The Problem With Tweek Tweak
There has been an almost four year long problem now in the fandom regarding Tweek. This is not a personal problem, this is a serious issue with the fandom that I feel needs to be addressed.
Get ready for a long post, because this will address a lot of issues that the fandom has been dealing with, and I feel anybody who likes Tweek Tweak as a character should take a glance at this post.
Tweek is a lot of people’s favorite characters (including mine!). He can be relatable, is a good example of anxiety and other mental health disorders, and he’s a character that’s got a lot of characterization ahead of him.
You can tell from his room that he has a variety of interests, ranging from cars and legos to tanks and warplane figurines. He is a character that has a lot of subtle characterization, that I’m sure a lot of people enjoy.
And he has not been a point of focus in the fandom in a very long time up until a few years ago. It’s great that he’s getting more focus now! But people are not doing it in a good way.
Ever since Tweek X Craig, a majority of the fandom has treated Tweek like he is not his own character, through and through. They have treated him like an accessory to Craig, and seldom do I ever see a piece of fan art anymore that involves just Tweek, but not Craig. Or, just Tweek, and nobody else, for that matter. It seems as though people like to use him exclusively for shipping, and almost every time they do, he seems to be… not so much like himself.
To get to the point, the South Park fandom has a very, very terrifying characterization of Tweek Tweak that is borderline infantilization. By this, I mean people have warped him into this character with little to no depth beyond being anxious, small, and weak. And I feel like a lot of people need a serious wake up call.
Tweek has been on the show for a very long time, and while he doesn’t have too much focus past his time in season 6 and much more recently in a couple of his own episodes, he still has clues to who he is as a character.
Tweek has not hesitated to hurt people.
He has not hesitated to threaten people.
He has not hesitated to become offended by rude accusations.
And he has never, ever hesitated to speak his own mind.
Adding your own characterization to your favorite character is not an inherently bad thing, and neither is self projection. People enjoy characters that they can feel they relate to, and that they find interesting. People can develop on characters where they feel the original creator has left out on.
However, there is a difference between self-projection and head-canons, and infantilization in a character.
The issue with a lot of the fandom in the last few years is that they have chosen specifically Tweek, specifically the only main cast character to have a canon, healthy, gay relationship, and turned him into a walking “cute smol baby” caricature. People give him overly feminine traits, reduce his character to nothing, and make him reliant on another person. None of which on it’s own is an inherently bad thing (except maybe reducing a character ooc levels of characterization), but when they’re all put together, on one of the only gay characters that has not been over-sexualized and feminized, it creates a rather ugly problem.
There is no one way to head canon a character, and no one way on how to see a character. You can give a character feminine traits if you head canon it. You can give the character happiness and joy in their on self-expression. There is no rule against drawing a character with your own head canons, ever.
And this definitely does not apply to Tweek Tweak as he is canon in the show. This applies to when people age up the characters, and somehow decide to make Tweek act and look younger than his canon 10 y/o self. It is alarmingly p/d/philic, in a way. Perhaps not on his own. If you draw every character you age up as small, cute, and shy, that’s when it’s fine. When you pick a male character who is in a relationship with another male, and twist him into a cookie cutter trope of a cute, small, overly feminine child, that is when it gets very concerning.
Height differences are one major problem. Honestly, this can apply to so many other ships in the fandom it’s not even really funny, but this post is focusing on Tweek, so we’ll stick to Tweek. Height differences aren’t bad. But the level of difference where it’s not even realistic, that’s a pretty unhealthy way of interpreting a relationship.
The moment you draw Tweek appearing as tiny, cute, small, and covered in colorful, cutesy things, and then turn around and draw Craig as tall, manly, protective and hardened, you’ve made a mistake of infantilizing Tweek. A very unhealthy way to portray the only actually healthy gay couple in the canon universe.
The moment you characterize Tweek to cling and hide behind his boyfriend, rather than act how he probably would in the show, you’re portraying him as weak and defenseless and useless, compared to his boyfriend, which is an unhealthy way to portray him and his relationship.
And by the point it gets to this kind of characterization… I shouldn’t even have to explain how that’s down right wrong.
These kinds of issues have run rampant in the fandom for a handful of years now, and it just so happens that there are many new people who have joined in over the years. A lot of people who haven’t seen all of the episodes yet, or only join in because they like the characters. A lot of people who are impressionable, and will think that this characterization is okay. And when the fandom is flooded with aged up 10 y/o characters, that are only aged up just to create a p/d/philic image of them, that is a problem.
It’s an issue I think should be addressed, and I believe people should sit back and think about how they are drawing Tweek, and how they head-canon him. If you believe Tweek is a shy, gentle, and cutesy character to the core, I implore you to look at him again.
TL;DR: The infantilization of Tweek in the fandom is a gross attack on one of the only healthily portrayed gay-coded characters in the fandom, and you should re-evaluate how you view Tweek if you think that’s fine.
