Good afterevenmorn, Readers!

So, once again I have entered the world of TikTok. This one is very old now, in the lightning fast news cycle that is that particular platform, so I’m rather behind the ball on commenting on it. For a few reasons for this. One, I’m old (ish. In internet terms, I mean). I simply cannot move at the speed TikTok seems to demand. Two, the one really got under my skin, despite not being one of the group targeted. So I wanted to take the time to calm down before approaching it. And third, I feel like I’ve covered this topic more than once, and I’m very annoyed that I feel compelled to tackle it once again. But here we are.

It is, of course, the weird, irritating, and erroneous snobbery between genres.

Those of us in the “genre” fiction community are very familiar with this coming from the “literary” fiction squad (quotations required, because every type of fiction is/has a genre, and literary fiction is literally a genre of fiction). It also exists between the various genres of genre fiction. The latest target? Romantasy and Romantasy readers. Uh… I feel like I need to define Romantasy, because it’s a relatively new term for me. It’s basically a romance, but with fantastic elements (often Fae-type creatures, for example). Which… isn’t me. But I am absolutely offended on their behalf.

Let me start at the very beginning.

A few weeks ago, TikTok absolutely exploded after an author opened her video with the phrase:

We all know that Romantasy girlies are not the brightest sparks…

Um, excuse me?

I’m not a Romantasy girlie. I don’t write it. I don’t read it. I couldn’t even tell you the difference between Romantasy and Romantic Fantasy (there is apparently a difference, I have learnt during all of this). I do have quite a bit of romance in the books I write, I realise on reflection, so maybe that’s where my knee-jerk reaction came from, but I don’t think so. I think it’s because I immediately recognise and dislike the attitude that that single sentence.

Look, Romance in general has been the one nearly everyone picks on, despite being the largest selling genre around. There are a lot of reasons for this, explored more fully by much better informed people. A large part of it is the devaluing of seemingly “womenly” things. There’s a very long history of it, and full examples of the same work being initially praised until it’s revealed that a woman wrote it, whereupon it’s suddenly considered “trite” or “simple” or even “awful.” Or, there is ample denial that a woman could have written it. See also, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Whatever the reason, everyone seems to be extremely comfortable looking down their noses at the Romance genre.

I have a small confession: I used to be one of those people. I read science fiction and Fantasy. I read non-fiction. I would not touch romance. I still don’t read it. I confess that the kind of story that is solely about the romantic relationship between two people is not all that intersecting to me. The difference now is that I worked on myself, and I don’t now think anyone who does read or write that particular genre are in any way lesser. I don’t think that the genre is frivolous or unworthy.

The video goes on to talk about Romantasy and how the whole genre is conservative propagand; in their her words, “A patriarchy kink.” I will say this once, and, I hope, very clearly, weaponising feminist rhetoric against a genre that is historically derided and dismissed specifically because it is considered to be by women for women is not feminist. Now, she did this in order to promote her own work, which was not the thing to do. Tearing others down in order to try and lift yourself up is a surefire way to get yourself blacklisted pretty much everywhere you would actually want to be.

This particular author found out. The backlash was swift, and it was fierce. Video response after video response, articles, and parodies followed her video. Her own book was review-bombed (which is not a tactic I agree with, incidentally, but it’s something that certainly does happen. Please don’t do it. It’s not right). One of the reasons I’m not dropping a name here is because of the backlash. I think this is a good opportunity for her to learn, but I don’t want to pile on. You can go looking for her if you want.

Now, might she have a point? Perhaps, yes. I have no doubt that there are extremely problematic Romantasy books out there. There are certainly very poorly-written ones that have gotten quite popular. But the instances of these things are no worse, in my opinion, than in other genres. I have read science fiction and fantasy books with extremely problematic themes, scenes, characters or tropes. And I’ve also read books in the aforementioned genres that are, in my opinion, in possession of quite appalling writing. What a sentence. Speaking of appalling writing…

I digress.

Just because one book in a genre might be distasteful doesn’t mean they all are. Dismissing readers of an entire genre as somehow less intelligent because one or two books are “bad” (in one’s humble opinion) is alarmingly ill-informed. Like many, many books in other genres, there are a bunch of Romantasy books that are critical of the patriarchy, and actively work to counter its messaging. And this is not to mention all the queer Romantasy, which by its very existence is extremely anti-patriarchy, and offer some much needed representation of a population that is still underserved in nearly all kinds of fiction. Speaking of which, let’s briefly touch on how radical it is that people of colour, who are often main characters of Romantasy, get to see themselves as lovely and loved in an entertainment culture that doesn’t often allow that.

The idea that just because romance features prominently in something, that is it somehow frivolous, infantile or otherwise unworthy is absolutely laughable. Broad brush statements and trying to justify literary elitism with feminist rhetoric is not feminist; especially when it’s weaponised against a genre/sub genre that is historically ridiculed specifically because it’s enjoyed largely by women.

Even if the books are all terrible, let’s pretend. Even if they offered nothing more than rock candy for the brain – saccharine, tasty but ultimately without nutrition and perhaps a little bad for you, actually (they’re not, but we’re pretending), what does it matter? People are reading!  Don’t we want people to be reading? Do we not realise that Romantasy is a gateway for exploration of other sub genres of fantasy? Or do we only want them to be reading a very narrow sliver of kinds of books?

Life is really hard right now. Let people have their silly, frivolous things that clearly bring them joy.

(Once again, I don’t believe it is, but we’re pretending)

I really miss the days when people read whatever genre they wanted, and we all minded our own business. The elitism is not the way, folks. We don’t need to drag others to prop ourselves up. Can we please just stop.

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When S.M. Carrière isn’t brutally killing your favorite characters, she spends her time teaching martial arts, live streaming video games, and sometimes painting. In other words, she spends her time teaching others to kill, streaming her digital kills, and sometimes relaxing. Her most recent titles include Daughters of Britain, Skylark and Human. Her next novel The Lioness of Shara Mountain releases early 2027.