The Disappearance of Tween Culture

On October 15th, a young woman named Megan Tomasic (@meganator__) posted on Tik Tok about her unpleasant concert experience, advising Sombr fans above the age of 16 to stick to Spotify. The only reason this video initially caught my eye was because she was at The Anthem, a concert venue in D.C. that I’ve been to multiple times.

That being said, Megan’s initial reaction video now has over 6 million views, 855,000 likes, and more than 12,000 comments. 

She pointed out that the age demographic of the crowd was much younger than she expected, a scenario made even worse with the way the viral TikTok singer interacted with them. Vulgar jokes alluding to his private parts and a running bit where he asked fans to call their “toxic ex” were, to put it lightly, not helping his case. 

Sombr ended up making a response video via TikTok, telling Megan that it was simply a “skill issue” and to touch grass. Long story short, it was not good. Now that the dust has partially settled, the internet’s final verdict? The singer is incredibly out of touch with his audience, with reality, even. Dozens of users believe he’s in desperate need of a new PR team.

This isn’t the first time someone’s experience has been ruined because other people are showing up in places they haven’t appeared before. Don’t worry, we have Sephora kids at home! 

Tween is short for “tweenager,” or a pre-teen (ages 8-12), not yet thirteen years old. Not yet a teenager, but old enough to have autonomy and form conscious thought. In past decades, this age range was backed by an entire industry. Brands like Justice, Claire’s, and Limited Too curated glitter-soaked aesthetics and after-school shopping rituals, while Disney Channel and Nickelodeon built media ecosystems that reflected pre-teen humor, awkwardness, and aspiration. 

In modern society, tweens are old enough to have a phone. Even those on the younger side of the spectrum are in possession of an iPhone 17. The iPad kid era continues relentlessly, with no signs of stopping. With how fast our world moves, these subtle culture shifts can be hard to notice. But when you take a step back to look at everything holistically? Mall outings, TV networks, age-specific pop idols… all these spaces are slowly being replaced by algorithmic feeds, influencer GRWMs, and social media. 

This month’s Sombr incident feels like the final nail in the coffin confirming my suspicions. Tweens are a dying breed, or rather, they seem to be undergoing a transformative evolution. For the most part, there are no more awkward phases. 

So what caused this shift? Part of the answer lies in the collapse of “in-between” marketing. In the 2000s, being a tween meant being spoken to directly. It was as if consumer brands wanted to embrace the innocence, playfulness, and naivete of youth through inherently “products made for kids.” There was an invisible but firm separation between where adults shopped and where tweens did. Third spaces like malls were especially championed by tweens, with nothing but $20 and a dream.

Now? If you aren’t online, you are disconnected from not only your friends, but with reality itself. Our lives have become digitized, and the capitalistic nature of American society has oversaturated our minds with materialistic desires. The ubiquity of technology has now become integrated into our way of life, without our devices, a part of us feels missing. Interconnectivity is a must; the 24/7 news cycle continuously updates us on current affairs, blurring the line between participation and consumption, leaving no true pause for childhood to exist untouched. 

It’s not that tweens disappeared, it’s that the internet erased the need for them to exist as a separate category. The algorithm doesn’t care how old you are; it only cares what keeps you watching. Platforms collapsed age boundaries replacing age-specific programming with a universal feed. At the same time, brands realized that there was no profit in tween marketing. When Justice filed for bankruptcy in 2020 and Disney Channel started pivoting toward streaming, the cultural infrastructure that defined tweenhood quietly fell apart. TikTok reigns supreme, with short-form content dominating algorithms. There was no longer a buffer zone between childhood and adulthood. 

The disappearance of tween culture isn’t just nostalgic loss, it’s an identity crisis. Those liminal years were once a safe rehearsal space for self-discovery, where mistakes were cute, not viral. Now, kids are socialized through adult aesthetics before they’ve had the chance to be cringey. It’s not that they want to grow up too fast, it’s that culture no longer gives them permission to be young. When tweens mirror adult behavior online, they are rebelling; they’re adapting. What we’re witnessing isn’t immaturity or imitation, but acceleration, the blurring of innocence and influence in real time. 

The Sombr incident didn’t just expose a generational clash, it revealed what happens when digital collapse bleeds into real life. The crowd that night wasn’t confused about where they belonged; culture simply stopped telling them. For the first time, we’re seeing the algorithm spill offscreen: tweens in spaces meant for adults, adults policing spaces that no longer exist. It’s not the kids who are getting younger or artists older, it’s that we all now share the same feed, the same stage, the same spectacle. Tweenhood hasn’t vanished. It's been absorbed, leaving behind a generation learning to grow up in public, without a curtain between rehearsal and performance.