Ever since TikTok gained rapid popularity in the latter half of the 2010s, the platform has served as a space for people to discover new music and for artists to present their work to a wider audience.
For instance, Chappell Roan blew up in the spring of 2024 after her song “Good Luck, Babe” started gaining traction on the app. Sabrina Carpenter prior to 2023 had always been somewhat of a B or C-list celebrity thanks to her acting career and several studio albums, but she skyrocketed to new heights after opening for Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour” thanks to people posting clips of her performing.
Now in 2025 we have sombr, or Shane Miachel Boose, who captivated TikTok with his “deep-cutting” songs about love and heartbreak.
Personally I think his songs sound like Instagram poetry, but that’s not the focus of this article.
He’s accrued over 57 million monthly listeners on Spotify and currently sits at #35 in the world on the platform. His breakout hit “back to friends” has over one billion streams on Spotify, practically unheard of for an artist with only one studio album.
Of course, the logical next move for an artist growing at a near exponential rate would be to tour his album. “The Late Nights and Young Romance Tour” kicked off in Europe in the summer before heading over to North America in the fall.
At his show in Washington, D.C., a young woman named Meg attended his concert. Two days later, she made an eight and a half minute video about her experience on TikTok.
The most serious point that Meg brought up was sombr acting strangely to his audience consisting mostly of pre-teen girls, by making sexual jokes and openly discussing sexual behavior.
The video included some minor complaints. Such as the pre-teens in the audience lacking concert decorum, the opener being a bad performer and sombr himself lacking stage presence. She also made one off-handed remark about sombr looking awkward dancing around on stage, calling him “cringe” and saying he looks like Slenderman.
The video immediately gained traction, currently sitting at 6.4 million views and sparking an overall discussion about the situation.
For a budding celebrity like sombr, who clearly lacks a PR team, the next logical move was obvious: make a response video.
In his response, sombr makes a strawman out of Meg’s video, blowing her comments out of proportion. If you watched his video solely with no context, you would think Meg spent eight minutes finding different ways to call him ugly.
He also completely ignores the most serious part of her video, which called out his inappropriate behavior around children.
We could go on and on about who’s right and who’s wrong, but that’s already been discussed to death. However, what I find to be the most fascinating part of this entire situation is the lack of awareness sombr has about what it means to be a public figure.
An individual deciding to be a celebrity means they want people to talk about them, admire them and follow their career. What celebrities don’t realize about this, until something like this situation happens, is that you don’t get to choose what people are saying about you.
There used to be a barrier between celebrities and “ordinary people.” For years, the only idea celebrities could get about what the general public was saying about them was through tabloids and paparazzi. Even if they wanted to respond, they’d have to reach out to a source and give a publicist approved quote.
Now, with the height of social media, famous people are more accessible than ever, and ordinary people, and our opinions, are more accessible than ever. All sombr had to do was scroll on his phone to see Meg critiquing his concert and performance. All sombr had to do to respond was hold his phone and talk.
That immediacy has erased the buffer that once forced celebrities to think before they spoke.
Now, as a human being, I can understand that it doesn’t feel good to have someone critique music and a performance you spent so much time and effort putting together. However, as a public figure, sombr has a certain responsibility the average person does not.
His fanbase is now attacking Meg and people who vocally support her. Clearly exemplifying that when you are a celebrity, you can’t go around saying anything because your words now hold more weight.
Being a public figure means opening yourself up to public criticism. The moment you sell someone a concert ticket, you are giving them permission to talk, positively or negatively, about the experience they spent hard-earned money on.
At the end of the day, I hope this experience serves as a harsh lesson for sombr; despite his questionable lyrics, I do see the budding talent in his relatability and a singing voice that shows promise.
