An inevitable part of getting old is no longer recognizing the names of celebrities and musicians. Slowly and steadily, the more famous young and younger people get, the more their names will seem like incoherent phrases muttered by someone losing their mind, a vegetable side dish, or some kind of cruel trick. At some point, for a certain swath of millennials, Kourtney Kardashian will seem like old Hollywood compared to the likes of Terror Jr (who Pop Crave assures me is a person).
Sometimes the only way to combat this and ensure you are not being defrauded by life itself is to accept your own mortality and find a smart, kind, young person and beg them for the truth. It’s not unlike asking a youth to hold on to your arm while crossing a busy street. This is why I chatted with Jason P. Frank, a writer at Vulture and sterling member of Gen Z, to explain Sombr — allegedly a person, musician, and currently center of a seemingly impenetrable internet drama — to me (a grumpy millennial).
Jason, my first question to you, a youth, is to please explain to me, in millennial terms: Who is Sombr?
Sombr is a Timothée Chalamet lookalike rock singer, who sounds a little like The 1975 got put through the washing machine and all its big, even sometimes annoying, ideas got shrunken down into a TikTok-sized package.
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Are you sure Sombr is one man or is he simply three skinny children in a coat?
He’s skinny as one man in a coat!
Like Chalamet, he started his career at LaGuardia, a performing arts [high] school in New York. He’s the kind of act that you might remember from the days when groups like Neon Trees, Foster the People, or Fun. would break through and manage to get one pop radio hit. Except now there’s no pop radio to hit, so there’s no way to get just one good song out of him and send him home.
Fill in the millennial blank: “If I like ______, I will like Sombr.”
Why does he spell his name like a millennial app? Is he trying to trick us?
His name comes from his real-world initials, SMB, and the fact that he was sad when he released his original song. I don’t know why it’s spelled like Grindr, but the fact that he didn’t see the connection is a great indication that he’s straight.
Since it obviously is not me, who is Sombr’s main audience?
His main audience is the same group that loved Panic! at the Disco, Fun., and The Neighborhood: There is always a group of teens looking for a cute, self-serious rocker to swoon over and feel emo with.