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1%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1452266899092104700
2%% Please do not change or remove without starting a new thread.
3%%
4[[quoteright:300:[[Literature/LordOfTheFlies https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lord_of_the_flies_teenage_tribe.png]]]]
5[[caption-width-right:300:Art by Greg Capullo.]]
6%%
7%% Commented-out examples were removed for being Administrivia/ZeroContextExamples. Please don't restore them unless you can describe how they use the trope.
8%%
9
10->''"All the greatest wishes are granted, let us sing, let innocence reign\
11All the prayers are finally answered, blessed and free of all pain\
12Towers of fire rise ever higher, magical flags will be unfurled\
13The power of song, the young are the strong\
14The night that children rule the world."''
15-->-- "When Children Rule the World", [[ChristmasSongs traditional Christmas carol]]
16
17Somehow, the social order has gone all topsy-turvy. Instead of the old having power over the young, the young are free to do as they will, and may even have power over the old. This is pretty much inevitably portrayed as a bad thing. The young in question might attempt to [[PromotionToParent build some sort of new society]], or they might [[KidsAreCruel degenerate into]] [[TeensAreMonsters complete barbarism]], or there might be a [[OrderVersusChaos conflict between the former and the latter]]. The most famous example is ''Literature/LordOfTheFlies'', but it's not too uncommon, since it's a useful device to explain why teenagers are going on whirlwind adventures. Teenage Wasteland settings tend to be rather dark, since they often involve [[ChildSoldiers children and teenagers fighting for their lives]], and quite possibly doing horrible things to each other. ChildrenAreInnocent has no place in a Teenage Wasteland -- not all TeensAreMonsters, but in a Teenage Wasteland, you're likely to find at least some that are. In extreme cases, TheApunkalypse may be nigh if the youths run amok or the youths are the only ones left AfterTheEnd.
18
19Any [[AdultHater children and teenagers who hate adults]], however, are probably going to be very cheerful. They might have even made their area into this.
20
21'''There are a few ways this might come to be:'''
22* A group of teenagers are lost, stranded, or otherwise isolated from society (e.g. ''Literature/LordOfTheFlies'').
23* Adults simply do not exist anymore. They are gone, either because the children have instigated a [[KidsVersusAdults teenage revolution]] and [[MadeASlave enslaved]]/[[SelfMadeOrphan killed]] all the adults (e.g., ''Film/ChildrenOfTheCorn''), or because of something that was OnlyFatalToAdults (''Literature/ShadesChildren'').
24* A society where the old nominally still hold power, but groups of youths have become too powerful to be truly controlled. (e.g. ''Literature/AClockworkOrange'').
25* A society where the young and the old coexist, but [[CompetenceZone the young call the shots]] (e.g. ''Literature/LogansRun'').
26
27This is not to be confused with ThereAreNoAdults, though types 1 and 2 probably overlap with that.[[note]]Type 1 due to setting, and type 2 because the adults are actually gone.[[/note]] Also not AChildShallLeadThem, in which only one youngster has authority. Depending on the structure of that society, he might be their RoyalBrat.
28
29Similar to PromotionToParent, but on a society-wide scale. Something that is OnlyFatalToAdults will pretty much always lead to a Teenage Wasteland. One of these societies at a HighSchool might take the form of an AbsurdlyPowerfulStudentCouncil.
30
31Contrast ChildlessDystopia. This trope may heavily overlap with BoardingSchoolOfHorrors or OrphanageOfFear.
32
33Not to be confused with RefrainFromAssuming, which is about songs with titles that are different from the refrain. For once, the correct name of the song isn't "Teenage Wasteland". Also not to be confused with Anne Tyler's short story of the same name, or Creator/JewelStaite's character's previous project in ''Series/TheLAComplex''.
34
35Named for a line from a song by Music/TheWho, [[RefrainFromAssuming actually called]] [[Music/WhosNext "Baba O'Riley"]]. Not to be confused with the ''Franchise/TeenageWastelands'' book series, although it does make heavy use of this trope.
36----
37!!Examples:
38
39[[foldercontrol]]
40
41[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
42* ''Anime/InfiniteRyvius'' is basically ''Literature/LordOfTheFlies'' [[RecycledINSPACE in Space!]]
43* ''Manga/SeraphOfTheEnd'' has this kind of environment, due to a mysterious virus that killed off everyone above a certain age. It is unclear if the teenagers and children left behind will be able to age to adulthood or if they, too, will get killed off.
44* The only characters in ''Manga/SchoolLive'' are teenage girls. We do see a teacher but she [[spoiler:was bitten by zombie and [[DeadAllAlong killed prior to the manga]]]]. AdaptationExpansion also gives the girls a puppy as a TeamPet who, in the manga, was a OneShotCharacter who was only shown in a brief flashback where it [[spoiler: became a [[RaisingTheSteaks zombie puppy]]]]. The 2nd half of the manga ''does'' show some surviving adults however, such as [[spoiler: some Military Soldiers/Scientists who find Yuki's Balloon Letter]], a Scientist who's hiding somewhere at Saint Isidore University, and up to 9 College Students at the aforementioned University (Though some of them might be just ''barely'' older then our protagonists).
45* Kyoya Gaen of ''Anime/FutureCardBuddyfight'' wants to turn the world into one. To that end, he tries to summon an army of monsters from Darkness Dragon World through use of [[EvilCounterpart the Disaster Force]] and an UnrealisticBlackHole to end the existing order.
46* ''Manga/DriftingClassroom'' becomes this after the school is mysteriously transported into the far future when the Earth is a DeathWorld wasteland and the teachers all get themselves killed off within less than a day (one commits suicide, another goes insane and kills the others before dying himself), leaving the oldest characters around 12. The only exceptions are Sekyia, the milk delivery man, who becomes one of the antagonists and spends large parts of the story either locked up or delusionally insane, [[spoiler: and the still living time-warped arm and head of the thief who broke into the school moments before the transportation happened, leaving part of him in the future and the other in the past]].
47* Tsukasa Shishio of ''Manga/DrStone'' aims to create and rule one. He believes, among [[EvilLuddite other]] [[MightMakesRight things]], that if adults are revived from the [[TakenForGranite petrification that mysteriously struck all of humanity]], they will reintroduce the corruption and greed that plagued the modern world to [[FuturePrimitive the setting]].
48[[/folder]]
49
50[[folder:ComicBooks]]
51* The notoriously violent British comic of TheSeventies, ''Action'' featured a story where few adults remained, mostly unlovable fascists, entitled ''Kids Rule O.K.''
52* The ''ComicBook/JusticeLeague''[=/=]''Comicbook/YoungJustice'' storyline "World Without Grown-Ups" was, as the title suggests, a world without grown-ups along with a mirror-world [[ChildlessDystopia without kids]]. It served as an EigenPlot for [[Comicbook/{{Shazam}} Captain Marvel]] who could shuttle between the two being a biological adult in superpowered form and a kid in his normal one.
53* ''ComicBook/TheDeadBoyDetectives'' 2004: In the tunnels under the city, young runaways have set up something of a colony. Lampshaded: "Like something out of Dickens!"
54[[/folder]]
55
56[[folder:Fan Works]]
57* Notably averted in the ''Fanfic/EmpathTheLuckiestSmurf'' novel, where an OnlyFatalToAdults [[ThePlague Plague]] wipes out all of the adult Smurfs except for Papa Smurf himself, setting up the situation where he becomes the sole parent figure and leader of a hundred young Smurfs, most of whom wouldn't know how to run an entire village by themselves.
58* In ''WebAnimation/ChildrenOfTheNightDuoCartoonist'', Luna transports orphaned foals into a colony far away from adult ponies. One of the ponies is shown as a happy adult in the intro, so presumably everything turned out fine.
59[[/folder]]
60
61[[folder:Film]]
62* The film ''Film/WildBoysOfTheRoad'', made in 1933, is about homeless teenagers during the era of the Great Depression, who often have to do ugly things to survive and are treated like criminals by the police and society in general. Appropriately, it's as grim as all get out. If ''Lord of the Flies'' is the TropeCodifier, this film may very well be the TropeMaker.
63* The 1972 cult film ''Gas-s-s-s'', an industrial accident releases a poison gas that [[OnlyFatalToAdults kills everyone on earth over the age of 25]]. In the rest of the film, the main characters have to learn to survive on their own.
64* ''Film/{{Kids}}'' features teenagers who just hang out freely and follow every possible kick they can find, from drugs to unprotected sex, without any regard for their environment. Adults are hardly seen, and the only one who tries to call them out for their bad behaviour is beaten up and presumably murdered by them.
65* Subverted in ''Film/SleepawayCampIIITeenageWasteland''. [[spoiler: "They're all wasted!"]]
66* The 1968 film ''Film/WildInTheStreets'', which produced the BreakawayPopHit "The Shape of Things To Come", revolves around a 22-year-old pop singer being elected President via ThePowerOfRock, and bringing about a society where the young rule by forcing anyone over 35 into re-education camps and dosing them on LSD.
67%% ''Film/ClassOf1984'' plays like a Type 3; the sequel, ''Film/ClassOf1999'' moreso.
68%% This one could use more explanation. Without the type label, it's fairly meaningless.
69* In ''Film/MadMaxBeyondThunderdome'', Max discovers a fertile valley where the children of plane crash survivors have been left alone while the adults went to find help. It being AfterTheEnd, there was no help to be had, and the kids wound up having to raise themselves. They're actually doing fairly well, all things considered, although their limited information about the outside world has led to a rather bizarre belief system with Captain Walker, the pilot of the plane that crashed, being a messiah figure that would return for them, leading to their mistaking Max for Walker when one of the children find him in the desert near their location.
70* In ''Film/ChildrenOfTheCorn1984'', a group of children slaughter all the adults in their town and proceed to establish a primitive tribal society which functions at the behest of [[ReligionOfEvil a strange god]] called "He who walks behind the rows".
71* ''Film/TheWarriors'' portrays a New York City where street gangs (mostly teenagers and perhaps 20-somethings) openly rampage through the streets, even during the police's attempts at a crackdown. Cyrus, the leader of the Gramercy Riffs, the largest and most powerful of these gangs, attempts to unite the various gang factions into one supergang that he believes could run the city.
72* ''Film/VillageOfTheGiants'': Some teenagers consume an unknown substance and grow to 30 feet tall, then take over a town.
73* The Creator/StanleyKubrick film ''Film/AClockworkOrange'' describes a UK where youth groups are out of control and routinely perform acts of "ultraviolence."
74* In ''Film/SummerCampNightmare'', Camp North Pines becomes one once the teenage [=CITs=] take over, with one of them being the leader of the camp who forces everybody to obey his rules or else be subject to various types of punishment. One CIT manages to escape and get the police to rescue the children and bring them home while putting the ringleader, Franklin Reilly, under arrest.
75* ''Film/{{Monos}}'' depicts a squad of child and teen guerrilla soldiers who occupy an isolated outpost for an unnamed paramilitary faction in South America. Largely left to their own devices, they descend into barbarism, with a few homages to ''Literature/LordOfTheFlies''.
76* ''Film/RiotGirls'': Due to all adults dying in a plague, teenagers run everything, and fight each other over what's left.
77* ''Film/NightOfTheComet'': The Earth passes though the tail of a comet, showering it with a dust that dissolves everyone outside into orange dust. Those partially affected turn into rage zombies to varying degrees. The only known survivors are some teenagers that were in a hermetically sealed room.
78[[/folder]]
79
80[[folder:Literature]]
81* ''Literature/LordOfTheFlies'' is the TropeCodifier. It features a bunch of kids who are stranded on a deserted island and succumb to their worst natures. They tried to live in makeshift self-made civilization but it didn't go well.
82* The teen gangs in ''Literature/AClockworkOrange'' can't be controlled by the adults.
83* Unsurprisingly, the ''[[Franchise/TeenageWastelands Teenage Wastelands]]'' franchise uses this trope heavily. It features the third variety, where adults still nominally hold power but [[JustBeforeTheEnd entire towns have been seized by supernaturally-endowed adolescents, dedicated to the 'cleansing' of all adults and elders.]]
84* In the original ''Literature/LogansRun'', everyone is killed when they reach 21 (in an event called "Carousel"). The film version raises the age to 30, which doesn't fit this trope quite as well.
85* In ''Literature/{{Gone}}'', [[OnlyFatalToAdults everyone over the age of 15 disappears in an instant]].
86* ''Diario de la Guerra del Cerdo'' (it was translated as "Diary of the War of the Pig"), a 1969 novel by Argentinean writer and Cervantes Prize winner Adolfo Bioy Casares. A dystopic world where old people are deemed as "useless pigs", any kind of healthcare or benefits has been removed by the government and youngster's mobs are given tacit right to kill them in the streets, forcing them to hide and live a miserable existence in the underworld. Thus, this trope; though the approach to this subject is both grim and comedic at the same time.
87%% There was a short-lived YANovel series called ''2011'' where this scenario happens in a type 3 situation.
88%% Please elaborate; see Type Labels Are Not Examples.
89* The kids in ''Literature/BattleRoyale'' are isolated from adult society, but they [[TeensAreMonsters don't have much civilization to speak of]].
90* In Creator/LarryNiven's ''Literature/AWorldOutOfTime'', most of the Earth was ruled by immortal boy-children who kept a supply of grown-ups around as breeding stock. (The immortal girl-children were wiped out by a gender war and environmental changes making their territory uninhabitable.) All new boy-children are taken from the adults and join troupes of the immortal boys; the ones that demonstrate "superior qualities" are sent back to the adults to become new breeding adults, while the rest become immortal and stay boys forever. Girls remain with the adults and grow into new breeding adults. Both the boys and girls are depicted as cruel despots, but not because of their "youth"; most were far older than the adults and had the mentalities to match. They're cruel because they're powerful, ancient immortals, and cruelty is how they alleviate their boredom.
91%%* Just about anything by Creator/BretEastonEllis before ''Literature/AmericanPsycho''
92* In the second novel in the ''Literature/HisDarkMaterials'' series, Lyra visits a world where a lot of the adults have been killed off by Specters, monsters that can only harm and be seen by those who have reached puberty. Much of the world is covered in abandoned cities left to gangs of spectre-orphans (until they grow up and get spectre-eaten themselves) while caravans with adults try to keep ahead of the spectres.
93%% * ''400 Boys''
94%% * ''Countdown''
95%% * The Vigils are type 3 in ''Literature/TheChocolateWar''.
96%% * ''Literature/TheOutsiders'' borders on a type 3.
97* ''Evil'' by Swede Jan Guilliou is set in a 1950s boy's boarding school in which the boys are given to govern themselves in their lives outside the classroom - at one point the principal steps in to stop the beating of the main character during lunch, but only because splatters of blood land in his food.
98* Creator/AEVanVogt's ''Literature/ChildrenOfTomorrow'': so many men have gone to war that there aren't enough left on Earth to enforce the law, and the children are organized into "outfits" with police powers.
99* Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/TunnelInTheSky'' features a "stranded" situation, but it works out because they were being taught survival techniques anyway.
100* Charlie Higson's {{Literature/The Enemy}}, in which fourteen years ago, all people were infected with a disease which took this long to develop. Only people born since then remained. The adults either died or went mad and became cannibalistic zombies.
101* The nation-state of Canyonar in ''[[Literature/LegendsOfLaconia Waking Echoes]]'' by Donaya Haymond becomes a Teenage Wasteland, as a result of TheVirus that is [[OnlyFatalToAdults Only Fatal To Adults and Prepubescent Children]]. A few of the teens strive for order and peace, but because the place was ''already'' a CrapsackWorld before the Famine Fever hit, most of the kids either become cannibalistic looters or join a Fascist-style army with the aim of conquering the currently unaffected neighboring countries.
102* This apparently happened in the backstory of Creator/TimothyZahn's ''A Coming of Age'', which takes place on a colony planet where some unknown environmental factor gives preadolescent children powerful telekinetic abilities. This led to an extremely destructive period known as the Lost Generation; by the time of the novel adults have reasserted control, but only by isolating the kids and strictly limiting their access to information.
103* Literature/TheFireUsTrilogy has a [[spoiler:(subverted)]] example, due to a virus that killed off all the adults. Nearly all of the children also died without the care of their parents, but the survivors are all children or young teenagers.
104* Parodied in ''Literature/OurDumbWorld'', where the immature 15-year-old state of Eritrea has an area on the map labeled "teenage wasteland."
105* Literature/TheGirlWhoOwnedACity is on the cusp of this; the oldest people alive being 12 years old.
106* ''Literature/TheHungerGames'': Subverted. [[ActorAllusion The kids are all right]], adult authority in the form of [[TheEmpire The Capitol]] is ''forcing'' them to kill or be killed.
107* In ''Król Maciuś Pierwszy'' ("King Matt the First") by Janusz Korczak, the eponymous kid monarch orders all adults in his country to go back to school while children take over their jobs, with disastrous results.
108* In ''Literature/OurMothersHouse'' the death of their soul parent Edna Hook leaves her seven [[RulesOfOrphanEconomics children to run things for themselves]] and try to live up to mother's rules. This book splits from the this trope when Charlie Hook enters the picture but not in a complete order is restored way. In fact, he ruins everything.
109* ''Resurrection Day'' by Brendan [=DuBois=] is an alternate history novel where the Cuban Missile Crisis became World War 3. There's an ongoing crime problem involving gangs of children, raised in the prosperous Fifties who now had to fend for themselves on the street. The protagonist explains that when the sirens went off the teachers herded the children into the school shelters, whereas the first instinct of their parents was to take the car and rush to pick up their children, so they were caught out in the open when the nukes went off. This left large numbers of orphans in a country that had been [[FallenStatesOfAmerica knocked down to Third World Status]] and therefore could no longer afford to properly look after them.
110[[/folder]]
111
112[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
113* ''Series/{{Andor}}'': During Cassian's adolescence on Kenari the eldest members of his community left were teenagers, living in a ramshackle village in the forest and attacking and pillaging downed ships.
114* There was an early episode of ''Series/{{Sliders}}'' where Howard Stern had been elected president and lowered the voting age to nine. The young were in power, the mandatory retirement age was in the mid-20's, and everyone over 30 was a second-class citizen. Adults were more or less homeless and drug use was rampant among the youngsters due to the pressures of having to succeed so early.
115* ''Series/TheTribe''. An AfterTheEnd world where TheVirus is OnlyFatalToAdults.
116** ''Series/TheNewTomorrow'', set some unspecified (but presumably quite long) period of time later, wherein the tribes are now settled in to their new world and, for the most part, more peaceful or at least more spread out. Except there are still no adults alive (surely the child survivors from ''Series/TheTribe'' [[FridgeLogic should've grown up and had kids?]])
117* ''Franchise/StarTrek'':
118** The ''[[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Star Trek]]'' episode "[[{{Recap/StarTrekS1E8Miri}} Miri]]" featured a planet where a virus had killed off all the adults, leaving the children to look after themselves.
119** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'': In "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS6E16Collective Collective]]", ''Voyager'' encounters a Borg cube where all the drones are dead except for the child drones. The kids think they can function just fine as a collective without any adult drones around, but they lack the cohesion or mental discipline necessary to function as a unit, Borg or not. In practice, it just boils down to First bullying the others into submission.
120--->'''Tuvok:''' [The Borg children] are contemptuous of authority, convinced that they are superior. Typical adolescent behavior for any species.
121** ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' had an episode dealing with the aftermath of a group of kids being left without adults; unusually, this took place some time ''after'' the kids had grown up, and they eventually they had to be left where they were because reintegration would have been nigh-impossible.
122* The premise of ''Series/{{Jeremiah}}'' is that a worldwide plague [[OnlyFatalToAdults kills everyone over the age of 13]]. The series proper takes place 15 years later, when the plague has subsided and the oldest survivors are now in their late 20s.
123%% * The Canadian series ''Series/TheOdyssey''.
124%% * ''Series/TwentyThirtyCE'', another Canadian Series
125%% Please elaborate.
126* One episode from ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' featured a tribe of kids from age 25 and down. After they reached 25 they committed suicide, but only because [[PopulationControl they had to keep the population small]] due to being kept safe by a shield that was slowly becoming smaller. But they didn't know that...
127* The ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' episode "[[{{Recap/FarscapeS02E03TakingTheStone}} Taking the Stone]]" had a slightly similar premise, with the members of a hedonistic tribe suffering from cumulative radiation poisoning in their early twenties. Most of them "[[SuicideIsPainless Take The Stone]]" at around twenty-two years of age, or else join the outcast "Lost People" wandering the abandoned catacombs for the rest of their lives.
128* Creator/IsaacAsimov's ''Series/{{Probe}}'': [[Recap/ProbeQuitIt "Quit-It"]]: Everything about the neighborhood seems normal at first, with polite neighbors and well-maintianed lawns. But then Austin notices a teenager yell at his father to "go suck an egg!" and instead of getting angry, he just follows the order. Someone has caused the parents of the neighborhood to become extremely susceptible to suggestions, giving the children complete control.
129* ''Franchise/{{Buffyverse}}'':
130** The ''Buffy'' episode "[[{{Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS3E6Band Candy}} Band Candy]] " has [[SmugSnake Ethan Rayne]] curse chocolate to mentally turn adults into teenagers. The results include [[DeanBitterman Snyder]] out partying, Giles reverting to a teen rebel and Joyce macking him, all so the BigBad can steal babies to be sacrificed to a demon.
131** Faith is a teenage girl who knows all about the Five Basic torture Groups. The Mayor must be so proud!
132* One of the first episodes of ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'' had an old High Guard supply station inhabited by the descendants of the original staff, who all died in their twenties or sooner due to radiation poisoning or raids by Magog and Nietzscheans. They were also religious fanatics who worshiped the High Guard and considered a cabinet full of schematics (that they couldn't read) sacred scripture. And when Dylan accidentally unlocked the [[StarKilling Nova Bombs]] they attempted to send suicide Slipfighters to nearby systems.
133* On ''Series/{{The 100}}'', a bunch of teenagers are sent down to the Earth to see if it's livable again after the nuclear war a century ago, and they end up having to forge their own community separate from the adult-run society on the Ark space station. Being culled exclusively from the Ark's juvenile delinquent population, most of them start indulging in irresponsible ''Lord of the Flies'' behavior. However, they get it out of their system within a few episodes as they confront the harsh realities of survival, and become a well-organized group of ChildSoldier survivalists. [[spoiler:This only applies during the first season, as Season 2 has them interacting with adults from the Ark or Mount Weather again.]]
134* Skvrna (Stain), czech webseries about post apocalyptic world where surviving children and teens live in gangs and commuties after all adults were killed by a plague causing stains to appears on the skin. And as the disease is still out there, noone gets to grow up (or at least not for very long).
135* ''Series/Daybreak2019'' is set in one; the town of Glendale, CA is devastated by nuclear and biological warfare, turning all the adults into zombie-like Ghoulies and leaving the teens and kids to fend for themselves. This is also deconstructed to an extent -- at the end of the day, the teenagers that act like ''Mad Max''-style tribes are still children who never got a chance to grow up and be guided to adulthood. This is why so many of them [[spoiler:willingly turn to [[BigBad Principal Burr/Baron Triumph]] despite his obvious insanity, as they're that desperate for any return to normalcy]].
136* ''Series/TheNewPeople'' only lasted one season in 1969. It was about a group of college students returning from a goodwill tour of Asia who crash landed on an island in the South Pacific, killing the adult flight crew and chaperones. Luckily the island had been slated for a nuclear test which had been canceled, but had left a fully-built town and supplies available.[[/folder]]
137
138[[folder:Music]]
139* The video for the Music/BlueOysterCult's ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlVWprYozR8 Dancin' In The Ruins]]'' is set in a Teenage Wasteland populated by teenage waifs who, unaccountably, all managed to rescue their skateboards when the Catastrophe hit.
140* Music/TheWho's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqeYrNYGzJc/ "Baba O'Riley"]], sometimes even mistakenly called ''Teenage Wasteland'' [[note]]It recycles lyrics from a different song existing as a demo that ''was'' titled "Teenage Wasteland", but that's not the one everyone knows.[[/note]]:
141--->Don't cry\
142Don't raise your eye\
143It's only teenage wasteland\
144[...]\
145Teenage wasteland\
146It's only teenage wasteland\
147Teenage wasteland\
148Oh, yeah\
149Teenage wasteland\
150They're all wasted!\
151[[/folder]]
152
153[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
154* Indie tabletop RPG ''[[http://misspentyouthgame.com/ Misspent Youth]]'' is all about this, with the [=PCs=] being children aged 12 to 17 fighting against the Authority (whatever form it takes for your game). Adults either blithely let the Authority do what it wants, or are on its side. The game actually mentions several of the above examples as inspiration.
155* In ''TabletopGame/BlissStage'', alien invaders triggered the Bliss, a condition that causes humans to fall into an endlessly dreaming slumber that's OnlyFatalToAdults - and continues to be so: Turning 18 is a death sentence, or at least a FateWorseThanDeath sentence.
156* This is the entire point of the RPG ''Kidworld''.
157* ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'':
158** The domain of Odaire became a TeenageWasteland when the evil puppet Maligno killed all the adults in the city, forcing the older children to fend for themselves and their young siblings. Subverted in that their society is actually quite functional and civil, and because they've grown up by the time of the Arthaus 3E products. Unfortunately, Maligno and a handful of carionettes are still around, and some of them are eyeing the now-grown children as new targets for DemonicPossession.
159** The desert domain of Sebua is home to a colony of feral children who don't grow any older, and who live like wild animals.
160* In the ''Literature/FightingFantasy'' gamebook ''Starship Traveller'', the player can encounter a planet where the kids are in charge because the alien race suffers from extremely rapid and severe senility and dementia as soon as they reach adulthood.
161[[/folder]]
162
163[[folder:Theatre]]
164* The play ''Rabbit'' is set in a scenario where all the 'olduns' have presumably perished.
165* The Georg Kaiser play ''The Raft of The Medusa'' [[note]]not to be confused with the Joe Pintaura play of the same name about the AIDS crisis[[/note]] centers around a group of British children on a lifeboat after their ship is destroyed by a German submarine during World War II. At first they attempt to avert this trope, as they've seen the destruction that conflict can cause, and they want to do better, to model the behavior they would like to see in the world at large, but eventually, fear and superstition win out over their better instincts, leading them to commit a horrendous -- and entirely needless (as it's based entirely in superstition rather than any actual logical reason) -- act in the name of survival. The trope is also {{Deconstructed|Trope}}, however, as it's made clear that the kids learned most of this ''from adults''; this breakdown isn't because they're young and don't know what they're doing, but rather that they've already internalized ''too much'' of the adults' mentality, including the violent, superstitious, and paranoid elements.
166[[/folder]]
167
168[[folder:VideoGames]]
169* While it doesn't get focus in the main story, during the events of the prologue and starting chapter of ''VideoGame/{{Arknights}}'', the students of Peterheim Middle School are rounded up and left trapped in the school by a member of Reunion (dialogue indicates that it was [[CreepyChild Mephisto]]). ''Children of Ursus'' goes into more detail and focuses on the survivors of the incident: [[spoiler:the noble faction, lead by Rosa, ended up hoarding all of the food, leading Zima, the leader of the commoner children, to try and kidnap Rosa to use as a bargaining chip. Zima accidentally set the food store on fire, causing the situation to devolve into a free for all. The Ursus Student Self Governing Group are the only survivors, having banded together and fled the building when an opportunity presented itself]].
170* ''VideoGame/DanganronpaAnotherEpisodeUltraDespairGirls'': The "Warriors of Hope" plot to kill all the adults in Towa City and turn it into a "paradise for children".
171* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'''s Little Lamplight is inhabited by children and teens. Upon turning 16, they are shipped off to Big Town. A partial aversion, in that they (mostly) manage to actually make this work, and the few problems they have are the same sorts of things any adults-allowed settlement in the wasteland would face.
172%% * ''Fallout'''s spiritual predecessor, ''VideoGame/{{Wasteland}}'' has Camp Highpool.
173* The game ''VideoGame/RuleOfRose'' features a society run by little girls in a Depression-era English orphanage. Drawing parallels to ''Lord of the Flies'', the girls succumb to their worst natures, including the head girl [[spoiler: ordering the killing of a puppy]]. This is played with in that there ''are'' adults but, for all intents and purposes, they're nonexistent and the girls are younger than the usual (at least, one of them is nine).
174* The first level of the PC game ''VideoGame/{{Sanitarium}}'' has a town whose inhabitants are creepy deformed children controlled by an evil being which they refer to as "Mother," who killed all the adults in the town after seeing how [[HumansAreBastards cruelly they treated the children]].
175* {{MMORPG}}s often have stable group structures, such as guilds in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft''. Groups with teen leaders and predominantly teen populations become Teenage Wastelands for their members. Whole games may become this, too.
176* Post-Apocalypse Mobliz in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' is this. The parents of the town sacrificed themselves to save the children, leaving the oldest remaining children - two 17-year-olds with couple troubles - in charge. Some order is restored when [[TheHero Terra]] arrives, who becomes a surrogate parent to the lot, but this still leaves the town tremendously age-skewed, especially given that Terra herself is only 19.
177* ''VideoGame/{{Hiveswap}}'': Alternia, as in ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', is populated solely by troll children and teenagers, as once they reach adulthood they are sent off-planet (to lessen the risk of rebellion).
178* [[VideoGame/TheWalkingDeadSeasonFour The final season]] of ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDead'' centers on Ericson's Boarding School, a school for troubled youth that was abandoned by its adult staff, so the remaining students have turned it into a working community in the ZombieApocalypse. This is fitting as the final chapter in the CharacterDevelopment of Clementine, who is now 16. She joins the group and becomes its de facto leader, forcing her to make important decisions about their survival and her upbringing of AJ without any adult guidance.
179* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles3'': The soldiers of Keves and Agnus are grown in pods until they are physically and mentally age ten, then sent to fight in a ForeverWar. The vast majority of them die in battle, but if they don't it's impossible for them to live longer than ten years, when they're physically and mentally about twenty. This means that all the old veterans, all the commanders, and all the heroes are somewhere in their late teens. When the main characters finally meet actual adults, they find out that the people of the City are ''horrified'' with the state of the world in large part because these kids have no idea how bad their lives actually are. Though as the main characters start freeing colonies from the ForeverWar, it turns out that most of the commanders are {{Reasonable Authority Figure}}s once they're not forced to murder people to sustain their own lives.
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183[[folder:Webcomics]]
184* In ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' on the planet Alternia, all the adults of the troll species are shipped off to help with the imperial conquest of the galaxy (and prevent them from leading revolts on their home planet), leaving only the young trolls behind.
185* Elves in ''Webcomic/TalesOfTheQuestor'' die young, as a result of the loss[[note]]Even the knowledge of ''how'' it was lost (accident, war, etc.) was lost[[/note]] of a priceless artifact that compensated for a poorly-formulated wish. This induced the complete collapse of their civilization.
186* In ''Webcomic/AuroraDanseMacabre'', Vermin children are socially isolated and the few adults they interact with are content to leave them to their own devices.
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189[[folder:Web Original]]
190* ''Roleplay/SurvivalOfTheFittest'', being inspired by ''Literature/BattleRoyale'', is all over this trope.
191* ''Literature/LostBoysOfTheCascades'' is a web-original story about children struggling to survive [[OnlyFatalToAdults after a pandemic destroyed the world's adult population.]]
192* Appears to be {{invoked}} or {{parodied}} in Podcast/TheAdventureZoneSteeplechase with the New Kidadelphia layer of the [[AmusementPark park]].
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195[[folder:Western Animation]]
196* Parodied in the ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode "[[Recap/SouthParkS4E16TheWackyMolestationAdventure The Wacky Molestation Adventure]]", when the kids cause all of the adults in town to be taken away by social services by claiming they were molested. A couple then comes to the town and finds it in ruins and overrun by children. By this time, they've split into factions, developed communities, and created bizarre religions. Later, we find out that it's only been ten days since the parents were arrested.
197* ''WesternAnimation/JimmyNeutronBoyGenius'': Occurs after the adults have been abducted by the Yolkians. Unlike most examples, however, it only takes them a day or two of partying before they [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome decide they]] ''[[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome do]]'' [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome want their parents back]], and set out on a [[TheQuest quest]] to save them.
198%% * The ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'' MirrorUniverse, before the intervention of the heroes.
199* One of these is encountered by Fry and his ex-girlfriend in the ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "[[Recap/FuturamaS2E19TheCryonicWoman The Cryonic Woman]]" when they believe they're stuck in an AfterTheEnd scenario. [[spoiler:Later on, they learn that LA in the future is just a hellhole... or [[TakeThat more of one, anyway]].]]
200* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/MartinMystery'' had a town were adults were sent to the {{cyberspace}} [[spoiler:to an evil alien that uses the energy of others to get out of his web prison]].
201* Happens to the children of Springfield in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS9E14DasBus "Das Bus"]], which was a parody of ''Literature/LordOfTheFlies''.
202** Happens earlier in the episode [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS4E1KampKrusty "Kamp Krusty"]], when the kids (led by Bart) take over Kamp Krusty after they are driven mad from slave labor, imitation gruel, and being given Barney Gumble in a clown costume when they were promised Krusty the Klown. It also parodies ''Literature/LordOfTheFlies'' with the news report showing that the kids have mounted a sow's head on a pike.
203* In ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' hour long musical special ''School's Out!,'' Timmy wishes that kids ruled the world, and is elected President. [[OnceAnEpisode As usual,]] this starts out really cool but culminates with dystopian catastrophe. [[spoiler: It wasn't the kids' fault, though -- it was those freaking ''pixies.'']]
204* In the ''[[WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague Justice League Unlimited]]'' episode "[[Recap/JusticeLeagueUnlimitedS1E3KidStuff Kid Stuff]]", Mordred uses the Amulet of First Magicks to create a world with no adults in it, which meant that the Justice League and Morgaine le Fey are both banished to the same other dimension as the other adults. At first the world seems like fun for the children, but Mordred soon realizes how he now had to deal with children who missed their parents. Since no adults could exist in that world, Morgaine allows four of the Justice League members to enter it as children so they could restore things to normal. Eventually the junior Justice Leaguers trick Mordred into becoming an adult through his magic, which then causes him to be banished into the other dimension with his mother, thus breaking the no-adults spell altogether.
205* The unnamed city (possibly what's left of Paris) that the protagonists visit in the ''WesternAnimation/HighlanderTheAnimatedSeries'' episode "The Price of Freedom." The only residents of it appeared to be wild teenagers who were all members of one of two gangs, the Rainbows (who dressed like {{New Age Retro Hippie}}s) and the Palees (who dressed like [[TheQuincyPunk Quincy Punks]]).
206* The Seijin Orphanage from the ''WesternAnimation/{{Skyland}}'' episode "Island of the Child King." All of the adults left to fight in the war against the Sphere and never returned, so the secluded sector is now run by children led by a teenage {{Manchild}}.
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