The tweens of America are now shopping at Sephora, and TikTokers are not happy about it.
Across the platform, teenage and adult creators have been complaining that 10 to 13-year-old girls have been infiltrating Sephora to test or buy expensive products intended for adults, such as Drunk Elephant retinols, and have been making a mess or damaging their skin in the process. Some are so resentful towards them that they mock them in reenactment skits, and others have even recorded young girls in Sephora without their permission to make fun of them online.
Although I can understand being concerned about kids wrecking displays at Sephora or damaging their skin with these products, the amount of hatred and widespread anger towards the innocent ones who have simply purchased these products is quite ridiculous. It should not come as a surprise that tweens with unlimited access to the internet with dwindling spaces intended for their age demographic are interested in trends and consumer goods intended for teens or adults, especially when these products are constantly advertised online.
Being a tween marks the transition out of childhood, and thus, it is the common experience to no longer want to be treated like a child. To be seen as cool and more mature, young people have always adopted trends from adults, especially from celebrities. When I was a tween, I remember wearing pink clip-in hair extensions because celebrities were dying streaks in their hair. In the 80s, tweens may have wanted to wear bows like Madonna. This is the same phenomenon occurring with tweens now, except now teen and adult influencers on social media are setting the trends via sponsored content.
According to a survey conducted by Common Sense Media, tweens between the ages of eight and 12 are spending on average five and a half hours on screens each day for entertainment, and the number of tweens on social media is increasing. This exposure makes them more likely to view more social media ads, some being from beauty influencers who claim that Drunk Elephant products are essential for clear skin.
This type of advertisement exposure among children is relatively new as traditional media platforms like television are regulated by the Federal Communications Commission to limit the number and types of ads that play during children’s media. Since social media is managed by private companies, much less is done to regulate advertising children view online, which can expose them to these ads intended for adults.
This exposure could likely be decreased if parents played a more active role in monitoring their children’s internet usage. However, avoiding deceitful marketing tactics is difficult to do online when they are so omnipresent. Even on websites intended for this age demographic, pervasive ads are likely to remain, and regardless, positive online platforms intended exclusively for the modern tweens are scarce the way it is.
Some may argue that children should not be exposed to social media—or even the internet—at all and should be interested in more age-appropriate stores and products, like how the tweens of 10 years ago still played with toys and shopped at Justice.
First, toys and stores for the tween age demographic are few and far between these days. Second, what many fail to realize is that expectations for what it means to be a tween are changing rapidly due to these technological advancements. Using social media is becoming increasingly necessary to maintain a social life or to avoid social stigma among peers, even though it is not necessarily an always healthy or safe place for children.
With spaces and platforms for tweens disappearing and social media becoming increasingly intertwined with youth culture, tweens are influenced to join teen and adult communities and participate in their trends to fit in, especially when peer pressure is combined with advertising. This can obviously be problematic and lead to situations like this one.
Although it may be annoying when children take over adult spaces or bothersome that they can be harming their skin, it is difficult to not to victimize them when so much of modern youth culture is now influenced by social media, which is dominated by adult influencers trying to make a profit. Sure, you can say there are a few young girls who act disorderly in stores (the parents are to blame for this one), but most young Sephora customers simply want to fit in and be seen as cool for owning a new popular product, as tweens always have, in a time in which being in this age demographic presents new expectations and challenges.
You can blame social media companies, influencers or parents, but stop being so harsh to the kids. Instead of mocking and bullying them, try being a positive influence and gently encourage safer choices and product selections, or better yet, just leave them alone.
