Wednesday, October 26, 2011

YA Lit Rant in Mad Libs Format! Courtesy of The Rejectionist

This is incredibly awesome and I must share. The blog The Rejectionist wrote this YA opinion piece in Mad Libs form. All you have to do is fill in the blanks for your own personalized rant on YA lit is evil/demoralizing/ruining America!

IS YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE RUINING OUR CHILDREN? A TRICK QUESTION
by [YOUR NAME]
Now, first of all, let me be clear: I don't actually read YA--I just skimmed the jacket copy for The Hunger Games in the bookstore. YA is for babies, and I'm no baby! I'm a [PRESTIGIOUS CAREER]. But, like other adults, I can't help but [ADVERB] [VERB] about young people today and their [PLURAL NOUN]. The kids are so [ADJECTIVE] that they're practically snorting [NOUN] and having [ADJECTIVE] sex on my lawn! You know why? Smutty, smutty young adult books, is why! Kids tainted by the current crop of teen-oriented filth will waste no time in engaging in a wide variety of self-destructive behaviors, such as [TYPE OF EATING DISORDER], [ING VERB] their [PLURAL BODY PART], dabbling in witchcraft, and setting fire to [PLURAL NOUN]. I've heard these books even turn kids homosexual!
You know what I miss? The Good Old Days, that magical time in the [DECADE IN THE PAST] when [PLURAL NOUN] knew their place, teenagers didn't even know what [NOUN] was, and writers wrote books that were [ADJECTIVE]. Nothing makes me feel better than conjuring up fallacious images of an illusory past, populated exclusively with white, upper-middle-class children who were untarnished paragons of innocence, not these [ADJECTIVE], [ADJECTIVE], [ADJECTIVE] little [PLURAL NOUN] running feral in the streets and "sexting" each other [ADJECTIVE] pictures of themselves! The problem isn't a hypercommodified culture in the terminal stages of capitalism; problematic dominant-culture representations of marginalized populations; media conglomerates that propagate heteronormative constructions of gender and sexuality; my own projected anxieties; or The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. No, the problem with everything is teenagers reading books for teenagers. In fact, teenagers reading books is just about the most awful thing I can think of, with one exception! There is one book for teens that doesn't lead to depravity, [ING VERB], and [ING VERB]. That, of course, is my book, which you can buy [LINK TO AMAZON].
The link to the ranter's own book is key. I actually saw similar comments on blogs during the "dark YA" debate over the summer.

1 comment:

  1. This is awesome. I was amazed at how quickly I was able to fill in the blanks with ridiculous words :-)

    ReplyDelete

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