# Which genre gets the least respect? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 14, 2011, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-genre-gets-the-least-respect/585377 "2011-06-14T00:35:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-genre-gets-the-least-respect/585377/41 "2011-06-16T20:17:07Z")
I have a few “consipracy theory” non-fiction books. Are these a genre? > **[Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt...](https://www.amazon.com/Red-Star-Rogue-Submarines-Nuclear/dp/0743261127)** > > Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S. \[Sewell, Kenneth, Richmond, Clint\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear... > **[Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of...](https://www.amazon.com/Scorpion-Down-Soviets-Buried-Pentagon/dp/0465051863)** > > Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion \[Offley, Ed\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS... I have those. Entertaining to some degree. Like reading about how Hoover killed JFK, or moon landing hoaxes. I imagine that they are well respected by other authors. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-genre-gets-the-least-respect/585377/42 "2011-06-16T20:19:27Z")
Slash fiction featuring anthropomorphic animal analogues to real-life celebrities. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-genre-gets-the-least-respect/585377/43 "2011-06-16T20:33:20Z")
[QUOTE=mlees] I imagine that they are well respected by other authors. [/QUOTE] Not. I mean “not” respected. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-genre-gets-the-least-respect/585377/44 "2011-06-16T20:59:29Z")
> [@gatorslap](#): > > Is there a genre name for works that feature things like vampires, werewolves, etc. but aren’t horror? Because totally that. Paranormal romance. Has all of the juicier excitement of the cheesiest girl porn romance, but with an element of bestiality. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-genre-gets-the-least-respect/585377/45 "2011-06-16T21:03:42Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > Paranormal romance. Has all of the juicier excitement of the cheesiest girl porn romance, but with an element of bestiality. It doesn’t necessarily have to include romance, though. Non-horror that has werewolves and vampires and stuff is more or less fantasy. May be subdivided into urban fantasy, supernatural, paranormal, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-genre-gets-the-least-respect/585377/46 "2011-06-16T21:44:54Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Porn exists. It not only exists but it’s huge. > > Porn makes more money than Microsoft. It makes more money than ExxonMobil. It makes more money than Microsoft and ExxonMobil combined. Porn makes more money than professional baseball, basketball, and football combined. It makes more money than ABC, CBS, and NBC combined. [cite](http://www.cracked.com/article_17300_6-ways-that-porn-runs-world_p2.html) > > Now granted, print porn is a relatively small share of the porn industry. But print porn alone makes a billion dollars a year. That article is well known for being a pile of crap numbers that wouldn’t survive five minutes here on the Dope. I especially love the way it compares \*\*revenues \*\*for porn to \*\*profits \*\*for mainstream companies. And where does it get its porn revenues from? The ineffable Jerry Ropelato. [Sex, Lies And Statistics](http://www.forbes.com/2005/11/22/internet-pornography-children-cz_sl_1123internet.html) > [@](#): > > The small firm in Provo, Utah, is in the business of scaring parents into buying software to protect their kids from Internet smut. Jared Martin, who owns Family Safe Media, says he got his porn statistics from Internet Filter Review, a Web site that recommends content-blocking software. It is run by tech entrepreneur Jerry Ropelato of Huntsville, Utah, who pens antiporn screeds, such as “Tricks Pornographers Play,” and publishes curious and uncredited stats (for example, “17% of all women struggle with pornography addiction”). Now let’s get back to the real world. Since not a single word is said about print porn in that article I’d like a cite that “print porn alone makes a billion dollars a year.” Do you realize how huge that number would be? [Romance Literature Statistics: Overview](http://www.rwa.org/cs/the_romance_genre/romance_literature_statistics) > [@](#): > > Romance fiction: $1.36 billion in estimated revenue for 2009 > Religion/inspirational: $770 million > Mystery: $674 million > Science fiction/fantasy: $554 million > Classic literary fiction: $462 million ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-genre-gets-the-least-respect/585377/47 "2011-06-16T21:54:41Z")
So we can’t accept a figure of billion dollars a year because it comes from somebody like Jerry Ropelato, who isn’t credible. And Jerry Ropelato isn’t credible because he puts up figures like a billion dollars a year. What kind of figure would you be willing to believe? I’ll find a source that will give you a figure you’ll believe and then you can believe it. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-genre-gets-the-least-respect/585377/48 "2011-06-16T22:57:52Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > ☹ You do understand, don’t you, that just asking that question is a cry for help? Uhhh … I actively practice fursecution. Seriously, that dressing-in-a-fox-suit shit is fucked up, yo. There’s probably hundreds of genres out there. Which ones would be considered mainstream, though? It seems like some genres are mostly limited to digital media, for example fan fiction. While I can’t dismiss fan fiction as a genre, it’s my opinion that it’s not mainstream if it’s not on the shelves, or if there are just a few examples, in even the largest bookstore. When it comes to mainstream genres that most people can easily purchase in a commonly found brick-and-mortar retail venue, the genres that IMHO seem to get the least amount of respect, or the most amount of disrespect, are: 1. Porn 2. Fantasy romance 3. Urban fantasy 4. Anime 5. Mainstream romance 6. Chick lit and related subgenres 7. Conventional fantasy (dragons, wizards, elves, magic, three-handed broadswords, dungeons, crossroad taverns and inns, characters with names like “Argar of Gondor” or “Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor”, medieval-ish European-ish settings, etc) 8. Space opera 9. Science fiction (other subgenres) 10. Airport novels (thrillers, detective fiction, etc) ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-genre-gets-the-least-respect/585377/49 "2011-06-16T23:15:48Z")
The OP does seem to be talking about genres of print novels, so fanfiction, comic books, TV/video, etc., would be out of the running. I’d say the genres that are least respected by non-fans are romance, fantasy, and science fiction, but I’d put romance WAY below the other two. The most negative stereotypes about fans of these genres are somewhat similar (ugly, pathetic losers), but romance fans are stereotyped as _stupid_ in a way that I don’t think happens to science fiction and fantasy fans. I don’t think Westerns are really in the running, if only because it seems to me that the Western is basically dead as a literary genre. I don’t think I’ve ever even met anyone who said they enjoyed reading Westerns, and I can’t remember noticing a Westerns section in any major bookstore. There is a Westerns section at my local public library, but all the books look pretty old and I also live in a town with a large retired population. My stereotype of a Western novel fan would be “elderly man”. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2011, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-genre-gets-the-least-respect/585377/50 "2011-06-17T01:40:34Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Porn exists. Actually, no, it doesn’t. Urban legend. My Mom told me. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2011, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-genre-gets-the-least-respect/585377/51 "2011-06-17T01:47:12Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > If they can be called a literary genre, I’d say religious tracts get and deserve little respect, except for kitsch value and larfs and Poe’s-law illustrations, and they’re not all as golden that way as Jack Chick’s – most are just boring and dumb. And I do wonder if any soul in God’s creation ever was converted or saved by a smug and crudely-written leaflet. Which one would not find in a general-interest bookstore. But the “Inspiration” section . . . I’d say that’s not much respected, save by those in whom it arouses real enthusiasm; no middle ground. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-genre-gets-the-least-respect/585377.md?page=2)