 Young adult occupies a weird place in the world of literature. There are segments of our community that exclusively read young adult stuff, particularly on YouTube. There are people who refuse to go anywhere near it and look down on those who enjoy it. There are those who acknowledge that there's a dearth of creativity in the genre and so are turned off from reading any of it. It's probably the most controversial part of the reading community, which is not saying a lot actually. We're a pretty chill group. Some people object to me calling YA a genre rather than a marketing term. They say that just because these types of stories are aimed at a similar audience, they aren't necessarily one genre since they encompass a lot of different things, from romance to fantasy to science fiction and realism. I respectfully disagree because even when these types of books are different, they have a lot of the same tropes and themes that they use. A love triangle between a boring girl, a bad boy, and a nice guy is one. Then there are rebellions against oppressive regimes, a first-person POV from a girl between the ages of 15 and 18, the main character becoming some sort of a leader, a vague apocalypse, and themes of growing up are all prevalent. Since most YA stories deal with the same ideas, I would argue that it constitutes a mega genre that encapsulates a bunch of others. Things weren't always like this though. At some point, YA went from being a marketing category to the industry-defining mega genre it is today. How did that happen? Well, answering that question is the whole point of this video, isn't it? And I want to take a second to make it clear that I'm not praising or criticizing any genres that I bring up unless otherwise specified, I just find the pattern fascinating to watch. Roll back the clock around 15 years from today. The term, young adult, existed in the literary world, but it wasn't used very often. For the most part, the marketing of books split them up more clearly. There was a very noticeable line between kids books and teen books. One was able to deal with much darker or more adult content than the other. Teens could deal with more violence and sex than kids, but not as much as was found in adult literature. There was one series that managed to appeal to a wider age range than most others, though. Kids, teens, and adults all loved it, and due to that, it completely cornered the market. Can you guess? It shouldn't be hard. That's right, Harry Potter, one of the most popular books of all time. It inspired a wealth of knockoffs, some of which were good and some of which weren't. And since it was something that appealed to wider audiences, people began to realize that there was money to be made. This was the beginning of what we think of as modern YA, stories aimed at everyone from around age 10 to their early 20s. The series started in 1997 and sold well, but it wasn't until the first film arrived in 2001 that it blew up into the theme park creating phenomenon it is now. Because of Harry Potter, the beginning of this genre was completely dominated by fantasy adventure stories. Things like Aragon and Percy Jackson and the Rangers Apprentice. These were all about exploring fantastical worlds, discovering that you had cool powers, and going on adventures to save people. The characters were usually special in some way that allowed them to fight bad guys really well, like Aragon being a dragon rider, or Will being sneaky, or Harry being a guy who was saved by his mom. Not to say that none of this existed before then, this is just when the genre began to dominate. They were all gender neutral as well. Some of them may have leaned a bit towards boys, but for the most part everyone could enjoy them. Not to say that boys can't enjoy stuff meant for girls or vice versa, but the success of fantasy adventure YA can't be pinned on one gender. It had extremely broad appeal. That wouldn't be the case forever though. In 2007, the last Harry Potter book was released, bringing an end to the era. Fans gobbled up the finale and began searching for something new. In 2008, the first Twilight movie, as well as Breaking Dawn, the final book in the series, came out. Then everything flipped on its head. Twilight had been around for several years by this point, and it was already a success. That's why the movies got made in the first place. They had a built-in audience. But just like Harry Potter before it, the movies and the books fed into each other's popularity. When one got big, fans checked out the other, and this feedback loop allowed it to become the mega hit that we all know today. Because of this massive success, the publishing industry started releasing more stuff in the same vein, usually referred to as paranormal romance. This was a genre about a teenage girl, and let's be honest, it was always a girl, who falls in love with some sort of supernatural boy. Sometimes a vampire, sometimes a werewolf or a fairy or a demon or a wizard. There would be some sort of bigger conflict that ties into the supernatural world, but the primary focus would be the romance, often with a big serving of angst. Unlike Fantasy Adventure, these were geared heavily towards girls, and by heavily, I mean entirely. There was a market for this kind of content, and the publishers leaned into it. Even though this was a different genre, you could still see the inspiration coming from Fantasy Adventure here. There was still a new world with fantastical elements that we could go in and explore, and Twilight had the main cast fight off evil vampires multiple times in the series to try and capture some of the thrill of adventure. I just don't think it was done all that well. Other paranormal romances did something similar, and they were often the best parts of the books, at least in my opinion. Even if I wasn't invested in the romance or characters, I could find something cool about the world to appreciate, or I could enjoy the conflict with the fairies trying to take over, or whatever. Some other popular examples of paranormal romance are Beastly, Hush Hush, Beautiful Creatures, and Elixir. Some of these were even big enough to get their own film adaptations, which were met with mixed reviews and even more mixed profit margins. Keep in mind that for every Twilight knockoff that was a success, there were 10 that did okay and 30 that flopped. Seriously, I used to go to Barnes & Noble every Friday and they had an entire shelf full of these things for years. I only read a couple of them all the way through, but I read bits of a bunch of others. Trust me, there were a lot of these. They all follow the same formula, though I want to stress that's not inherently bad. The main problem that I had with them was that the supernatural conflict was somewhat interesting, yet it always got shoved aside in favor of teenage angst, and many fans agreed with me. Another huge series that managed to straddle the line between fantasy adventure and paranormal romance is The Mortal Instruments, a trilogy that came out before the Twilight craze really kicked in and still has spin-offs coming out to this day. This one was a success not because it came out at the right time, but because it hit a balance where it could appeal to fans of fantasy adventure and paranormal romance. As a surly 14-year-old, I enjoyed this series a lot. This was the exception to the rule, though. The vast majority of these didn't stray from the formula in the slightest. Success was not to last, though. A large group of consumers were tired of paranormal romance almost to the instant it took over YA, and as the years went on, that group grew larger and larger. They were looking for something new, and they weren't getting it. Then, around 2012, when the last Twilight movie was released, we got another massive hit. The Hunger Games had been around for a few years by this point, and it had slowly gained traction among the crowd that wasn't into paranormal romance. When the movie dropped, just like the others before it, it exploded in popularity. With this new story about a teenage girl overthrowing a dystopian government, everyone saw the potential in shifting focus. And just like that, paranormal romance, the genre that initially supplanted fantasy adventure, was itself supplanted by dystopian adventure. Just like the Twilight clones, the Hunger Games clones followed a simple formula. Sometime in the future, there's been a catastrophe that caused the world order to collapse or radically restructure. The story often takes place in the former United States, which has become some sort of awful dictatorship. Because the rest of the world doesn't exist, I guess. Society is divided into distinct categories that determine the citizen's roles and worth. The main character is a teenage girl who occupies some sort of lower class in society, or whichever role is the bravest one because Gryffindor, and eventually, she plays an instrumental role in the toppling of the corrupt regime. Divergent, Article 5, The Darkest Minds, Legend, Match, and The Maze Runner all fit into this, though I'll say they at least have more variation than paranormal romance. Not that that's saying much. If you want to laugh, go browse the dystopian YA novel Twitter account. It does a great job of poking fun at the general lack of originality. And just like paranormal romance, you can see the influence of what was popular before. These are still aimed at girls and have a strong emphasis on romantic relationships, usually involving a love triangle. There is more action, though. The big conflict wasn't pushed to the side as often, so there were still plenty of boys who read and enjoyed them. When I was younger, I didn't view these as being girly the way I saw paranormal romance, even though they had such a focus on romantic relationships. The primary issues with this genre were different than the issues with paranormal romance. While there was more diversity in terms of setting and character, the plot was almost always the same thing every time, and evil government gets overthrown. Great. The settings had some variety, don't get me wrong, but they rarely had enough detail to really stand out among the pack. Pan Am is different from the world of the Maze Runner, which is different from the Republic from Legend, but they're almost never explored beyond a surface level. And don't even get me started on the handful that threw in magical slash psychic powers. I'll cover some of this next month, though, don't worry. The oversaturation of dystopian adventure was way, way worse than what we saw before, too. Exacerbating the originality problem. There were tons of movies that got made to try and capitalize on the Hunger Games' audience, and they were even harder to tell apart than the books. This got so ridiculous that they actually tried to turn the giver into an action-adventure story instead of a cautionary tale about suppressing emotion and individuality. And guess what? It sucked. Both books and movies in this genre were huge for a couple of years before it ran out of gas. But unlike the last two times, there was no monster hit to take its place. It just slowly faded away until it became that weird thing that everyone was into a few years ago. YA is still a dominant force in literature, though. Nowadays, we don't have one type of story that totally dominates the mega-genre. Things have diversified. We've seen a resurgence in fantasy adventure stories, like an Ember in the Ashes, the Summoner, Throne of Glass, and the Red Queen, though they're different from the ones that came before. Unlike their Harry Potter ancestor, they're usually geared towards girls and have a stronger emphasis on romance than they did before, whether that's good or bad is up to you to decide. There are more realistic YA books coming out now, too. Stuff about kids just living their lives and dealing with regular problems, like love, hate, and other filters, or basically everything by John Green. If nothing else, these don't follow the same plot every time. We've also seen an uptick in sick-lit stories about teenagers with cancer. I already did a whole 16-minute video on why I hate those, though. I've noticed a small uptick in non-dystopia science fiction as well. Glow, Empress of a Thousand Skies, The Fifth Wave, and Warcross, to name a few. Although admit that I'm not as well-read in this area, it only got big when I was older and had less free time. It seems to be suffering from audiences thinking that it's a continuation of the dystopian craze, but I can't say for sure. There are YA thrillers and mysteries, which are basically the same as adult ones, but aimed at a younger audience. These still deal with some pretty dark stuff, just from a teenage perspective instead of an adult one. Examples include the cheerleaders, and one of us is lying. There's also a new one that's popped up and doesn't get too much attention. Stories where there's some sort of weird apocalypse where only the adults die and all that's left are kids. The enemy, the reigns, quarantine, and the young world fall into this. Not that this is a totally new idea, Lord of the Flies did something similar decades ago. This one actually came about during the dystopian craze, and it's more like the male side of that particular coin than something completely different. The dystopian adventures featured teenage girls casting off society's expectations and changing the world while having boys fawn over them. The kid apocalypses are all about teenage boys being badasses, fighting deadly creatures that totally aren't zombies, and becoming respected leaders. They hit the different fantasies that each group has. And keep in mind that dystopias and paranormal romances never went away. You still see them pop up from time to time, especially if you check Amazon's self-publishing page. They're just a much smaller niche than they used to be. So what does all this mean? In the grand scheme of things, not all that much. Businesses follow trends that make the money, that's nothing new. Someone with more confidence than me might try and extrapolate what the next big trend will be from all that. I personally don't think there's enough data to say. What I think is more interesting is the way that creators are inspired by big trends. When I called these other series knockoffs, that was a little harsh, we're all influenced by what came before. Even if you're not a fan of Twilight, you've probably seen or read it. There's plenty to look at as examples of what doesn't work and how to strike emotional chords within your audience. And due to the dystopian trend, now we know that young boys are much more receptive to romance than we used to think. Maybe that says something about society or changing gender norms or something. I don't know, I'm just a guy on the internet. The pattern is neat, though. The more important lesson for any aspiring writers is this. Don't follow trends. Just cranking something out because you think it'll make money or get your name out there probably won't work. You'll most likely be lost in a sea of other imitators. By all means, take inspiration. Take ideas. Write something similar. But if you don't break away from the formula set out before you, then you're going to lose out. Thanks to all my patrons. And a special thanks to Oppo Sabalainen, Brother Santotis, Christopher Hawkins, Christopher Quinton, Joseph Pendergraft, Tobacco Crow, and all of my subscribers and the people who watch this. Check out my page and consider donating. If you can't do that, then just give me a like and a subscription to keep me from disappearing into the abyss of obscurity. Bye.