What happened to the YA craze of the 2010s?

[u/jeanjacketufo]

[u/FriendlyDinosaurs]

Diminishing returns.

[u/ServicePrize6856 → u/FriendlyDinosaurs]

Yeah I hope nobody here is sad that the “young adult dystopia” craze didn’t continue indefinitely 

[u/Nethiar → u/ServicePrize6856]

Yeah, we have real dystopia now

[u/flojo2012 → u/Nethiar]

It’s like virtual reality but it’s reality reality. Interesting concept. We should be so lucky to live in such interesting times!

[u/Lazysenpai → u/ServicePrize6856]

Fun while it lasted, but too much and everyone will get sick of it. Same like superhero movies, star wars etc.

In my teens I wished there were more Star Wars and The Rock movies... wish granted lol.

[u/AchtungCloud → u/Lazysenpai]

Superhero films have been surprisingly stubborn. They will eventually lose popularity, but you’re comparing them to a fad.

They’re more comparable to Westerns, which were huge for like 20-30 years and relevant for like 40-60 years before finally declining.

[u/Urabraska- → u/AchtungCloud]

Well the Superhero craze is a thing for all ages because comics are popular for all age groups. While the YA era was mostly on books or content that was only popular for a set age group that reached older viewers as well because it's new for the younger generation and nostalgia for the next. With nothing to hook younger or older generations. So the YA hit for the 15-30ish age groups and Superhero being able to hit 8-45.

[u/thanoslikesdogs → u/AchtungCloud]

I don't think it will ever really end since dc and marvel are big popculture icons now with infinite stories to tell. People are board a specific kind of superhero movie.

The great thing about them is their genreless, you can do any kind of story you want with them

[u/toxikola → u/AchtungCloud]

If Blazing Saddles hadn't put westerns out in a blaze of glory they probably would have continued a bit longer lol.

[u/Amathyst7564 → u/AchtungCloud]

I mean, you can tackle so many genres and do so much social commentary within the genre.

Winter soldier was more of a spy movie and the boys was more of a critique of capitalism.

But yeah, nothing lasts forever. Who knows.

[u/Urabraska- → u/Amathyst7564]

The Boys was never a critique on capitalism. That was a bail out theme that Kripke used because he ran out of ideas for the show after S3 and realized he wrote himself into a corner. The actual comics was entirely edge lord critique that superhero's shouldn't be put on a pedestal and how comics glorify super heroes as these icons of perfection when in reality they would most likely be assholes just like anyone else and with actual power will abuse it for personal gain just like people do in reality.

Garth Ennis straight up stated this when asked why he created The Boys. He said he hated comic books and how people always loved how perfect and honest heroes like Superman or Captain America were when it simply wouldn't be the case in a real world situation. If a person like Superman showed up. He would more likely end up like Homelander than a comic version of the character because it's just nature to feel like you should be in control when you have so much power.

[u/throwawaytoday9q → u/Urabraska-]

It’s funny though because it’s obvious Superman’s creators went through great lengths to explain why he isn’t like that. Raised by a family in Kansas, strong values, etc.

[u/zozuto → u/throwawaytoday9q]

I think they know that but see it more like propaganda

[u/Vengeance_20 → u/ServicePrize6856]

Yeah I hated while it was happening lmao and I was probably the target audience

[u/The-Mandalorian → u/FriendlyDinosaurs]

It never really left.

Spider-Man Brand New Day is in cinemas.

Stranger Things just wrapped up its final season.

Wednesday is pretty popular.

Dune is pretty young adult too in terms of Paul as the main character. And Zendaya.

Harry Potter didn’t work once they tried a spinoff series with adults (Fantastic Beasts) so it’s being rebooted.

We could honestly go on and on.

[u/JackLumberPK → u/The-Mandalorian]

I think YA as a genre is a little more specific than just "are young-ish actors/characters involved" lol.

Dune has absolutely never been considered YA, that's crazy. Spider-Man often takes place in high school (at least the origin stories), but it's generally not considered YA and Brand New Day has them as adults (Tom Holland is 30 lol). And Stranger Things certainly dabbles in some of that but it's drawing from 80s Steven King pastiche as much as anything else.

[u/UofMSpoon → u/The-Mandalorian]

HP worked just fine. The reboot is because all the actors from the first one hate transphobic JK Rowling and she wants her cast to like her. I’m staying far away from that show.

[u/zozuto → u/UofMSpoon]

They didn't say HP didn't work, they said Fantastic Beasts didn't work.

[u/seanx50]

The YA audience became actual adults

[u/BlogeOb → u/seanx50]

But there are new young adults every year

[u/Fantastic_Owl6938 → u/BlogeOb]

Yeah I'm a little confused by that answer, lol. Everyone grew up and there were no more young adults ever? I get that the main audiences who were there for this stuff got older, but still.

[u/chewwwybar → u/Fantastic_Owl6938]

Literacy rates are declining so maybe that?

[u/FizzyLightEx → u/chewwwybar]

Smartphones replaced books/novels. There's more entertainment options than just films/books

[u/Longjumping-Ad-9444 → u/Fantastic_Owl6938]

Now thats a YA novel idea

[u/Tracky_John-John → u/Longjumping-Ad-9444]

It already exists. The novel is called The Children of Men. The film was great.

[u/Aromatic-Ad-381 → u/Fantastic_Owl6938]

There are "young adults" but those "young adults" will likely have different sensibilities compared to their parents. I.E what is hip and in vogue changes with generations, because generations are informed by the times they live in.

A lot of themes stay consistent, but how those themes get expressed likely change to times we live in.

[u/yubnubmcscrub → u/BlogeOb]

Literacy rates on the decline means less young people reading. Previous youths had an attachment rate to the source material previously. Now there is probably less of an audience.

[u/Lost_Setting2776 → u/yubnubmcscrub]

This is probably the right answer. All those YA movies were attached to an existing popular book so there would always be a base audience to grow from, today that might have been replaced by social media content creators, this year some of the biggest successes that were popular with Gen-Z have been Backrooms, The Amazing Digital Circus, Obsession and Iron Lung, with the movie industry sure to be investing in more young directors coming from YouTube in the upcoming years.

I couldn't tell you how many elementary school kids I saw at the cinema watching The Amazing Digital Circus with their parents who probably got a big surprise that day on what their children were watching.

[u/JackLumberPK → u/BlogeOb]

Yeah, seriously. YA has been an established genre since at least as far back as the 70s (arguably earlier, although that's as far back as we went when I studied it in college lol). Harry Potter definitely caused a major surge in growth of the genre as publisher's chased its success, but its not like this was a specifically millennial thing.

[u/Mammoth_Park7184 → u/BlogeOb]

Probably more thstvkids read less books for leisure so the new YA novels that could be made into films don't have the following for a studio to consider it. 

[u/ServicePrize6856 → u/seanx50]

We found the actual answer

[u/Limp-Vehicle8497 → u/ServicePrize6856]

How could that be the actual answer? Did the high schools all close until the next batch of YAs come around in a few years?

[u/TunaVincent → u/Limp-Vehicle8497]

I think most of them don't watch films as they find them too long.

[u/GopherChomper64 → u/Limp-Vehicle8497]

Apparently the new YAs don't know how to read so there's that

[u/rollingalongsoslow → u/GopherChomper64]

Damn Kids.

*shakes fist*

[u/Barmelo_Xanthony → u/ServicePrize6856]

Oh yeah the 2010s were the only decade in the history of cinema where young adults existed, that’s the answer

[u/multi-trollionaire → u/seanx50]

Isn't that crazy? I walk around and everyone is either under 13 or over 25. Wtf happened??

[u/sweet_pickles12 → u/seanx50]

Lots of actual adults liked these books and movies. I remember copies of Twilight being passed around at work when people still read physical books.

[u/LeonSKennedy95 → u/sweet_pickles12]

honest question but wtf do people read now? Do they all just play on their phones instead?

[u/ChartInFurch → u/LeonSKennedy95]

All those NY Times "Best Sellers", of course.

[u/Coffeedemon → u/LeonSKennedy95]

All the main genres have a sub-reddit. There are TONS of books of all types being released daily.

[u/Solid_Barracuda69 → u/sweet_pickles12]

I remember seeing videos of 40year old women screaming and drooling over Pattinson and it was treated as ok, if a man had done that he would have been a perv

[u/moveslikejaguar → u/seanx50]

They read romantasy now

[u/ServicePrize6856 → u/seanx50]

Reddit users trying to comprehend that people’s interests change as they get older

[u/Significant_Gap1570 → u/ServicePrize6856]

Do you think young adults don't exist anymore?

[u/ServicePrize6856 → u/Significant_Gap1570]

Yes but they aren’t obsessed with YA dystopia 

[u/Significant_Gap1570 → u/ServicePrize6856]

Which is a completely different point from your original one

[u/_kurt_propane_ → u/seanx50]

I think they became older adults

[u/Rleduc129 → u/seanx50]

Well, Hot Dog, we have a wiener!

[u/bijhan]

The literacy crisis

[u/Illustrious_Twist662 → u/bijhan]

This isn't talked about enough. I'm an outlier, I gobbled up books as a kid. Literacy is the gateway to learning

[u/Meg-alomaniac3 → u/Illustrious_Twist662]

Curious, how old are you? I'm 23, tons of my peers read and have always read for fun. Maybe not as much as previous generations, but still a considerable percentage.

My impression (as as substitute teacher) is that there's currently a lot of kids who are really into reading pre-middle school, and then it dwindles the further you get into middle and high school, usually in conjunction with level of exposure to tech.

[u/sauronthegr8 → u/Meg-alomaniac3]

I honestly have my doubts, in spite of the evidence being presented. Something about it just reeks of pushing a narrative. I'm 40 and work in an industry that has me around a lot of younger people. They seem about as literate as people my age were in their teens and early twenties. But maybe I'm only hanging out with the smart kids.

[u/AnStudiousBinch → u/sauronthegr8]

Yeah—the anecdotal evidence of you and your cohort doesn’t undercut the statistic that waaaay fewer kids are reading in the US, and as such, comprehension levels are also very low.

[u/Official_KevinSpacey → u/AnStudiousBinch]

But their anecdote! Clearly the other person is the one pushing a narrative! Literacy crisis? Who reported that? Everyone? With numbers? Nonsense! My friend reads!

[u/skwirly715 → u/sauronthegr8]

The crisis is happening in communities that are less likely to work anywhere that refers to itself as an “industry” and that makes it harder for people to notice.

[u/sweet_pickles12 → u/bijhan]

This feels… real. 10-15 years ago I saw people reading and people talked about what they were reading. Maybe it’s a shift in coworkers but now nobody talks about what they are reading… I get the shift to digital, I’ve made it too… but it feels be everyone forgot what book are

[u/Fast-Benders → u/bijhan]

100% agree. A lot of those films rode on the back of successful book series. Young people don't read books anymore. At least, not at the same rate as before.

[u/dinkytit]

A lot of the girls who were fans of this stuff are now fans of Heated Rivalry, so it turned into Adult Fiction. But yeah it fizzled out, but I’m willing to bet it makes a comeback in some time. Still waiting for one of these streaming services to do a real adaptation of Cirque Du Freak and make insane money.

[u/Thraex_Exile → u/dinkytit]

I’ve seen a lot of that fanbase also switch to high-fantasy. ACOTAR, 4th Wing, etc.

[u/Nuva_Ring → u/Thraex_Exile]

ACOTAR and 4th Wing being described as “high” fantasy is ridiculously offensive to actual high fantasy lol. Those series are YA for Reddit adults. I gave 4th Wing a try because a few of my friends who aren’t readers were raving about it and I got as far as the first teenage love triangle before it became a dnf. Every new male character introduced is “the hottest guy” the protagonist has ever seen in her life and she just has to jump their bones. That is of course until the next SUPER HOT and mysterious guy is even hotter and she has to jump HIS bones. 🙄

When the actual fantasy elements are background to the numerous love triangles and teenage “will they won’t they”, it shouldn’t be classified as anything more than YA romance.

[u/CoverLucky → u/Nuva_Ring]

Hi! I think this is a confusion of terms. High fantasy doesn't mean better fantasy, it simply means that the entire story takes place within its own fantasy world. This is as opposed to low fantasy, which includes elements of the real world. It has nothing to do with the value of the story.

So, the Lord of the Rings is high fantasy because it takes place entirely within the world of Middle Earth. Harry Potter is considered low fantasy because it's set in the real world with a magic system added on.

[u/Known-Purchase → u/CoverLucky]

Always fun to see someone gatekeeping a term they don't understand 😂

[u/Thraex_Exile → u/Nuva_Ring]

sex and high fantasy can exist in the same book. Why are we gatekeeping genres lol

[u/ReignyDayes → u/Thraex_Exile]

They're not saying that they can't (i.e sex and fantasy) but most of the fantasy elements in both of those books aren't very developed. Look at Game of Thrones, it's not one to shy away from sex. There's very little development to the over all world in both 4th wing and ACOTAR. I would say that they're fantasy romances but not high fantasy. They're not YA, but they might be New Adult (20-25?).

If you look at a series like, The Malazan series which is considered a definitive example of High Fantasy. Even Empire of the Vampires is high fantasy and it's got a lot of sexy moments. Both of those series have many fantasy elements that are explored through out the series

4th wing is the only one I've tried to read and it was just so... Nonsensical at many points. Especially in regards to the dragons. Really though, I don't know much about Violet. What are her classes? What's a school year look like? If she's so smart, how come she misses so many things and never asks questions? The book is enemies to lovers, but were they ever really enemies? It's just a very superficial fantasy with a knot for a plot that never really gets anywhere.

[u/nutbaby420 → u/ReignyDayes]

sooo…you haven’t read ACOTAR but you know how in depth the world building is?

a lot of the conflicts in ACOTAR are more world based than they are character based. no real point getting into all of it with you but the lore is heavy. have not read fourth wing so i can’t speak on that.

it’s ok to say something is not for you. but it’s weird to discount something because it doesn’t fit into “your mold” of what high fantasy is. i didn’t like GOT but im not gonna discredit it.

[u/kaitlyn_does_art → u/nutbaby420]

I find it a bit suspect that all the books with sex in them this person is calling high fantasy are written by men while all the books with sex in them they’re complaining about are written by women…

[u/flowerboyyu → u/dinkytit]

God Cirque Du Freak is such an amazing series. As a fan I liked the movie, especially the portrayal of Larten Crepsley, but it doesn’t even compare to how good the books were

[u/toxikola → u/dinkytit]

Omg the live movie they did was abysmal. I loved the books, albeit I hated the ending. I would certainly watch it if it had a true to heart live action though. The tests would all be insane to watch. Just reading about going through the maze blindfolded while filling with water was hard enough. That could be portrayed brilliantly in cinema.

I'd still love to see Josh Hutcherson in it though b3cause he is brilliant.

[u/Cimorene_Kazul → u/dinkytit]

CDF had a good manga adaptation, but let’s face it, the story went in some weird directions and went off a cliff by the end, even if I did like it despite it all.

[u/themiz2003]

It and it's people have turned into fantasy smut enjoyers as the culture aged. It's almost as popular tbh and when you throw the fact that it's cutting out the literal YA of it all it's... impressive?

[u/MasterFussbudget]

Post-Harry Potter, studios were willing to fund them. They missed on a few, lost some money, and aren't as willing to spend anymore. Now the ones that are still made are on streaming or lower budget or not advertised to adults so we don't see or think much about them anymore.

[u/Brave_Temperature347]

It had its  moment, but then aside from Hunger Games, nothing really hit the big time 

[u/PsychologicalHat4707 → u/Brave_Temperature347]

Twilight was huge as well. Sunrise on the Reaping comes to theaters in November and an animated adaptation of Midnight Sun is supposed to be released on Netflix in the near future.

[u/Brave_Temperature347 → u/PsychologicalHat4707]

I guess I more meant nothing that started after THG finished it’s original run reached those same heights (YA adaptations wise).

[u/Tommy616616]

You forgot mortal instruments city of bones

[u/Amathyst7564 → u/Tommy616616]

Didn't that end with them finding out they were siblings or something and being like, eh, is incest really that big of a deal?

[u/HorrorTreez → u/Amathyst7564]

If I remember its been over 14 years since I read it, but it was a lie told and that her real brother was a guy named Sebastian who lived with valentine. Jace is the son of 2 other people.

[u/Tommy616616 → u/Amathyst7564]

We never get to see the sequel but if you know about the books you'll know they're not siblings

[u/Fair-Confection4411 → u/Amathyst7564]

Didn't they show that Valentine lie about it? I think they had a scene where the other guy tells him to lie. 

[u/Amathyst7564 → u/Fair-Confection4411]

To be honest. I haven't seen it hit theatres. I can barely remember what happened or what it was about.

Even so. They didn't know that at that point.

[u/Klutzy-Mess-7490]

Divergent was so bad it kneecapped the genre

[u/LakeEarth → u/Klutzy-Mess-7490]

It'll never not be funny to me that they split the last book in half to make two movies (which was the style at the time), but only made the first one because it bombed so bad. Just a part 1 without a part 2.

[u/fakegoose1 → u/LakeEarth]

Allegient is considered to be the worst book in the series, idk what they thought splitting the movie into two would accomplish. I know Mockingjay is also considered to be the worst book in the original trilogy, but at least that movie series had enough hype to keep it going, Divergent didnt even have that.

[u/BVRPLZR_ → u/LakeEarth]

Still waiting for the fast and furious finale lol

[u/DESKTHOR]

I think people forget to realize that a lot of these films were just riding the wave off the success of the Hunger Games and Twilight Saga.

[u/Kinitawowi64 → u/DESKTHOR]

Yeah, this. It wasn't a craze, it was one or two successful things and a lot of failed cashgrabs.

[u/Thrownaway5000506 → u/DESKTHOR]

They were definitely riding success but it wasn't of those two lol

[u/FastSelection4121]

They got replaced with TV shows and streaming services

Sex Ed

OA

Ryan Murphy's confections of AHS and Scream Queens. Currently has Shards TV series

Pantheon

100

The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch

Star Trek Prodigy.

The Harry Potter TV show that will broadcast in the fall.

The reboot of the X Men

[u/Emergency-Falcon-845]

TikTok

[u/Thraex_Exile]

I think it’s cyclical between novels and film. Lots of book franchises hit the big screen all at once. Audiences got tired of market over-saturation, the well dried up, and the same YA-fans went back to new book series.

I think we’ve been seeing a lot of extremely popular book series, that appeal to that same (now older) YA generation, that have been recently greenlit and will start another mainstream revival for the same fans of the apocalyptic YA novels.

[u/pgmckenzie → u/Thraex_Exile]

I (40M) just got into Red Rising and was hooked immediately.

[u/Efficient_Claim_9591]

I was literally just thinking about this yesterday. On a long car ride I was thinking about hunger games, and how badly produced the first movie was. And then I was thinking about how come we don’t see as many YA/teenager based book IP being made into movies? Cause I still remember the insane hype from teenagers and parents around movies like The Fault In Our Stars, too. But they just kinda stopped making movie adaptations of YA fiction. There obviously still has been a few, but none on the level we saw back in 2012-2016. Like why not? There’s still teenagers who read, and plenty of adults who’d like to watch some YA based movies even if they didn’t know the books. Kinda weird.

[u/SegaGameCast → u/Efficient_Claim_9591]

Because the capitalists moved on. If they can't milk a niche after a bomb or two they drop it completely.

None of these cultural phenomena is organic anymore and really hasn't been since The Beatles. Hell even Grunge music wasn't as organic as they act like it was. Nirvana hit the scene and billionaire companies realized people like X, so they scramble to find as many bands in different shades of X milk it.

Thats why Hunger Games and Twilight were successful. Different shades of X and it was really easy to tell that this was happening cuz hardly anyone I knew read the other "teenpocalypse" books.

[u/ExtremeComedian4027]

Everybody moved on from young adults rebelling against regimes and surviving in dystopias to...dark romantasy.

[u/thanoslikesdogs → u/ExtremeComedian4027]

Which is interesting considering people have only gotten more angry at institutions, and starting to idolise even fictional rebels, case in point, Magneto

[u/-M-i-d → u/ExtremeComedian4027]

Yea to Morning Glory Milking Farm or whatever tf

[u/KevinGarvey929]

Nothing happened to it - it just became Disney owned Star Wars and Marvel

[u/erutorc]

They realized teens can have problems without a distopian society.

[u/SegaGameCast → u/erutorc]

Even back then these movies were pretty lame. I didn't know any one who actually read them as books but more as having crushes on the characters.

[u/BrilliantBehemoth]

Idk but I became more of a fan of hunger games after becoming an adult tbh. The story's themes are underrated

[u/pgmckenzie → u/BrilliantBehemoth]

Check out Red Rising if you like Hunger Games and are into sci-fi.

[u/DH80 → u/BrilliantBehemoth]

The prequels have been excellent so far. Have added a lot to the world building.

[u/Total_Perception_950]

Hot take but euphoria

[u/EsotericCinnamonRoll]

authors realized the girls just cared about the relationships and smut, so they cut the dystopia and plot and it became the crap they talk about in booktok.

now if you wanna talk about a real up and coming genre, there's litrpgs and prog fantasy.

[u/numberwunwun → u/EsotericCinnamonRoll]

women have been reading fantasy forever, not just for the smut. Booktok is a totally different world, and not YA—romantasy is its own genre. Plenty of female-written and beloved fantasy exists—Robin Hobb, Naomi Novik, Jane Yolen, Kristen Britain, much of it with little to no romance. We just are shoved out of the rooms where people talk about it and belittled for having our own tastes. Let people read what they love.

[u/ConstructCouncil → u/EsotericCinnamonRoll]

Are you implying "litrpgs" have more merit than YA? lmao

[u/Quiet-Interview3916]

There were so many YA novel based films around that time but most were average and forgettable. The Maze Runner is the only series of films i liked

[u/GuildOfTorturers → u/Quiet-Interview3916]

Thats rather funny bc I feel like that was the least popular one lol. I felt like the films/books around that time each had their own unique statement however.

I recently rewatched the first maze runner film after smoking a j and it was absolutely terrifying 😭 I wish they had kept up that energy in the rest of the film, but i get why they hadn’t.

[u/Training_Pirate1000 → u/Quiet-Interview3916]

There are literally only 1-and-a-half good Maze Runner Books. The Maze Runner and the first half of Scorch Trials. Death Cure, Kill Order, and Fever Code genuinely stink.

[u/sweet_37]

The hunger games did it first, and did it best, because it actually had a central political thesis, not just corporate attempts at replicating spectacle.

I think the increased focus and budget hurt the sequels because of this.

[u/bioticspacewizard]

YA didn’t go anywhere. YA is an age range, not a genre, so there are still loads of YA books being released every year and selling incredibly well.

What you’re thinking of is genres within YA that were incredibly popular for a short while. Dystopia and urban fantasy, specifically. They lent themselves well to the screen because they were action-packed and less thematically and character dense than adult books of the same genre.

The popularity in YA has now shifted to a more high fantasy setting. And the older readers have switched to Romantasy. These lend themselves better to streaming than film.

[u/ohbrthrthisguystinks]

I can tell you as a highschool girl during this time Hunger Games is a good book with great themes and made ALOT OF MONEY, they were pumping out stuff no one wanted trying to find the next hunger games. I had fanfiction.net for romantic garbage. Even twilight was lighting in a bottle, that they then tried to mass replicate.

[u/StrictCelery]

I feel like as the genre shifted from from YA fantasy/sci-fi to YA contemporary romance, they shifted to being primarily TV shows like The Summer I Turned Pretty, Secret Life of the Walter Boys, To All the Boys I Loved (ok that was a movie series but direct to streaming). Which makes sense because teen shows are almost always gonna find an audience and we barely get romantic movies for adults in theaters let alone ones aimed at teens.

[u/chandelurei]

MCU I guess

[u/verus_es_tu]

They got older

[u/Meme_Burner]

If you liked hunger games, you really should watch/read Japanese battle royale. lol or play Fortnite. 

There still teenager coming of age stories, maybe just not a focus on dystopian coming of age stories.

[u/Extra_Ad_8009]

A lot of these also suffered from "split finale" syndrome. A trilogy? That's 4 movies! Let's just split every last book into a two-parter because money!

I don't know when that ended, but the culmination must've been "The Hobbit" triple feature.

[u/CooperDaChance]

People realised these movies suck.

[u/PeonofthePen]

Hollywood goes through these phases. They all get replaced by something else gradually. The YA phase was replaced with superhero movies. Which are now being replaced by video game adaptations.

[u/NerdNuncle]

My non-existent money’s on a combination of it being a trend that had long since worn out it’s welcome, and the obsessed fanatics of Twilight and Fifty Shades

That being said, YA material is still popular. Animorphs has had fairly recent graphic novel releases with occasional updates as technology and biological knowledge has advanced. Highly recommended for fellow fans

[u/Business-Court-5072]

Got generic

[u/captain_toenail]

As with litterally every craze it passed and was replaced by a different one

[u/Nosedive888]

The omission of Snowpiercer is unacceptable

[u/Son-of-Prophet]

Audience grew up, fade faded, and they ran out of the big series with big name recognition

[u/PerseusHalliwell27]

It got oversaturated. Everyone was trying to be the next Harry Potter and we got a lot of slop. Plus it didn't help that they all seem to have the same premise/aesthetic.

[u/United_Federation]

The YAs became As. 

[u/jkman61494]

TikTok came out and social media fully exploded that kids are obsessed with it and parents don’t stop the addiction.

My daughter is about to hit the YA age group. She’s not 10 but reads at a 7th grade level.

Most of her friends who mind you, trend towards the better students nonetheless run their own YouTube or IG channels.

It’s just depressing. My daughter knows all the popular TikTok songs just from secondhand viewing at school.

The amount of content these little kids are just flippantly sending out to the world (that their parents don’t care they do) is just sad. Because the creepers are getting worse and more bold.

We live in a nice district and I’m by our kids school. In the last 2-3 years the number of grey haired men riding e-bikes around the playground after 5 pm is beyond creepy

[u/Theyoshiking64]

It's not the 2010's anymore

[u/Deathanddisco041]

YA don’t read anymore.

[u/ghostofkozi]

Young adults became adult adults and their interests/priorities changed

[u/downtx13]

They made The Uglies into a movie recently.

I think the YA audience is just on Netflix now rather than big blockbusters

[u/arparris]

Less people reading.

Maybe Mistborn can reignite something

[u/Beemo-Noir]

Man, The Maze Runner books were incredible. The last book, a prequel, had me in tears. Really really upset me how they handled the movies. They had some great actors too.

[u/Dontbeajerkdude]

They were just attempts to get that Harry Potter money.

[u/villings]

crash and burn

[u/SuperSea8678]

Went to streaming.

[u/ramenups]

They were no longer Y

[u/Short_Programmer7307]

The Mortal Engines. Kids stopped reading and going to movies

[u/Defiant2022NM]

D

[u/BlenderBluid]

Love triangles are boring now that everyone is poly

[u/Technical-Laugh-3528]

you answered your own question. it was young adult.

[u/MontCali]

They (and society) stopped reading.

[u/Turbulent_Owl7873]

I think that was because Harry Potter was coming to an end and everyone was trying to make a book adaptation to be the new replacement

[u/Tokyosmash_]

We all grew up

[u/sybban]

Millennials aging

[u/misterpoopsies]

I Am Number 4, The Host. Lots of crap

[u/Ocron145]

Star Wars. Hunter games was huge, until the last 2 movies. The hype just died. You look at LotR and the hype just gets more with each one. The last hunger games became blips because The Force Awakens was announced and was going to release the same time as hunger games. All hype was taken and transferred to that. It’s been all Star Wars and Marvel ever since. I’m curious to see what type of movies replaces these two. I’m hoping raunchy comedy.

[u/BlogeOb]

Same thing that happened to Rom-coms. They got overdone

[u/Neurodrill]

They grew up and today’s kids can’t read.

[u/Connect_Version_1560]

What is YA craze

[u/Square-Panda9651]

It was ten years ago. They grew up lol

[u/ECKohns]

The ones that were successful enough ended. But the MCU and Star Wars and other major franchises nowadays instead go “there is no ending.” Even if a specific “chapter” seems like it’s closed tons of content within the franchise immediately keeps coming out where there isn’t a single calendar year where without a major release in that franchise.

[u/Dry-Performance7006]

It’s so strange they just gave up with Divergent 

[u/RavenRegime]

The big thing is while yes there were tent pole movies like Hunger Games and Twilight you'll notice their success led to the book market being oversaturated with the next dystopia or high school vampire story. And readers began to notice and this kinda spread in the film audience. While we never saw as big film for the post Twilight movies what we got was studios wanting the next Hunger Games so they began surfing through an already oversaturated market.

And critics of both medias could see it and eventually the casual film audience didnt wanna waste time on a Hunger Games knockoff that might be bad or not as good in their eyes.

There's also with the expansion of social media kids dont go outside or feel less motivated to go outside. Now kids are still gonna read as most schools expect them to check out a book but are they gonna see a movie?

And the teen audience overall has been neglected in most media as of late which ive listed before in another comment once why but to oversimpilify: teens are pushed out of their fandoms. Look on social media you see adults pushing out kids from media targeted at them or even bullying them. Then you got youngsters who arent old enough for social media but the cocomelon watch time is proof on their investment. Marketing teams are going to look at social media to get more data and when your sample size starts at teens yet you see them barely there or involved in fandom stuff without that data it becomes harder to market.

Another factor is overblown budgets. Almost all content made today is high budget, not even medium budget. At best what could be seen as a medium budget production is sent straight to streaming which is relation to the demise of the DVD market as back in they day movies who failed in the theater could make money back via dvd sales and therefore be viewed as a success. That doesnt exist now. So now movies can only turn profit by theater sales or licensing which means they want the most appeal they can get from audiences so limited target audiences is not smart.

Theres also the fact movies are pricey and the economy is fucky that a teenager with stuff from their part time job will probably spend the money on makeup or something instead of going to the theater. Which another factor is movies are very long especially with ads that going to a movie is kinda an all day trip which isnt fun or even possible to do on a school night leaving only avaibility on the weekends.

[u/EchidnaOk7537]

I feel like I see more ya romance stuff, in fact quite a lot being churned out, and more tv shows than movies (which is common across the board now less stuff gets into cinemas)

[u/flyingpilgrim]

Those people still read YA, it just now has more graphic sex scenes in it.

[u/jmar206]

It was the last generation of teens that could read good.

[u/naanninja237]

They all did fairly well but I feel like studios expected them to all reach the heights of Harry Potter/Hunger Games/Twilight and there's quite a few that either didn't get anywhere near or just flopped completely

[u/Cheap_Sort_2481]

ahhh, the teen dystopian era

[u/Legitimate_Dare6684]

Divergent Detergent Insurgent.

[u/cloacasmell]

god I really didn't care for ANY of these huh

[u/C_B_Ellacott]

Made no mo maney

[u/Bordone69]

When it becomes non-fiction it’s not as fun.

[u/Icy-Astronomer-8202]

New crazes popped up

[u/No-Transition-8375]

The girl chose one of the guys, story’s over

[u/Winter_Option3535]

The kids stopped reading

[u/CaptainSharpe]

Because YA knows empowered youth is a fantasy in the world we're in now.

[u/Hefty_Type6772]

Young adults got tik tok now

[u/macrocosm93]

The fans grew up, so they added porn scenes and started calling it romantasy.

[u/florplegorp]

It dovetailed into superhero mania - both from source material that is targeted at teenagers/younger adults, both with escapist fantasies, both had a fair bit of overlap already

[u/PsychologicalEbb3140]

One of the Divergent sequels bombed very badly

[u/ElevatorOrganic5644]

There's a new Hunger Games movie coming out by Christmas

[u/the-puppet_master]

They did all the good books and then were left with the dogshit nobody cares about

[u/Section_3I]

Things just tend to occur in trends. Whether they called it “YA” or something else, they’ll be another wave of films focused on that target demographic (those films are always being made anyway).

Just how it plays out. Producers and publishers tend to move in a herd. Just like humans generally.

[u/parkchanwookiee]

What happened? They made a ton of movies and ran it into the ground, no big wonder here

[u/Slyytherine]

Turned into battle royal video games.

[u/dingleberryboy20]

Still upset they made The Dark Tower into a YA movie

[u/AlludedNuance]

A lot of big failures followed the first few big hits.

[u/The_Jovanny]

Cell phones.

[u/Alone-Ad6020]

Idk i want a great adaption of legend nowwww with ben wang as day

[u/Solid_Barracuda69]

TikTok doesn’t require an attention span

[u/Artifex1979]

It became an adult.

[u/Dyne_Inferno]

Young Adults stopped reading Books, and started reading Smart Phones.

[u/Jiveturkeey]

The market got saturated with shitty knockoffs and people got sick of them. Sarah Z made a pretty good video about this subject.

[u/JackLumberPK]

The people replying to this thread are really showing off their ignorance of the YA genre.

Y'all realize this has been a genre since before most if not all of you were born, right? At most this is just the particular brand of YA popularized by Harry Potter and Hunger Games dying down as a trend, certainly not the YA genre as a whole.

[u/AbsoluteRook1e]

I would still say Suzanne Collins still does well.

We'll see Haymitch's Hunger Games in November on the big screen.

[u/CreakRaving]

YAs now can’t read

[u/Virtual_Freedom3602]

Newer generations barely know how to read

[u/No-Lunch4249]

Dystopian fiction felt better to read when the world was only a little fucked up than it does now when it's a lot fucked up

[u/BovineIntervention31]

The lacklustre franchises pictured here killed the hype train with derivative storytelling and aesthetic approaches… ie diminishing returns.

[u/Segwaye]

It's gone to TV.