Everyone Hates what Teenage Girls Love and it's Dumb

here on the Amanda the Jedi Channel we like to have fun we like to dunk on things but we also love to passionately talk about the things that we love it usually takes me a little bit longer to do those things because it's if I'm passionate about it I want to make sure I do it right but yes there there's a lot of dunking that happens here and we don't discriminate the dunking a trash [ __ ] mommy pour action dramas but I also often dunk on things that are intended for the young adults but I never want to come across as someone who makes fun of people for the things that they like unless it's cats the movie again those are the rules if 13 reasons why is your favorite show that is absolutely fine I think that the first season is super captivating I read the book back when it came out I just don't like the progression that the show took and I don't like what they did versus what they said their intentions were but if it makes you happy that's amazing same goes to all the other stuff I've ever talked about there are tons of things that I know objectively have so many issues with them but I still love them to some capacity there is nothing wrong with loving what you love again as long as it's legal but there's no denying that when it comes to the young adult world particularly stuff that seems to be more intended for teenage girls there is an insane amount of hate and I do not think it's warranted people already bring down the young adult identifier as if it's lesser in some way if it's like you get 14 and they're like time for the adult section for you time to grow up loser unless it's like Harry Potter or Percy Jackson in which case you're good to go as if there aren't a stack of classics that are in the young adult section that are taught in schools and university and people hold dear to their hearts I just said dear really weird and I think that overall judgment for why a as an identifiers kind of pretty crappy in my opinion anything that gets someone reading is great whether it's Harry Potter or Twilight or comic books or anything else if it's people reading that is a net positive thing that should be encouraged and that's not to say that there isn't any room for criticism within this sphere at all or that there aren't problematic portrayals and tropes that get overused and trends that just keep getting fallen into but the level of hate that gets brought down on the people who actually enjoy this kind content is completely unwarranted because that's where I think the distinction lies you can criticize and people do criticize everything from all walks of life all over the place but when it comes to the why a novel more often than not it's the people that read them they get heavily judged and criticized for daring to like the things that they like now for those confused about what young adult or why a even is let's do a little refresher and bring you up to speed this isn't gonna be a definitive history of like when this classification started this is just supposed to give you like an overall idea of why it grew to be as big as it is why people find issues with it and what might have moved into this like higher level of criticism that we often see so there's actually a lot of things in y-a that I genuinely love I mention this a time when discussing movies but it totally extends into books but I am a sucker for a coming-of-age story and by nature many coming-of-age stories seem to fall under the young-adult umbrella like obviously this isn't always the case I've noticed we're seeing a big trend in like post-adolescent coming-of-age where it's just like you know people in their mid-20s to mid-30s who just have no idea what they're doing with their life yeah I love this stuff in the book world I think it's actually referred to as contemporary stories which are essentially just fictional stories that are grounded in what could be a reflection of our own reality and they tend to involve characters that are navigating their way through personal and societal issues as they try to understand the world around them and themselves so you know coming-of-age and because these stories are a little bit less daunting to jump into they can actually instill a love of reading and people that never learned how to do so like so many people just got caught up in like the school curriculum of reading and just learn to hate it on the basis of that so if something seems interesting to them they shouldn't be dissuaded from reading it just because they're in their 20s and it's aimed at teenagers potentially because when you see someone hold up something like this versus something like this and you're not a reader but you kind of want to start which one are you probably going to be drawn to because again the Goldfinch is like 800 pages of relatively small ish font versus the perks of being a wallflower which is yeah it's still it's pretty small font but this is also a pretty small book both in you know width height and page length and then obviously even if you do find books that look smaller that are intended for adults you might end up with something like a McCarthy we're like the prose and the way he writes is just very unusual and it takes a little bit to get into so it might not necessarily be the most accessible thing to a new reader that doesn't mean that why a is lesser because it condenses those plot points down into less time so it's faster to get through it's just different and again a contemporary is just one piece of the why a pie there's deep fantasy urban fantasy dystopian futures aliens mysteries LGBTQ stories alternate realities there's just so much why stories vary just as much as every other genre of any kind of fiction there is because it's just an overall description of books that are intended to appeal to people age you know 13 to 14 to like 21 and again that's not to say that somebody who's older than that age can't enjoy these books and it's also not to say that there isn't something that might appeal to people that are under that age it just allows them to get away with more than a kid book would and less than what an adult book might and if anything what's appropriate to be in the y-a umbrella is actually growing as it increases in popularity every year and I've also read y-a books where characters do have sex they do drugs they can be brutally murdered experienced serious abuse and a slew of other issues and those boundaries seem to push a little bit more every year as that ye audience is growing and publishers are trying to kind of bridge that gap between the why a world and the adult fiction world I've honestly read books in the adult section that very easily could have been in the Y a section based on the writing style and the themes and like the age of the characters within the story but then get bumped up into the adult category for whatever reason could be something as simple as the characters being in college versus being in high school but a lot of times there really isn't that much difference between what you're gonna find between the two sections and because some of those things are so similar I think we've largely done a disservice to why a by trying to write it off entirely a lot of books we read in school are exactly intended for these audiences I catch it tends to fall in here even though I think we read that when I was like 11 but then when you got to high school they introduced the outsiders and To Kill a Mockingbird which are both very common and important pieces of literature that tend to get used for education purposes the coming-of-age stories like Catcher in the Rye which would go on to inspire the writing style of things like The Perks of Being a Wallflower Harry Potter captured the imagination in the entire world JK Rowling [ __ ] takes aside those books are obviously incredibly important to so many people and they speak to a level of kindness and acceptance that she just doesn't seem to currently have and again just because they're intended for a younger audience demographic does not remove their validity in the space Philip Pullman Lois Lowry Lois sacker are all things that have inspired young readers for decades and they have worth and that's not to disregard the impact of newer authors either there are tons of excellent novels being written for adolescents currently and they shouldn't be seen as a lesser just because of their classifier but also there are obvious flaws within why a but as mentioned there are there's flaws and everything anyone who's paying remote attention to anything can tell that there are a lot of trends and tropes in these stories that are manufactured so that they can build off the popularity of other series once Harry Potter happened the genuine massive marketability of youth audiences became exceedingly apparent the product boom that came as a result of Harry Potter was almost entirely unheard of and really made way for that kind of marketability we saw with kids toys extended into teens and honestly adults so I see Harry Potter is a little bit of a bridge it's appropriate for a lot of ages but it very firmly showed publishers how much money books specifically marketed to a y-a audience could make but I think the first thing that really sparked off with the average person thinks of when they think young adults is Twilight's young teenagers are biting to show affection I was already reading a lot of books and what was described as the teen section of chapters but coming across Twilight and experiencing the explosion out of that was undeniable from Twilight's popularity we saw a huge push for young adult stories that involved romantic vampires largely featuring female protagonists which is just an area that why a does well in general and I feel like this is where we started seeing the major trends and before Twilight took off I remember reading some books with vampires and werewolves as the central subject when I was in middle school somewhere for kids or young adults like the vampires assistants series but others I can assure you I should not have been reading at that age dr. Twilight there immediately dozens of vampire related stories being pumped out that were intended for teens they featured the romanticism and the lore that had been established by Anne Rice much more appropriate for younger audiences it amped up the melodrama which we loved and said a lot of the stories in high school or at least with teenage protagonists it was a pretty big deal then Twilight got its movie which they clearly didn't anticipate being as successful as it ended up being based on its relatively tight thirty-seven million dollar budget and that just added a new dynamic not only can you market these books to teens but you can also make multi-million dollar franchises out of them there were a lot of successful book series that didn't really manage to push themselves into that like movie or series area the exception here I believe would be Vampire Diaries those books actually started releasing in the 90s then came back almost 20 years later after Twilight popped off before being turned into an extremely successful television series they still like girl Nina from Degrassi for that but all too quickly we switched to a different style of teen fiction the dystopian future enter The Hunger Games and because Twilight had already shown that books often disregarded as lame fiction for teenage girls could make Bank at the box office the Hunger Games movie actually got a budget and again this led to a lot of other dystopian fiction coming out leading to mass success says like the divergent series and I'm not suggesting that dystopian futures and vampires and teen fiction didn't exist before the Hunger Games in Twilight I read a bunch of that kind of stuff when I was younger it's just those are the clear markers of what blew up in the space that encouraged publishers to look for more of it and he's aren't the only areas that we saw these big booms and obviously there was a huge push in the contemporary area after John Green novel started really taking off and the list goes on and because of those tropes and trends growing with the intention of publishers making money we can end up with some issues with the themes and trails and even the writing styles and this isn't exclusive to the y-a area these trends exists in everything from music to movies to books for adults to books for children it's just a natural progression of life when something makes a lot of money other people are going to try to replicate that success in some way or at least build off of that success it's why there's a laundry list of other sexed-up Twilight fan fiction that was turned into novels but there are some issues that I do think have merit in the space one being publisher interference they might push for clothes rather than unique stories pushing something that was intended to be a one-shot into being a series there goal is essentially to make as much money as possible and yes there are obviously people working in the publishing space that have a genuine passion for stories for literature for the things that they are providing to the world but it would be foolish to think that money doesn't push that wheel in a lot of ways another one that a lot of people complain about just for existing but I do think has issues in certain areas are romance nya for me I would specifically be romance that feels forced or unnatural or something that really didn't need to be in the story that's just there so that they can capitalize off something that is already very popular what something like Twilight that romance is the catalyst of the story it's a teen romance that just happens to have vampires in it and honestly the more I tried moving away from that is when the whole series fell apart for me like how do we start with teen melodrama and moving the vampire babies and vision battles anyways I've obviously discussed the many issues I have with how their relationship is portrayed in Twilight's will definitely be discussing that more when midnight Sun comes out I have that pre-ordered I am excited but either way the romance in that is the intention it's also why relationships in a lot of coming-of-age stories and LGBTQ stories make sense as well first love's an attraction make up a huge part of adolescence so obviously that's going to be reflected in stories of people growing up and teens tend to love love they love reading about it they want to experience it nothing feels better than that concept of your one true love soulmates and so many of these stories promise that to the extreme and also people of every age love shipping couples it's why certain fanfiction gets so big it's why people have ot peace is the cause behind the Team Edward vs. Team Jacob debate regardless of age people like a parent it's a demographic that obviously appeals to a lot of people so obviously publishers would push for that and honestly authors would probably want to include it in their stories even when it doesn't necessarily make sense to I've watched videos from people who read a lot and plain about romance narratives and certain stories and the insistence on love triangles turning friends into relationship options not properly establishing character before you're just like now kicked butt again to me that's more of a writing problem than it is the concept of just including relationships in general and this also kind of leads into the issue with how some of these relation chips are even portrayed a lot of the Merman sized stocking an over attachment and watching people sleep without their consent or knowledge it's just so cute there's a literal sub-genre that I refer to as the teen death romance there's so many love triangles and the idea that we're all gonna meet our soul mates in high school and learn all of our life lessons in those moments when in reality so many people learn things from earlier relationships starting and ending and because of that we probably shouldn't over romanticize the idea of getting it right the first time but there's also a lot of why a books that actually examines some of these more harmful themes why people are likely to fall into behaviors and relationships that aren't super healthy and how they work their way through and out of them so while romance is an area that can be criticized in a lot of y-a books and the movies that come as a result it also opened up the door to criticize the actual fans just for the fact that they liked them rather than criticizing the tropes themselves which as mentioned are often teenage girls and this is something that I've noticed for a while when I read Twilight for the first time I was the target age demographic for that story I still felt embarrassed for reading it and that was before it got popular and had any kind of reputation behind it there was just still something inside of me that said if people know that you're reading a teenage vampire romance they are going to judge you and thankfully I've gotten over that I don't give a [ __ ] and neither should you there's no denying that there are things that are acceptable to me and make a fan of and things that are seen as unacceptable to be a mega fan of and sadly society often dictates the things that teenage girls are passionate about are lesser than in some way now we can debate the quality of storytelling between Twilight and Harry Potter or Perks of Being a Wallflower but people ripped Twilight fans to shreds for the sheer crime of loving something that they deemed cringe and still do like if the most interesting thing you can find the criticize Twilight about is the fact that their diamond tough skin shimmers in the sunlight that's not even something that I think about when I go to point out issues in Twilight's okay they're allergic to garlic that seems logical they can't see themselves in mirrors that's totally fine oh but these ones have diamond tough pale skin that shimmers dead stupid I didn't even might paste these skin sparkles when the Sun hits it even got to the point where girls Sun not liking Twilight as a badge of honor because society essentially said that you were lesser then for liking it now clarify again that I have a lot of issues with Twilight but I also kind of love it but the way people treat Twilight fans sucked when making this video I actually came across Lindsay Ellis's dear Stephenie Meyer video which I think illustrates a lot of the points I'm trying to make in this video better than I really could nerd culture has been growing over the past 20 years and the stuff that people would have been insulted for liking decades ago like comic books and superheroes are now seen as super cool and even when looking at franchises that people do critique like transformers and the ridiculous nature fast the furious the fans of the series are not the aim of the ridicule the same way young adult fans are unless fan behavior gets the point where it's also abusive and over-the-top and problematic in other ways there is literally no reason to insult somebody for liking something we live in a world where teenagers get insulted for not reading but also for reading the things that are literally being marketed to them as I've discussed before in some of my generational war videos a lot of younger people are often put into situations where they can't win if you like something that's considered appropriate you might get questioned or quizzed about it if you're unfamiliar with something you're gonna get criticized for that and if you like something that companies are literally spending millions of dollars to market specifically to you as an individual you still get insulted it's why I hate the fact that there's the concept of the guilty pleasure yes I enjoy things that I either know or learn to know have issues but I don't feel guilty for liking it and neither should anyone else so in conclusion reading young adult books does not make you a lesser reader liking Twilight or Cassandra Clare or John Green does not make you a bad person or a fake reader these books can be incredibly important to people serve as an escape for teenagers hell they can serve as an escape for adults because that's what books do it might open up their mind to issues they've never personally experienced before it might put a name to feelings they've had their entire lives and keep that in mind when I inevitably dunk on something that fits into this category that is not a criticism of your taste it's just a criticism you go on love them why you love because sometimes a young adult story is exactly what we all need to reflect on things you might have experienced when you were younger but never really had a chance to fully process sometimes it's just really nice to read a fantasy that is an 800 pages with size six font I still go through periods of time where I'm just really into reading young adult fiction I'm in one of those moods right now I've been devouring coming-of-age stories I feel like I missed out on as a teenager because the ones that relate to me the most just didn't really exist in any kind of quantity so I was gonna do for this video I'm pretty sure it ended up being way longer than I intended it to be I think reading is a super cool thing that should be encouraged and it shouldn't matter what you like as long as it makes you happy what are some your guys's favorite young adult stories let me know your thinking in the comment section down below thanks as always my patreon supporters subscribe to the channel if you are new leave a like on the video if you're into that kind of thing I hope you all have a fantastic day and we'll catch you all later you

Channel: Amanda the Jedi

Views: 172,975

Rating: 4.9581676 out of 5

Keywords: Twilight, in defence of twilight, the attack on ya, young adult, dear Stephenie Meyer, young adult fiction, john green, the fault in our stars, Harry Potter, jk Rowling, boomer humor is sad, why we hate teenage girls, not like the other girls, ya fiction, bad young adult trips, trends in ya, kristen Stewart, robert pattinson, vampire craze, harry potter craze, perks of being a wallflower, in defense of YA, everything wrong with young adult, twilight saga, lindsay ellis

Id: ZkWkEMmGQCI

Length: 18min 30sec (1110 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 28 2020