I do not wish to wear out my welcome, but as a general rule, young adult literature is an absolute joke.
To clarify, young adult literature, as a demographic, is fairly new and it is almost completely composed of half-baked fantasy novels and books that were rejected by adult publishers.
Needless to say, 99% of Young Adult books are shelf warmers within a few months of their first release. A similar case applies for libraries.
There are, of course, a few exceptions, but these are too few and far between to even focus on such a category.
Does anyone have a counterargument to this? Any other thoughts?
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>To clarify, young adult literature, as a demographic, is fairly new
This is incorrect.
>Needless to say, 99% of Young Adult books are shelf warmers within a few months of their first release
This is true of the vast majority of books.
Excuse me for asserting this, I should have said relatively, both demographics of children's and adult's literature predate it.
I guess you are right, but, in all honesty, I struggle to name ten contemporary young adult author's (I am 19, if that matters), whereas I can name ten contemporary adult authors or ten contemporary children's authors easily.
Do you mind pointing the finger at what is this "spirit"? I am genuinely curious.. Is it the author's intention, rather than said author's execution?
>Excuse me for asserting this, I should have said relatively, both demographics of children's and adult's literature predate it.
This is because the idea of adolescence didn't really exist until the 1900s. There was still plenty of junk literature before this though.
>Postwar, at the earliest.
This is because teenagers emerged as a demographic defined by particular interests and socialization had grown beyond the family and their immediate community.
>It was a tiny demographic and mostly served by coming of age novels written by authors with ambitions beyond the current fads
No it wasn't.
>No it wasn't.
Yes, it was. The demographic is not young adults, it is people who read what could be called YA literature which was a tiny demographic, hence there not even being enough of it produced to get its own section at the book store or library.
>Yes, it was
No, it wasn't. OP was right in as far as the fact that teenagers suddenly emerged as a massive demographic to market toward in the 1950s. Prior to this low-brow pulp magazines were produced en masse to appeal to young readers (this is related to comics being seen as juvenile entertainment in the West).
>Prior to this low-brow pulp magazines were produced en masse to appeal to young readers
Pulp was not young adult, it was general. It came about because of mass literacy and the new market they created, people with a functional level of comprehension but no understanding of literature and its ways.
And most of it was worse than free shit now. Some rags had better curation, but it was shit for barely literate dock workers and cottonheads. The CCA in comics didn't completely miss the mark, because child labor laws were still barely enforced. Epic fantasy bricks with two required but not explicit sex scenes per book is about the level most of it was on, only shorter and serialized.
>Pulp was not young adult, it was general
Not quite, there was pulp specifically marketed to children and adolescents. Eventually they became the prime consumers and we had a golden age of genre mags in the mid 20th century. The pulp audience always skewed young.
It depends on how we want to render the demographic. Young Adult as a market segment is either, and this varies by decade and genre, tweens to teens too old for graded readers, or 14-25 year old stoners in modern parlance. Lit tends to mean the former outside of SFF, which is usually the latter. Now, the latter is the norm but doesn't encompass the literary equivalent of Adult Swim.
>It depends on how we want to render the demographic
It depends on how you view this history of publishing alongside the emergence of marketing demographics and how such is reflected in what we see today.
Low-brow writing has a long history; it used to be exemplified in pulp magazines which were meant to be consumed and thrown away. The "youth demographic" wasn't defined as it is now but emerged in earnest throughout the 19th century only to explode in the mid-20th.
The obvious argument is toward technology extending the idea of childhood and allowing for "adolescence" and the creep of democratization into the arts.
We could divide it by things children or adults simply aren't interested in, but I'm having trouble with that myself in a different capacity. Or go by the nature of fables and folklore that this kind of literature was based in and replaced. Social mores and censorship also influence our current perceptions so we can't rely on that.
Let's say instead that there is literature for an audience of a certain capacity, whatever that capacity need be, and your upper echelons of pulp aimed more middlebrow, which is a different kind of exclusion, but similar in what the stories are about and who they target. There is also racy, raunchy booba that japan still carries the torch for. That's good enough for me. I've been struggling with the issue of "adolescence" and in trying to write a world arbitrarily removed of it, it paints a very different picture of the nature of this demographic than the illusion that has been built does.
>The obvious argument is toward technology extending the idea of childhood and allowing for "adolescence" and the creep of democratization into the arts.
I'd argue it's Western wealth and capitalization of the demographic existing in a kind of cybernetic double ass to mouth maneuver that makes Jostens a company that exists, combined with a very different idea of capacity as a person that has also become prolonged, but democratizing the arts is also part of it.
>We could divide it by things children or adults simply aren't interested in, but I'm having trouble with that myself in a different capacity.
That wouldn't work very well because the line between such was gradually blurred before the idea of a "youth market" exploded. Even now plenty of people in their 20s (or older) read YA while plenty of young readers, in a hobby that's associated with being precocious, will read accessible classics.
>Or go by the nature of fables and folklore that this kind of literature was based in and replaced.
They tell you more about how a culture reinterprets longstanding stories than they do about the publishing industry. Like right now there's a thread up about that homosexual Achilles novel and a picture of that broad who translates Homer with "toxic masculinity" floating around in her head.
>Social mores and censorship also influence our current perceptions so we can't rely on that.
Sure you can. You can get a good idea of social mores from literature itself as long as you bring some background knowledge into your reading (20th century literature can be broadly described as a reaction to rapidly changing social norms and several movies have been made based on actual events regarding literature/censorship). Even considering the examples above you could glean there was a corporatized identitarianism taking over the publishing industry.
>I've been struggling with the issue of "adolescence" and in trying to write a world arbitrarily removed of it, it paints a very different picture of the nature of this demographic than the illusion that has been built does.
Read up on the Youth Movement that emerged out of the 50s (failure of traditional authorities causing 2 world wars and the boomer demographic shift) and keep in mind kids were still being sent to work in factories or farmed at the turn of the century (i.e. the label of "YA" isn't that much newer).
>democratizing the arts is also part of it
It's the biggest part of it. Think of the traditional control of information flow being overturned by social media as a more rapidly visible example of how democratization disrupts and sometimes destroys.
>No. Even in the supposed golden age they mostly went for a broad audience
No, it's associated with young readers. Hence why you see the silent gen and boomers referencing them (i.e. the people who were aged 8-20 during that time). Alongside Fantasy/SciFi pulp there was plenty of Western as well (the Western fad of the 40s and 50s very much influenced the youth as well and that's how we eventually ended up things like the acid and revisionist subgenres).
>associated with young readers
What it is associated with has no relevance to what it was targeted towards, if it did nothing would last through the ages.
>What it is associated with has no relevance to what it was targeted towards
Sure it does. The fact we now have a "youth demographic" to refer to doesn't mean adults had no idea kids were reading Tarzan or John Carter.
I said they were aware of it, broad market, they were writing for more than just so called young adults. Before Harry Potter did its deed you had children's books which overlapped on the teen market which work for both kids and not quite adults (Hatchet) and you had adult books which had an appeal to both adults and not quite adults (Catcher in the Rye), there was no middle.
>Before Harry Potter did its deed
It was long before Harry Potter that YA emerged, anon. The Hardy Boys is from the 1920s and they rewrote/reissued them starting in the 50s when they became more oriented with emerging demographics.
Again, the boomer generation was the first generation where youth/adolescence merged with the idea of demographic marketing. Prior to that you had books that were made to appeal to gender that were divided by younger/older audience (i.e. things have become more well-defined in that regard but the roots of YA can be traced back to the early 19th century or even the 18th...but, again, child farming was prominent when our grandparents were alive and kids working factory jobs was still common when their parents were being born).
Hardy Boys are children's books, teens don't really read them, or didn't. My grandfather bought me a box set of Hardy Boys for my tenth birthday because they were what he read when he was 10.
>Hardy Boys are children's books
As I said, they were rewritten in the 50s to appeal to younger audiences (providing a useful example of publishers becoming mindful of demographic marketing).
>The 50s mainstream culture failed so spectacularly at courting teenagers that they started listening to Chuck Berry and dropped out of society to smoke reefer and frick in a field.
There wasn't a widespread "youth culture" until the boomers.
>YA didn't functionally exist as anything of note until the 70s
It arose at the same time as what I mentioned above but traces of it can be seen in the early 20th century.
The 50s mainstream culture failed so spectacularly at courting teenagers that they started listening to Chuck Berry and dropped out of society to smoke reefer and frick in a field. YA didn't functionally exist as anything of note until the 70s with a few key works and shitloads of post-Tolkien genre fantasy, partly spawned from d&d campaigns. That's the original YA. It was even marketed as such.
No. Even in the supposed golden age they mostly went for a broad audience, which is why they are filled with things which young adults would not really get or understand in rather simplistic terms.
>The obvious argument is toward technology extending the idea of childhood
The increase in quality of life extended childhood, more parents making enough money to support their kids longer meant the kids did not have to go to work at as young of an age. Some of this could be written up to technology but not much, technology's affect is mostly indirect here. There is no obvious or singular cause here.
You must be 18 to post here. Kids have shit taste, news at 11. There's your counterargument. Why make it your problem?
>This is incorrect.
Postwar, at the earliest. And it was shit then, or Hinton wouldn't have written The Outsiders.
It does not really matter, it is just an observation, really.
Bluey is popular with toddlers, parents, and people who want to frick bluey's dad. I don't see you b***hing about other things that aren't for you. Unless...
>it is just an observation
It is a way for you to proclaim how much better you are than they are. People who identify themselves through what they are not generally have no clue what they are. Just because you shit on the masses does not mean you are not covered in shit.
You are right, but the thing is, it is not the masses, that is what I am saying, I never criticized the popular authors, just that YA does not sell all that well, neither does it check out all that much. In fact, much of YA quickly becomes obscure. So if anything, I do not detest what is popular, I detest flavor of the hour works which get a week of fame, but then are quickly forgotten, especially those forgotten due to their own mediocrity. I am no better than those who read in demographic X in genre Y by author Z. Better or worse can only be played on a person by person, age by age, education level by education level basis. It would be unfair to compare what I read to that of an eleven year old currently enjoying the latest book by Riordan, there is just too much dissimilarity to go ahead and make such a comparison, that is, at least in my opinion.
Do you mind point and quoting the ad hominem, anon? I am unable to discern any such attack, but in any such case, it ultimately does not matter whether I did or not.
If you believe I lack good comprehension of what is being said to me, or go as far as to question my own reading comprehension, the please feel free to suggest me a book, I will read it, tell you my thoughts, the themes, the plot. Whatever you want me to tell you, I will, but I know it will merely conjure a mere chuckle from you.
If anything, I think that you might you want to get off of your high horse and then maybe we can talk, discuss even. I am open to fair conversation.
>This is because the idea of adolescence didn't really exist until the 1900s. There was still plenty of junk literature before this though.
I agree, the all old literature argument is good, is a pointless one. That said, if anything, junk literature is far more prominent today than it was then. At the very least, that is my perception of it.
You wore out your welcome and started off with a complaint. You are not interested in any such thing. Stick to the YA section.
Well, since you are so adamant in what you say, we will just go our own ways, then. I have made enough enemies in this world, I care not to have any more.
>That said, if anything, junk literature is far more prominent today than it was then.
I don't believe this is so but junk literature is certainly more celebrated than it ever has been.
So? A bunch of people who wouldn't read now read shit, what does it matter?
>This is incorrect.
It was a tiny demographic and mostly served by coming of age novels written by authors with ambitions beyond the current fads. Back in the 90s book stores did not have a YA section, just children's and general fiction.
>This is incorrect.
no, you're wrong. I know, because when I was a teenager, it did not exist. frickhead.
Or maybe you were a moronic kid who "grew up" to be a stupid "adult"? Yeah.
I've read more books than you've seen, and you can't even count as high as my IQ is, you drooling fricking monkey.
Maybe if you're posts didn't come off like a socially rejected 16 year-old trying to be edgy someone would believe you.
I'm drunk, but that's besides the point. You're just flat out wrong, and you only think you aren't because you're a sniffling little baby that shouldn't be on this board. Go frick yourself.
>tl;dr
You're a moron, anon. No more (You)s.
>>tl;dr
Jesus H Christ
You are a joke. You need to be reading YA.
I am not reading it, I deal with YA books regularly though and it is the same handful of authors that check out and need to be shelved again: Rowling, Riordan, (E.) Colfer, Collins and Meyer. Occasionally, there is a Maas book that circulates, but I would estimate only one or two people are reading her (this is the second largest library in my area, as measured by the number of checkouts, by the way). So really, it is just the five regulars, nobody wants Richard Paul Evans, Patterson's Maximum Ride, or Paolini.
I don't read YA crap so I don't care. I am tired of the complaints and ad hominems though so if all that is understood around here are ad hominems then that is all I will be saying. I promise you I am better at it than you think you are. You need to be reading YA because you likely aren't capable of holding a conversation.
>Do you mind pointing the finger at what is this "spirit"? I am genuinely curious.. Is it the author's intention, rather than said author's execution?
He wishes he was a teenager again experiencing no real world concerns and the sublimity of adolescent romance.
>To clarify, young adult literature, as a demographic,
Ya literature 99 times out of 100 is teen romance, while the "demographic" is teen males who are probably looking some kind of coming of age story but get some low t coomer garbage instead.
I'm a guy and I love reading ya. I understand why people dislike it, but at its peak, it has genuinely well written worlds and characters that tackle big themes in a mature way.
YA can't be older than 10-15 years. When I was a "young adult" it wasn't a genre. I guess it was a technical term, but you were either still reading teen shit, or adult shit. There wasn't this shitty half-life frickwit shit. God, I hate it. All these smug little b***hes going on about their shitty books with their less than mediocre plots and MCs and love interests. It's lower than fanfiction. Worse in every way to everything else. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Isn't YA nowadays ultra woke?
Yes and no. What Barnes and Noble and Indigo try to advertise the most? Yes. As a whole? No.
Rick Riordan has always been somewhat woke, even Percy Jackson has gay propaganda in it. He has always been big into that for some reason. That said, it is not impossible to ignore this talking point, according to quite a few people that I know.
I remember reading about things like this
https://reason.com/2019/02/28/he-was-part-of-a-twitter-mob-that-attack
And this
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9105217/Author-canceled-DROPPED-agent-defending-writer-Scarlet-Letter.html
And this
https://reason.com/2019/02/01/amelie-wen-zhao-young-adult-blood-heir/
This seems like the most sick area of all publishing.
Mostly no, it's a captive audience who doesn't have access to the credit card. Do parents know what is in books? I was reading Naked Luch at 14, so not really. Others do and control access to it if they care at all. I know a gay who grew up under a cult-tier preacher who read Percy Jackson, but let's be honest, that brand of christianity can't even read the red words enough to make good sense of them.
What I look for in YA is the “spirit”. I don’t like every John Green, Colleen Hoover, or Stephen King novel, but I like what they are about, their philosophies, and their soul.
true I'd rather read actual children's books than YA slop
>Irrelevant time wasting image
>Irrelevant time wasting question
It's shit but it's far beyond anything you could ever write.
You might be right, but I will never know until I try. Maybe I will try my hand at writing, then.