Hell, HUNTR/X even performed at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, where two of the movie’s characters got their own balloons. KPop Demon Hunters is everywhere — and its incredible success is a sign that tween girl culture is making a comeback.
As a millennial, I grew up in a golden era for tweenage girl culture. Lizzie McGuire was the queen of the Disney Channel, Barbie was being cast aside in favor of the cooler, more controversial Bratz doll, and popular tunes from tween-focused girl groups like Dream were being piped into clothing stores like Limited Too, a spin-off of The Limited aimed at the 9- to 13-year-old girl demographic.
But as social media has increasingly taken over the internet, tween girl culture has largely died out. Advertisers make more money marketing to young children (whose parents have spending power) and older teens/young adults (who also have spending power) than they make by marketing to not-quite-teenage girls who may or may not have allowances. This puts pressure on studios to create content aimed at those demographics, and away from tween girls. As a result, the border between “kid” and “teenager” has started to disappear, and algorithms have begun pushing young adult culture into young children’s feeds. Tweens are gone, replaced by the Sephora Kid.
But KPop Demon Hunters’ success has me wondering if that’s about to change. When the movie first landed on Netflix, I wrote it off as yet another kids’ movie. I assumed that Netflix’s new juggernaut of a sing-along was basically Frozen, but for K-Pop stans instead of theater kids. And although KPop Demon Hunters is undoubtedly popular with kids (as evidenced by all the little Rumis, Miras, and Zoeys I saw trick-or-treating this year), it isn’t just popular with kids. It’s also popular with tweens, teens, and K-Pop fans — who are largely young adults. If KPop Demon Hunters was only aimed at kids, it wouldn’t have spent the last six months topping international music charts.
HUNTR/X’s members are way edgier-looking than Frozen’s Elsa and Anna. They don’t sing about how hard life is when you’re a magical princess, they sing about things the pre-teen crowd can actually relate to. Rumi deals with insecurity over her changing voice and body, Mira struggles with her reputation as a “problem child,” and Zoey learns to balance out her excessive people-pleasing tendencies. But they’re still aspirational figures: The trio of protagonists live a Hannah Montana-meets-Kim-Possible double life (K-Pop idols by day, demon-hunting badasses by night), running around in really cool outfits, wielding really cool weapons, and beating the crap out of really cool-looking demons. The movie’s “be yourself” message is a little generic, but its focus on maintaining healthy female friendships is still frustratingly rare in media, and I hope we see more of it in content aimed at the younger crowd.
Not unlike Bratz dolls, Rumi, Mira, and Zoey have also stirred up a little controversy among some parents. KPop Demon Hunters features the perfect combination of ingredients to capture the tween imagination: music, angst, a uniquely pre-teen goofiness, and just a hint of not-for-parents edginess. In a world where algorithms are feeding 8-year-olds anti-aging skincare tips, HUNTR/X is exactly what we need to counteract the onslaught of short-form brain-rot that has largely filled the void in the absence of content tailor-made for tweens.
The movie’s runaway success has proven without a doubt that tween girls are still a profitable demographic worth catering to — a lesson that’s bound to have an effect on the notoriously imitative media field, where producers and studios are always ready to green-light whatever looks most like a recent big success. A KPop Demon Hunters sequel is currently in the works, and talks are underway about a TV series as well, so I’m hoping the franchise’s continued success paves the way for more high-quality long-form content aimed at tweens — especially tween girls.
While I can’t predict the future, it does feel like the tides are beginning to turn. Last year, my 7-year-old niece asked for a Sephora gift card for Christmas. This year, she’s 8, and she wants a Rumi costume, which is a bit of a gift for me, too. Watching her re-enact demon battles and practice her “Golden” rendition feels a lot healthier than watching her smear lotion on her face while pretending to narrate a skin-care routine for TikTok.
