| Tweek Tweak | |
|---|---|
| |
| Character Information | |
| Gender | Male |
| Age | 10 |
| Hair | Short, Spiky, Blond |
| Occupation | Student |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
| Appearances | |
| Debut Episode/Fic | "Gnomes" |
Tweek Tweak is a boy in the fourth grade class of South Park Elementary in South Park. He replaced Kenny during his temporary removal in the sixth season. He is also a member of Craig and Those Guys.
He is well-known as a fan favorite but did not have much exposure or development between the sixth and nineteenth seasons, though he continued to appear in video games and merchandising during this period.
Please visit his article on the South Park Archives for more information.
Appearance
Tweek has blond hair that unusually messy, because he pulls at it when stressed, and wears an incorrectly-buttoned green shirt with blue jeans.
Personality
Tweek on the SP-site
Tweek is a jittery ten year old boy, addicted to caffeine and suffers from ADD. He seems to have very bad anxiety caused by constantly drinking so much caffeine - especially at such a young age. He is always seen shaking, twitching and looking around frantically. He constantly feels like he's "under pressure", and freaks out whenever he is asked to do even the simplest tasks and jumps or yells whenever someone comes up to him to talk to him, and tends to scream at the end of his sentences.
Fanon and Fandom
Since his introduction in 1998, Tweek has historically been one of the most popular child characters in the South Park fandom and one of the most common focuses in fanfics outside the main boys, though he only spoke in a handful of episodes owing to how difficult his voice is for Matt Stone to perform.
When Butters Stotch became the fourth main character of the series, many fans were disappointed in the decision to replace Kenny with him, and while some fan petitions called for Kenny to be outright brought back, there were some petitions putting forward Tweek as the fourth friend instead. It is not believed these influenced the subsequent decision for Tweek to play the boys' new fourth friend in the subsequent six-episode run, where he received significant development and focus.
During the mid-2000s as Creek, the romantic relationship between him and Craig Tucker became prominent in fan culture, though the two characters only had one definitive, speaking interaction onscreen, but the popularity of the ship often lead to portrayal where Tweek was often portrayed as extremely weak, submissive, with an exaggerated anxiety that rendered hm barely capable of functioning and often completely helpless to the actions of others, lacking much agency unless Craig was present to protect him or provide comfort. In dark fic, he was often raped or committed suicide, or occasionally suffered from serious addictions. He was also often associated with feminine behaviors such as cooking and cleaning in contrast to the masculine Craig.
He was largely reduced to background roles between the tenth and seventeenth seasons in particular, a span of over one hundred episodes with only one speaking appearance, during which it became increasingly popular for fans to look for him in the background and often assess whether he was close to Craig in particular, though he was also often seen with Jason White.
In the early 2010s, Craig and Those Guys became a more prominent part of fanlore which lead to not only further exploration of Tweek's fanon relationship with Craig, but also developing possible connections between him and Clyde Donovan and Tolkien Black in order to build a fuller group dynamic between the four characters. Jimmy Valmer was also gradually brought into the fold to match his increased role in the series, particularly on Tumblr.
The video game South Park: The Stick of Truth and the release of "Tweek x Craig" brought major renewed attention to the character, canonizing his romantic relationship with Craig and suggesting that he may be drinking caffeine laced with methamphetamine. This lead to an increase in portrayals of a "feral" Tweek who is often angry, sniffs glue, gnaws on people's legs, and commits other animistic behavior, intended as a direct contrast to the "uWU softboy Tweek" stereotype described above. This portrayal sometimes leans far deeper into real life addiction as well to correlate with these behaviors. Feral Tweek became particularly popular on Twitter.
As of the 2020s, Tweek's popularity remains high in fandom, though it has seen an increase in pushback in venues such as the Official South Park Discord and social media, due to the false perception his popularity is a result of people overlooking or misunderstanding his "meth addiction" or that his popularity is a result of his relationship with Craig, both of which are disprove by his high popularity well before those aspects of his character were introduced.
