Blogging Discussion: The YA Genre | Who Is It “For”, Who “Should” Be Book Blogging? Basically: Everyone’s Equal

Oh, look! Here I am, tackling another topic that terrifies me!! 

Just wanna say real quick: a person can read whatever book they’d like, these are my opinions, I’m not looking to offend or attack anyone with this, I am NOT portraying adult book bloggers as terrible people (I actually think they’re great!!) and TBH I just wish that the arguments over this would end.

I’ve seen a LOT of drama about this on a particular platform named ‘Twitter’ ie The Battleground. People just say whatever they like and disregard people’s feelings and opinions and I just sit here like??? *confused* ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I literally have LOST COUNT of the times I’ve seen drama on twitter. I don’t think that you can even help stumbling across drama on this site. It’s actually crazy???

I wrote a very antsy tweet about it:

And I stand by this.

I think that ‘YA’ is a very debatable genre. AND YES, IT’S A GENRE. It’s a classification of books that all fit into the same TARGET AUDIENCE. 

I don’t think it’s right to say who can or cannot read a YA book. Anyone can, just like I could walk into a library and check out a book from the ADULT thriller section, despite being a TEEN. I think that saying adults cannot read YA is utterly hypocritical since teens aren’t shouted at for reading adult books.

I think that telling adults that they aren’t allowed to read YA is like telling a boy that they cannot read contemporary. Contemporary books may be aimed at a female audience most of the time*, but that doesn’t mean that a male reader couldn’t pick it up, read it, and enjoy it just as much as a female reader would, or lack the same right as a female reader to talk about how much they enjoyed it!!**

Adults can talk about how much they love YA just as much as teens, but that does not mean that the YA genre “belongs” to adults!! It doesn’t belong to anyone!! You can’t own a classification!!

Young Adults are technically 18-30-year-olds. YEAH. However, these “young adult” books are targeted to those 14/15+ sometimes, and the “adult” is 18+ but really, does it even matter? Just because a book is targeted at one age group, does that mean that only that group can read it? NO.

I think that a lot of this argument over “who owns YA” is actually a lot more about blogging, and who “should” be YA BOOK BLOGGERS.

This tweet here was in relation to a series of arguments/threads claiming that adults support books more on the book community and yes, they probably do since they actually have the money to buy the current releases, and can promote books more since they have a larger audience due to being here longer.

However, it makes the teen bloggers feel like they’re not doing a good enough job even though they work SO hard to promote books in any way that they can. And for all that, just to be looked down on? No thank you. Honestly, I’m so grateful that I know so many amazing adult book bloggers that have never made me feel like this.

*don’t agree that they should be!! **more NEEDS to be said on this!!

I think that as a teen (being one myself) it’s really hard for us to get a voice in the community compared to adults. And, if I’m honest, it kind of makes sense to me? Adult bloggers have been on the platform longer, so OF COURSE, they have a greater voice. But does that mean they have more of a right? NO!!

But I think that it’s really hard to come into the community that we’re “meant” to have a place in because it feels like a battle sometimes. It feels like we have to literally push for ourselves to be heard in a place that is targeted for us to talk about the books that are aimed at us? Does this make sense??

I think that some teens believe adult bloggers don’t want them there when we have a right to be here just as adults also have the right. My personal impression from some of the arguments that I’ve seen on Twitter really do support teen bloggers, and that’s amazing!! But, some of them think that supporting a teen blogger every now and then makes what they say about adults being better bloggers okay? And that teens in the blogging community are people that need to have this support just because they’re younger?

I’m not saying that it’s wrong for adults to be in this type of blogging, I actually think that it’s super cool and I actually aspire to be like some of the amazing adult book bloggers that I know because they’re so wonderful and have such a positive and supportive platform. I’m not saying only teens can blog about YA. 

Obviously, I am not categorising and/or saying that all adult bloggers look down upon teen bloggers because I know so many wonderful adult bloggers who have been nothing but supportive. I am just saying that sometimes, it feels this way when we see things that say things about the superiority of adult bloggers????????

I DON’T KNOW– THIS IS A SCARY TOPIC!!!

Did this make sense? What do you think about this topic? Do you think that these squabbles on Twitter should end too? Do you also think that there shouldn’t be limitations on who can read YA or blog about YA? What do you think? LET ME KNOW!! 

Luuuuu