As someone who is professionally chronically online, I am always up to date with the latest controversy happening. I was there for your favorite celebrity or influencer’s cancellation. I was on Twitter when that cancelled celebrity died. I was most recently there when up and coming artist, Sombr, was called out online by someone reviewing his concert that she went to.
Now you may be wondering, who even is Sombr? Great question! If you aren’t on TikTok, it is unlikely you would have heard of him. He has had many songs blow up on the app, including “undressed,” “back to friends,” and “12 to 12,” and honestly? I like his music. So much so that I ended up buying tickets to one of his shows at FiDi’s very own Pier 17. Ultimately, I ended up selling them because my friend wasn’t able to go and I couldn’t find anyone to go with me.
I was only vaguely aware of what goes on at his shows, despite calling myself chronically online, until I saw a video from a 25-year-old woman, Meg, who attended his show in Washington D.C. and came online to explain how bad of an experience she had. She started her 9-minute-long video talking about how she was quizzed by security on her I.D. Meg then goes on to talk about the crowd at Sombr’s show being incredibly young, with many dads attending the show with their underage daughters, and how this should’ve been red flag number one.
After discussing his crowd (which wouldn’t have been a big deal under most circumstances), she goes on to talk about his opener, Devon Gabriella, saying she “sucked” and describing her performance as not being that good. Then, she finally gets to the juicy part and the man himself: Sombr. Sombr is 20-years-old and he gets on stage to make vulgar jokes while simultaneously also making very immature and “chronically online” jokes. He brings underage girls onstage to call their exes and tells the crowd to “bark for him.”
Meg’s main point of telling her story was to warn people that if you are around her age or older, just don’t go to the shows and that it’s not for you. For most artists, this would be the end. It’s a concert review from a person on TikTok, not a critic from Rolling Stone. But it wasn’t. The opener went on Twitter pretty soon after the review was posted, talking about how hurt she was by Meg saying she sucked and practically had her fans go to Meg’s comment section and defend her. She then proceeded to go back on Twitter and thank them for “riding for her.” Of course, the “defending” just ended up being death threats shot at Meg, with no shut down from Gabriella. Eventually, she went back online and said she would never wish for death threats to be sent to anyone, etc, etc, after Meg posted another video talking about how much the original video blew up.
Once again, most would think it would stop here. Meg apologized for saying Gabriella sucked. But now Sombr had to speak up, and so he did via TikTok. He made a video talking about Meg and mentioned how his concerts are for everyone no matter what age, race, sexuality you are etc., but also said that Meg not enjoying the show was a “skill issue,” and practically age-shamed her right after he said his shows were for everyone. He failed to mention the important parts of Meg’s video regarding his inappropriate jokes for his majority underage shows.
Now this was huge. An artist coming online to address a concert review? Most PR teams would have their artists ignore it and not make it bigger than it already was. Now, we have PopBase and PopCrave reporting on this on Twitter, making sure their millions of followers are caught up on the newest drama.
My opinion on this situation is simple. I enjoyed his music, I still do. Am I planning on attending one of his future shows? No. Will I continue to listen to his music? Probably. Will I be surprised if he ends up falling off by his next album? Also no. I don’t think the longevity for him is there. There is nothing special about his performances or music that will make him stick. It feels like he tries too hard to have a “schtick” similar to Role Model’s, but Role Model’s comes naturally. He makes a few jokes throughout his shows and leaves it at that. There is subtlety to his humor that Sombr just does not have.
It is much easier to enjoy an artist when they stay humble and appreciative, when they ignore hate and only push the love from their fans. While Sombr may be grateful for what he has achieved so far, it is clear there is an insecurity there that is too present to be able to cater to an adult fanbase. It seems that he is happy that his fans are mostly high school girls because that demographic is powerful enough to shelter someone from what the rest of the world thinks.