I could stop finding an argument in everything
but I would be so boring, you guys.
I went to the first day of my last semester Ever (holy shit, really happening), which was Portfolio/Self-Promotion/How to Get a Job, Stupid. Somehow a segue from mothers being the primary market for children's books dovetailed into the Twilight/supernatural YA lit trend, and every single person in the room groaned and whined and bitched and moaned about how terrible the whole thing is. One girl said, "didn't they see Interview with a Vampire?" to which I had to say "no, because they were fetuses." The instructor made some comment about the first time he ever saw the Sailor Moon cosplay society at Comic Con, which caused another collective groan. I finally had to say, "oh come on, how is this any worse than what you guys liked when you were teenagers?"
And that's just the thing. I may be particularly defensive about Sailor Moon because I still believe in how extraordinary it is, and not just with nostalgia-colored glasses. The Babysitters' Club, for example, doesn't hold up nearly as well. But that doesn't mean I'm going to apologize for having read it. And I don't think teenagers should have to apologize for reading Twilight, either. Twilight is bad because it's bad, not because teenagers like it. I read my weight in cliche, cheesy, over the top fiction as a kid - I devoured it, and then wrote my own, too. It's what kids do. I don't think any person who was scoffing at "kids today" was reading The Complete US Presidents for fun. (I did, but I was a weirdo.) And I bet every one of them would have started a war over Harry Potter if I suggested that it was anything but perfect. I think it's amazing world-building and competent story-telling, but I never found the writing interesting enough to want to pursue it, personally. That doesn't mean it's wrong to love it; quite the opposite.
Nobody would have been in that classroom if it hadn't been for the things they liked as kids and as teenagers, and that's just a fact. I don't know when that became some sort of shameful thing, to have been a teenager and liked stuff. Is it some sort of collective preening, pretending that we're all so much better because we're 4 years (or in my case, 7 years) out of high school and they're all babies? I don't get it.
It made me think about 7 years ago, what I liked and read and wanted more of. If it hadn't been for the infancy of Sailor Moon fandom (and Gundam Wing slash fandom) on the internets, I don't know what kind of person I'd be today. Heck, include bandom in that, too; where would I be now without My Chemical Romance? That's how important it was to me. I am who I am because of the artists who made the things I wanted to watch and read - and emulate. I should want to be that artist for some teenager out there, looking through their school's library or their local bookstore (depending on how long either of those things actually exist). So when my instructor went around the room and asked what market we were hoping to sell to, I said young adult. I was the only person in the room that did.
I also said "and sports merchandising," because everybody loves giraffes in baseball jerseys. That's been proven by science.
I went to the first day of my last semester Ever (holy shit, really happening), which was Portfolio/Self-Promotion/How to Get a Job, Stupid. Somehow a segue from mothers being the primary market for children's books dovetailed into the Twilight/supernatural YA lit trend, and every single person in the room groaned and whined and bitched and moaned about how terrible the whole thing is. One girl said, "didn't they see Interview with a Vampire?" to which I had to say "no, because they were fetuses." The instructor made some comment about the first time he ever saw the Sailor Moon cosplay society at Comic Con, which caused another collective groan. I finally had to say, "oh come on, how is this any worse than what you guys liked when you were teenagers?"
And that's just the thing. I may be particularly defensive about Sailor Moon because I still believe in how extraordinary it is, and not just with nostalgia-colored glasses. The Babysitters' Club, for example, doesn't hold up nearly as well. But that doesn't mean I'm going to apologize for having read it. And I don't think teenagers should have to apologize for reading Twilight, either. Twilight is bad because it's bad, not because teenagers like it. I read my weight in cliche, cheesy, over the top fiction as a kid - I devoured it, and then wrote my own, too. It's what kids do. I don't think any person who was scoffing at "kids today" was reading The Complete US Presidents for fun. (I did, but I was a weirdo.) And I bet every one of them would have started a war over Harry Potter if I suggested that it was anything but perfect. I think it's amazing world-building and competent story-telling, but I never found the writing interesting enough to want to pursue it, personally. That doesn't mean it's wrong to love it; quite the opposite.
Nobody would have been in that classroom if it hadn't been for the things they liked as kids and as teenagers, and that's just a fact. I don't know when that became some sort of shameful thing, to have been a teenager and liked stuff. Is it some sort of collective preening, pretending that we're all so much better because we're 4 years (or in my case, 7 years) out of high school and they're all babies? I don't get it.
It made me think about 7 years ago, what I liked and read and wanted more of. If it hadn't been for the infancy of Sailor Moon fandom (and Gundam Wing slash fandom) on the internets, I don't know what kind of person I'd be today. Heck, include bandom in that, too; where would I be now without My Chemical Romance? That's how important it was to me. I am who I am because of the artists who made the things I wanted to watch and read - and emulate. I should want to be that artist for some teenager out there, looking through their school's library or their local bookstore (depending on how long either of those things actually exist). So when my instructor went around the room and asked what market we were hoping to sell to, I said young adult. I was the only person in the room that did.
I also said "and sports merchandising," because everybody loves giraffes in baseball jerseys. That's been proven by science.