books. Autor also conflates conservative anti-lgbt movement with pretty much anyone who reads youth adult literature which makes even less sense. The calls to remove books with lgbt content from libraries are purely political and have zero to do with what books are read by adults.
    - lincon127 3y ago
      Tell me where any of that happens (dislike for YA, dislike for adults, conflation between YA and children's books, conflation between anti-lgbt with anyone reading young adult literature). Like, you're getting close to the actual premises, but I feel like misinterpreted the entire article on purpose just to make it sound very ridiculous. Yes, it's weird to assume that some people that read YA are the people that don't want kids reading LGBT content. but that's why the author sets this up by talking about how these people are just as immature as the audience the books are supposed to be targeting. These people that only read YA want a say regarding what gets put into libraries as if they're some sort of authority despite being at a grade 7 reading level is what the article leads up to. Now whether or not you want to follow that slippery slope with the author is your perogative, but it seems completely unfair to misrepresent them as crudely as you have.
      - watwut 3y ago
        > but that's why the author sets this up by talking about how these people are just as immature as the audience the books are supposed to be targeting. These people that only read YA want a say regarding what gets put into libraries as if they're some sort of authority despite being at a grade 7 reading level is what the article leads up to And you do not see how logical conclusion from that is that author simply dislikes YA literature? And adults too, since there is so much disgust about them, gasp, existing and enjoying entertainment. Author literally claims it is predatory for an adult to read YA books. Yes, when you make up negative claims about groups, purely out of nowhere, with zero argument or evidence they are true, then it is reasonable to assume you simply do not like them. Otherwise you would give them basic respect and checked up some date before making stuff up.
  - vintermann 3y ago
    YA, like "New Age" 30 years ago, is not a genre. It's a marketing category. Marketers built a profile of the buyer they want to target in their minds - a glorified stereotype. The buyers themselves didn't identify with the label. But the marketers then demanded products tailored to this stereotype. And of course, many authors caught on, and were willing to move towards the marketers caricature of what they had in common, in order to get access. So there's no co-option here. People are just fighting over a marketer-created niche. The niche is a bad fit to reality (in more ways than the audience hardly being young adults) but it's got enough money behind it that it's not easy to challenge it.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
COGlory 3y ago
This was interesting, although I feel the author was making two separate points here. One point was about the popularity of young adult (YA) fiction with adults, and the other was something to do with a book about queer kids being criticized and an attempt to remove it from a public library because children might find it. The thread that connects them was supposedly that the library system circulates 135 copies of 50 Shades of Grey, but how exactly that related to YA lit I'm not sure. The link is certainly weak, or lost on me. (The author started writing fan-fic for YA novels?). Smut has existed forever, certainly before the arbitrary transition period the author of the article has come up with, so I'm not sure I understand the link. Anyways, of the two points, I find the latter one boring and tired, and so I'd prefer to talk about the first one. The author states: > My husband and I spent several years putting on pleasant faces when talk over cocktails drifted to “Which Hogwarts house would you belong to?” It all felt so juvenile and regressive. And I believe it was. I was unable to escape this feeling at the time when Harry Potter was sweeping through the world. I'd just finished Lord of the Rings and, while I picked up a Harry Potter book, I just found it tough to get into. Then I watched the same thing happen with series like Eragon, Wheel of Time, Twilight, Song of Fire and Ice, Hunger Games and more (might have the order mixed up). I've read at least a single book from all those series (except Twilight) and while I've gone back and re-read Lord of the Rings 4 times since, I've never felt compelled to read those series, or watch the movie/TV adaptations. I've spent actually a not insignificant amount of time wondering why those books never clicked with me, while watching them become sweeping, generation-defining cultura phenomena. It's bothered me, because I've been left out of a lot of "which Hogwarts house are you" type of conversations. But the thing that's really strange is that I kept waiting for everyone to outgrow those books and move on. On the one hand, I understand mass appeal, and I understand not understanding mass appeal. Not everything is truly for everyone, and it never bothered me that those books missed me, but what bothered me was that we never let go of them as a culture. I still know people who call other people "muggles", for instance, even though we're all well into our 30s by now. There are a lot of things I liked in my youth that I look back fondly on now, but realize they aren't for me as an adult. Music, movies, TV, books (I had my own YA novel preferences), that, at some point, I just walked away from. Some of them were quite good, some of them were of broad appeal, but eventually, I outgrew them. What confuses me so much is society's inability to outgrow a lot of these recent YA novels. The same way I'm confused about how Taylor Swift is still so popular with her original demographic. There used to be a certain strategy that if you paid attention to, many media companies (especially Disney) would employ: They'd release some media series, say, Star Wars. Then they'd wait until the people who originally were kids/young adults got older, had their own kids, and they'd re-release the property, or release sequels/prequels, etc. (Star Wars being a good example because they've done this 3 time now, with the originals in the 80s, prequels in the early 00s, and the latest batch in the 2020s). You could see clear generational gaps between surges in popularity. But that seems to have just gone away now. All in all, it's not a real problem. I'm still just as tired of these media properties as I was a few years after they came out, but it's not like it really affects my life. It's just really strange to see the level of persistence, and I can't find any historical comparisons.
watwut 3y ago
> The reason adults who hadn’t read a book since college embraced Harry Potter was that it was uncomplicated: linear, familiar in its fairytale structure, binary (good vs evil), and guaranteed a fairly easy satisfying end I do not think so. Bookshelves are full of linear books with familiar fairytale structure and binary good vs evil. Easy satisfying end also pretty much given in a random book.
vintermann 3y ago
YA is a marketing segment first and foremost. Sure, there are some authors that buy into it and try to write the kind of thing they think the industry's market segment wants. (I'm sure it helps a lot with pitching their books to the publishers). But generally speaking, I think that if a book gets popular with the "wrong" audience, then it's the industry that needs to look into their assumptions, not the audience.

26 points by lando2319 3y ago

I don't really understand the connection between increased adult YA readership and the culture war stuff that the article tries to make. Seems to me the author just dislikes YA. Pretty sure the "think of the children," hand wringing would occur regardless

lincon127 3y ago
Well that makes sense if you think the author dislikes YA, as she obviously does not. She just very much dislikes the idea that grown adults can co-opt a genre not made for them and then police it by only taking into account their own stunted values. Most importantly though, it seems that she mostly hates that there's so many excuses for these people's behaviour, and that adults partake in YA circles so unapologetically. The connection, knowing this, is then quite clear.
- fatfingerd 3y ago
  It doesn't seem to me like it is a direct choice of adults to consume juvenile media, rather all media has adjusted to the curse of the marginal user and prefers to market garbage that can be sold to anyone.
  - lincon127 3y ago
    That doesn't apply to books though. As books aren't advertised the same way as any other media. Most books are advertised just through reviews and word of mouth. People decide to read juvenile media because their juvenile friends recommended it to them.
    - fatfingerd 3y ago
      That didn't apply to books, plans for movies and the multi media franchise are faster now, discussions on day time TV might be manipulated with largely false controversy to imply parents should read all this stuff, etc. That being said, I don't see much connection between the G/PG blockbuster related adult readers and the coming-of-age book auditors.
- mathteddybear 3y ago
  I've read TFA, she obviously dislikes YA
- watwut 3y ago
  I read article and author dislikes both YA and adults. Autor also conflates kids books with YA books. Autor also conflates conservative anti-lgbt movement with pretty much anyone who reads youth adult literature which makes even less sense. The calls to remove books with lgbt content from libraries are purely political and have zero to do with what books are read by adults.
  - lincon127 3y ago
    Tell me where any of that happens (dislike for YA, dislike for adults, conflation between YA and children's books, conflation between anti-lgbt with anyone reading young adult literature). Like, you're getting close to the actual premises, but I feel like misinterpreted the entire article on purpose just to make it sound very ridiculous. Yes, it's weird to assume that some people that read YA are the people that don't want kids reading LGBT content. but that's why the author sets this up by talking about how these people are just as immature as the audience the books are supposed to be targeting. These people that only read YA want a say regarding what gets put into libraries as if they're some sort of authority despite being at a grade 7 reading level is what the article leads up to. Now whether or not you want to follow that slippery slope with the author is your perogative, but it seems completely unfair to misrepresent them as crudely as you have.
    - watwut 3y ago
      > but that's why the author sets this up by talking about how these people are just as immature as the audience the books are supposed to be targeting. These people that only read YA want a say regarding what gets put into libraries as if they're some sort of authority despite being at a grade 7 reading level is what the article leads up to And you do not see how logical conclusion from that is that author simply dislikes YA literature? And adults too, since there is so much disgust about them, gasp, existing and enjoying entertainment. Author literally claims it is predatory for an adult to read YA books. Yes, when you make up negative claims about groups, purely out of nowhere, with zero argument or evidence they are true, then it is reasonable to assume you simply do not like them. Otherwise you would give them basic respect and checked up some date before making stuff up.
- vintermann 3y ago
  YA, like "New Age" 30 years ago, is not a genre. It's a marketing category. Marketers built a profile of the buyer they want to target in their minds - a glorified stereotype. The buyers themselves didn't identify with the label. But the marketers then demanded products tailored to this stereotype. And of course, many authors caught on, and were willing to move towards the marketers caricature of what they had in common, in order to get access. So there's no co-option here. People are just fighting over a marketer-created niche. The niche is a bad fit to reality (in more ways than the audience hardly being young adults) but it's got enough money behind it that it's not easy to challenge it.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

COGlory 3y ago

This was interesting, although I feel the author was making two separate points here. One point was about the popularity of young adult (YA) fiction with adults, and the other was something to do with a book about queer kids being criticized and an attempt to remove it from a public library because children might find it. The thread that connects them was supposedly that the library system circulates 135 copies of 50 Shades of Grey, but how exactly that related to YA lit I'm not sure. The link is certainly weak, or lost on me. (The author started writing fan-fic for YA novels?). Smut has existed forever, certainly before the arbitrary transition period the author of the article has come up with, so I'm not sure I understand the link. Anyways, of the two points, I find the latter one boring and tired, and so I'd prefer to talk about the first one. The author states: > My husband and I spent several years putting on pleasant faces when talk over cocktails drifted to “Which Hogwarts house would you belong to?” It all felt so juvenile and regressive. And I believe it was. I was unable to escape this feeling at the time when Harry Potter was sweeping through the world. I'd just finished Lord of the Rings and, while I picked up a Harry Potter book, I just found it tough to get into. Then I watched the same thing happen with series like Eragon, Wheel of Time, Twilight, Song of Fire and Ice, Hunger Games and more (might have the order mixed up). I've read at least a single book from all those series (except Twilight) and while I've gone back and re-read Lord of the Rings 4 times since, I've never felt compelled to read those series, or watch the movie/TV adaptations. I've spent actually a not insignificant amount of time wondering why those books never clicked with me, while watching them become sweeping, generation-defining cultura phenomena. It's bothered me, because I've been left out of a lot of "which Hogwarts house are you" type of conversations. But the thing that's really strange is that I kept waiting for everyone to outgrow those books and move on. On the one hand, I understand mass appeal, and I understand not understanding mass appeal. Not everything is truly for everyone, and it never bothered me that those books missed me, but what bothered me was that we never let go of them as a culture. I still know people who call other people "muggles", for instance, even though we're all well into our 30s by now. There are a lot of things I liked in my youth that I look back fondly on now, but realize they aren't for me as an adult. Music, movies, TV, books (I had my own YA novel preferences), that, at some point, I just walked away from. Some of them were quite good, some of them were of broad appeal, but eventually, I outgrew them. What confuses me so much is society's inability to outgrow a lot of these recent YA novels. The same way I'm confused about how Taylor Swift is still so popular with her original demographic. There used to be a certain strategy that if you paid attention to, many media companies (especially Disney) would employ: They'd release some media series, say, Star Wars. Then they'd wait until the people who originally were kids/young adults got older, had their own kids, and they'd re-release the property, or release sequels/prequels, etc. (Star Wars being a good example because they've done this 3 time now, with the originals in the 80s, prequels in the early 00s, and the latest batch in the 2020s). You could see clear generational gaps between surges in popularity. But that seems to have just gone away now. All in all, it's not a real problem. I'm still just as tired of these media properties as I was a few years after they came out, but it's not like it really affects my life. It's just really strange to see the level of persistence, and I can't find any historical comparisons.

watwut 3y ago

> The reason adults who hadn’t read a book since college embraced Harry Potter was that it was uncomplicated: linear, familiar in its fairytale structure, binary (good vs evil), and guaranteed a fairly easy satisfying end I do not think so. Bookshelves are full of linear books with familiar fairytale structure and binary good vs evil. Easy satisfying end also pretty much given in a random book.

vintermann 3y ago

YA is a marketing segment first and foremost. Sure, there are some authors that buy into it and try to write the kind of thing they think the industry's market segment wants. (I'm sure it helps a lot with pitching their books to the publishers). But generally speaking, I think that if a book gets popular with the "wrong" audience, then it's the industry that needs to look into their assumptions, not the audience.