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[Ready Player One's] Wade Watts is my number one [teen obviously written by an adult] because he is not merely an adult's idea of a teenager. He is an adult nerd's fantasy of being worshipped by future teenagers. Wade becomes special because he loves the correct old games, old movies, old music and old references left behind by a dead billionaire whose nostalgia has eaten the entire world.

Of course teenagers can love older culture. They do it all the time. The difference is that Wade never feels like a young person finding his own meaning in old things. He feels like a reassuring message to grown-up fans: do not worry, kids of the future will still care about your stuff most. They will build civilization around it. They will win by knowing it better than everyone else.

That really gets into a lot of why I disliked the book (and to a lesser extent the movie, though the spectacle was kind of fun) so much.