The Toxic Drama on YA Twitter (2017)
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2) "Positive buzz all but died off, as community members began confronting The Black Witch’s supporters, demanding to know why they insisted on reading a racist book. "
Reminds me how in Soviet Russia you couldn't read certain books or risk prosecution, but were of course required to condemn them, in public if possible. Which led to entire groups of politicians, artists, authors, condemning books which they weren't even legally allowed to read. Absolute fucking insanity.
The Twitter-driven mobs forcing people to retract statements and put out new, "correct" ones are merely online versions of Communists' struggle sessions.
I really, really hate how YA is called out as somehow different from the rest of the book universe.
As if being written for teenagers (if they're even written for teenagers, and not simply marketed that way) makes them worse books.
As if having sex and violence in a book somehow makes it better than YA books.
TFA talks about how unlikable-but-redeemed characters in teen books are treated as if they're dramatically worse than unlikable-but-redeemed characters in the broader book category. How YA authors are tarred with that brush for the rest of their careers.
It's such a stupid, and worthless, classification. Remember, award winning writers like Piers Anthony, Isaac Asimov, and Robert Heinlein all wrote books targeted at children as well.
Don't forget Tolkien.
It's not about the presence of sex and violence, but how they handles themes, character and moral conflicts.
These books may be outliers on both sides, but they are also far from alone.
No, of course not. Is that what you think people are referring to when they suggest you consider the difference between YA literature and literature intended for adults?
But it is. It is, quite clearly, literature intended for adults. It may be more smut and less Moby Dick, but it's not by any means written for children.
And, funnily enough, it also represents the same kind of mindless entertainment people refer to when criticizing YA books.
It's not Hemingway or Twain, but wait, didn't we read them in High School too?
In the most pedantic and literal interpretation possible, yes.
But the adult alternative to Pixar is not Pornhub.
Just animated films made for young and old alike.
Of course, "Huckleberry Finn" and "Tom Sawyer" fit that definition ... and so perhaps they are YA?
Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit Will Travel" — obvious YA.
I suppose if YA has a "reputation" it's probably because, like Romance novels, etc., it is churned out, is often shallow, "tropey"....
Ayup. Smut is an incredibly popular (and profitable) adult literature genre. Followed closely by romance and power fantasies (which are safe to use in literature aimed at teens).
https://www.filfre.net/2019/12/companions-of-xanth-preceded-...
https://litreactor.com/columns/themes-of-pedophilia-in-the-w...
There are plenty of other far more deserving authors that could take his place in such a comparison. Terry Pratchett is a pretty obvious choice, for instance. Or Tolkien, as someone else mentioned.
He also wrote a YA novel entitled “the color of her panties” so...
If he's writing a book about some fantasy sex between some character and a child, I don't see why he shouldn't be allowed to do that, so long as he's not selling those copies to children.
If he is a pedophile, getting someone to bottle up such a central part of themselves is bad for their mental health. And nothing good can possibly come from having poor mental health. Although, it is hard to tell if this is the case, or if it wasn't contributed by his dodgy pen pal.
The pen pal, and the whitewashing of him, if he is indeed a molester, is personally a far bigger problem to me (and one which is being a tad overlooked imo), than the sex scene, although at this point in this comment, I'm still trying to separate the man from the work.
I can see why people would dislike him writing YA works. If he is a pedophile, I imagine part of the reason he has become so popular, is that he is uniquely able to "feel" the same things the reader might towards their peers.
Someone trying to emulate that without that sort of touch would have a greater difficulty in doing so. However, it does appear as if he has pushed some boundaries, and there are serious questions to be had about when young people should start to be exposed to charged sexual settings like this. And what sort of shock scenes is really appropriate in there. He might even need an actual editor who can rein him in.
I am not familiar enough with his work to comment further on this.
> He also wrote a YA novel entitled “the color of her panties” so...
And yet it is probably justified in this case.
Young adults would be better served by ignoring YA in favor of the wider book world, and books written before the YA genres existed.
As an aside, you’ll find a toxic adherence to supporting the YA genre in the Twitter communities mentioned in the article, most loudly by people who want to be big fish in a small pond, but also have that small pond be seen as large and prestigious. ;)
YA, as pointed out in sister threads, includes books like Catcher in the Rye, The Hobbit, Ender's Game, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and so forth. Stereotypes like this one hurt these discussions quite a bit. Stereotypes also prevent people from reading good books.
> Young adults would be better served by ignoring YA in favor of the wider book world
I might agree with you if it was only authors who were intentionally targeting those genres. It's not. Publishers will take general books and market them as YA. I know of some really good authors who have been shoehorned into the YA market (Forthright, as one example).
> books written before the YA genres existed
YA has been around for over 200 years now. The YA category (as opposed to children's) came about around 1802 (per Wikipedia).
Appropriation...
Those words, when used like this, are fantastic at shutting down a discussion without putting any real effort into the discussion.
And so, I'll merely wish you a good day.
I know nothing of the book but what we're seeing here is the next phase in the evolution of the social justice warrior. Slowly they have come full circle to realize their own hypocrisy. Better late than never.
The most important part of this, may be how inconsequential this actually is.
I hope they enjoy it and I'm sorry for the people who had to walk away because they didn't want to play the game.