Could/Should the YA genre be banned?

[DokiDokiTsuna]

I've been reading a lot of stuff about YA fiction recently...and I came across a comment that I found very curious.

It claimed that the mere existence of YA encourages and attracts bad writers, because they know, as long as they throw in a teenage love triangle, whatever garbage they come up with has the capacity to be a hit, or at least make them some decent money. Which I guess is kinda true...

They supported their point by saying that actually decent YA stories like Harry Potter (their example, not mine) can exist without the concept of YA propping them up: they're genuinely good books; they don't need to pander to hormonal teens to be successful.

So in conclusion, they think YA should just be banned...although I gotta say I don't know how that would work. ^^; Can you really just ban a whole genre??

And can you really ban anything just for being subpar? I mean, YA novels as a whole may be a little tropey, but they aren't harmful (except for when they promote harmful ideas about romance, as they do often, but that's a story for another day).

I guess this boils down to two questions:

1. Could YA be banned?
2. If YA could be banned, would you want it to be?

[themerrytroll]

No not because I write YA but because banning a genre because of those reasons is like banning someone from making an opinion because his opinion sucks.

The simple solution to those comments is: "If you don't like YA, then don't read it."

And I think, personally, amateur creators write YA particularly YA romance because it's the closest tie to their experience and self-expression. YA is a good starting point for writing, really.

[Drewbie]

I'm assuming this means banned from Tapas, in which case it doesn't really matter since the "problem" of subpar writers is never going to go away. Even if that is removed, most of the content will just clip to and clutter a different tag. Along with that, the great thing about being a reader is that if you don't like something then you don't have to read it! Honestly, the thought that YA books are simply pandering might be true but who says pandering is entirely bad? Tons of people use writing and reading to escape from things. Removing YA would just be an insult to both those writers who want to give people that escape and the readers that are searching for it.

[Drewbie]

same wavelength that's what I'm talking about!

[IndigoShirtProd]

No.

But seriously, YA books usually speak to a generation of people who often need validation from the media they consume. There's community to be found in reading trashy YA books. They're good entertainment in spite of their quality. Banning the genre will just mean those "bad" writers will find another genre to write in.

[themerrytroll]

Exactly.

If people don't want subpar writing, then why read on Tapas, Wattpad, or similar platform? People forget these creators are amateurs like myself. Of course, I feel bad when somebody thinks my writing is awful. Who doesn't? But Tapas and the like are great platforms to improve writing.

[Kaylim]

This is so click-baitey haha. And it got me because clearly I clicked.

"Decent" stories are objective. Banning books/genres is a sign of dictatorship. Books of varying quality are published across all genres. Sex and talking about sex isn't bad.

The article you read honestly sounds like pure click-bait meant to generate views, probably written by someone bitter and jealous, who clearly doesn't read YA if their best example of "good" is Harry Potter (which, when it came out, wasn't even YA. It was classified as children's fiction).

[themerrytroll]

Yeah banning an entire genre is like censorship. Where's freedom of expression, people?

[Cavechan]

No, I'm not for the banning of anything in general. Maybe if there's an oversaturation problem they can be given less precedence? I have heard some publishers in Japan no longer accept isekai stories because there are just so many of them that it's been destroying the variety in the market.

[Freemints30]

YA(young adult) is not really a genre. Its a marketing term for audience the book is marketed towards, 14-18 year old. YA is very diverse and broad like, Adult, new adult and middle grade books.

People who say to ban it have no idea what they are talking about and really are just blowing hot air.

Very rarely banning a book does any good and who are we to decide what should and shouldn't exist.

Really all that would happen is a new term to describe books that are aim toward 14-18 like TA(tiny adults).

[Drewbie]

TA. Books aimed at people 5'3 and below.

[themerrytroll]

@Drewbie

[darthmongoose]

They tried to ban genres of comics back in the 1950s in America:
http://cbldf.org/comics-code-history-the-seal-of-approval/
They thought that comics were poor quality, encouraged bad reading habits and loss of moral purity with their pulpy themes about sexy people, monsters and crime. They galvanised puritans and parents everywhere, burned books and enforced a code on comics that they had to follow rules like "no werewolves" and "criminals must never be characterised as sympathetic or glamorous". It's the reason superheroes came to dominate the genre. It caused comics to become a children's medium for decades, removed all complexity from the genre and pushed out marginalised voices by making superheroes one of the only viable and profitable genres, leaving romance all but forgotten in graphic novels. It's basically why webcomics and sales of physical comics are now so dominated by romance in manga style; American comics shot themselves in the foot but the audience was still there, and when manga became available... well, that audience pounced on it!
Soooo.... no, I don't recommend it. People who want that kind of thing will just go where they can get it, so they'd just move to comics or fanfic or something and the places that banned it would just be poorer and reading advocates would be pissed because reading is good for people's critical thinking and emotional wellbeing, so it's better a person is reading than not reading, even if it's Twilight and not... I dunno what this person would consider "good", they sound like a pretentious asshat, so they probably claim they've actually read James Joyce's Ulysses (nobody has actually read this book, anyone who says they read it is LYING, I've written a decently scored university english lit essay on it and I've only read a quarter of it).

Honestly, hating on YA is basically just more of the usual hating on teenage girls. Romance has been the most popular genre of novels for... well, basically since novels became a thing. It we ban Twilight for being a story about a young woman torn between two attractive men... well, should we ban Pride and Prejudice as well? That's also about a young woman torn between two attractive men, after all!

[Iris-Grimoire]

Absolutely no. Same reason why I abhor people calling things "not art" because it's bad art. Good or bad, it has a right to be there. Maybe YA needs better categorization - it's pretty broad and seems to follow whatever story is currently popular instead of YA fantasy, YA dystopian, etc - but it can exist like all the other ones.

YA in specific is also extremely important for teenagers to get into reading works because it's something that appeals specifically to them, and yeah, it can be trash, but even trashy stories can be fun and give someone an escape. I didn't get a taste for good stories without reading stuff that made me go 'ok can I have something like this but... better?' (shoutout to Falling Kingdoms making me realize it's not that I didn't have a stomach for dark YA fantasy, it's just that I kept reading bad dark fantasy and maybe I should stop just picking up whatever looked good on the shelf)

[ratscout]

1. Nah, freedom of speech and all that.
2. Yes. Because I hate it. LOL, I'm just kidding. Although I can't hide my disdain for the genre, people should be able to write and read whatever they want to write and read. It makes it a bit harder for me to dig through the goofy teen-girl stories about a way-overpowered heroine with the personality of lint who inexplicably as two hunky guys after her despite being supposedly plain to find gems that are made exclusively for adults (or, believe it or not, the good YA stuff. Yes, it does exist), but that's okay.

Honestly, a lot of the stuff I read when I was younger was silly stuff meant for teen boys (Eragon) and they haven't aged too well either. I think what saves the teen boy stuff from not being as goofy is that there usually isn't a silly love triangle.

Now the Amulet of Samarkand, that's something that aged really well and (I think) counts as YA. Still one of my favorite books, honestly. I think it's because our funny djinn is always making fun of the teenagers in the book, including our main character. XD

[AmataLenna]

Absolutely not. No genre or category should be banned just because someone thinks it's not good enough. That's some gross level of censorship that puts down amateurs who are still learning or people who just like the genre. Let people have fun and enjoy/ create the content they want.

[SagaHolmgaard]

1. Well you couldn't really ban a genre for "encouraging bad writers", like... that's just a manner of personal opinion? If you don't like triangle dramas, don't read them! There are more serious things out there, like stories promoting racism, homopobia and so on.... It just seems like a waste of resources to ban a genre based on such a weak argument as 'some people thing it's bad writing'
2. I'd NEVER want YA to be banned, even though I don't really care for "teenage love triangles", myself. Some people genuinely enjoy those kind of stories! And stories don't even need to be "good" to be enjoyed, like you can enjoy a shitty feel-good novel just because it's fun and a break from your ordinary life! I also don't really appreciate the idea of someone deciding what is subpar writing because... that's been the source of sexism in the past (and in the present as well), where stories made for and by women get discredited as "bad". I'm guessing the type of stories that commenter was talking about (with love triangles) are stories made mostly for young adult girls, and that just rubs me the wrong way.
   TL;DR: Let people enjoy things! Even if they're ""subpar""!!!

[Chroma]

Not sure if a controversial take or not, but we should let books be bad sometimes. And this isn't a "Let them fail!" kinda thing, I mean "bad" books that are, as this person says, just throwing in a teenage love triangle with no care to the quality of writing.

Not every book needs to be the Great Gatsby (although I guess that has a love triangle so...not the best example?). Sometimes people are allowed to enjoy a pretty sloppy book because it's just nice to indulge in some sloppily written rom-com. We don't always have to write arthouse pieces.

Bad YA book squad, rise up!

[themerrytroll]

I agree, maybe it's the amateur or the "subpar" writer in me, but can't just these people let me write and improve? In the first place, I don't write to please people. I write because I like it. That's a simple enough reason.

[rajillustration]

What the hell are you talking about???

LOLMAO if you ban YA you basically remove the bridge between middle grade books and adult novels--removing literacy from an entire generation. That's like a "when hell freezes over" type of dystopian situation.

My opinion is that the person who made this comment is just not reading any YA at all, but is echoing dumbass sentiments they heard someone else say online or at school. They're hating on tropes that exist occasionally in YA, but don't always. Most of the YA I read as a child (and still read as an adult) don't have any love triangles at all, and to add to that, most YA does not magically print money. You actually have to be a pretty damn good writer to hit that sweet spot, despite the few who were marginal writers that people always point fingers at.

(and say what you will about Twilight--which was a series I did not enjoy--that series sparked a lot of kids to read books, and inspired them to start writing and become the writers they are today. You don't have to be a perfect writer to print a book.)