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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/35519
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/35519
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I think the trend is a fad, like slang, like teens finding their own "language" to communicate (as every generation does), like fashion. Remember bell-bottoms? Like music. Remember disco?

Something sells, others emulate it, a fad emerges, only to be rejected when those that embrace it become "The Establishment", cops and politicians and parents and people with jobs -- So new teens that are biologically driven to separate themselves from their parents (to begin mating and having their own families) reject the old fad and start up their own.

A tiny part of that big dynamic is in what they like to read for fiction. Wait a generation. When these teens are parents, the books they loved will be too out of touch with their technology, fashion, and social norms, and new books will be needed, and they will likely be written differently by new norms.

I don't think there is a deeper meaning than that; just like I don't think there was a deeper meaning to bell-bottom jeans or disco. They were embraced not for any greater utility or being "better" on any rational scale, they were embraced for one crucial reason: they were different. Not your dad's straight-leg jeans, not your dad's music, not your dad's politics.

We're going to rebel against conformity! (But all in the same exact way as our peers, of course, we don't want to be _that_ weird.)

Original score: 3