Let's Discuss: My Beef with Romantasy

 

Okay I was just writing up a CWW post and was adding a side note to my genre and realized I can make a discussion of this!

My Beef with "Romantasy"

Okay, so I don't know if you want to call it a "beef." But I mean, yeah, I have a "beef" with it. Or I guess the publishers? The bookstore? Whoever decided to coin this term "romantasy" and say it's a genre.

It was already a genre. It was called fantasy. We just called it fantasy with romantic elements if anything! I mean yes, I still love the genre itself, I was picking up "romantasy" books before we coined this genre...but I don't know. Something about it nags at me.

I guess because it feels trendy. Something that already existed and had been existing for decades is finally getting its own genre name instead of just being lumped in with fantasy.

I don't know really. It just nags at me I guess and I need to vent. So you all get to hear it! Lol. All the books I've read for years that are either forgotten or sometimes get new covers to be relabeled "romantasy reads!" But it's just like ugghhh!! They were out 10-20 years ago! Where were you all then? I mean get age things too. 

I guess because it's trendy and people are just realizing how much they've been missing all these years and now it feels like I'm following the trend when no, I've been reading this a long time now, this is just a new author I wanted to try who writes in the genre I liked before all this.

I feel like this is the same thing that happened with YA and vampires. Twilight happened and people were like "oohh vampires!" And here I've been reading them a good decade or so before THAT book. And then I heard the dreaded "The Vampire Diaries is trying to hard to be like Twilight" and I about lost my cheezits. You ever want to see me go on a burning (explicit) rampage of a rant, just say that to me and you will get yourself schooled. Lol. I think I did one tame version of this with someone who didn't know me very well and I had to very calmly explain, "no no, dear. You got it backwards." pointed out The Vampire Diaries copyright date, and left it at that!

So what are your thoughts on this "romantasy" coinage? Does it effect you? I guess it just irritates me in the long run, like what took you so long to come up with this? We could've used this 20 years ago when we were reading these kinds of books. I guess the "new "name makes me thinks newer readers will think this is an entirely brand new genre...and it's just not.

Still love the books though! It's just this name itself that gets my eye twitching.