How Old is Steven Universe Suppose to Be?

I was thinking about this the other day and I kept looking around for all sorts of information because some things just never added up.  Just how old is Steven?

The common answer I get is “between 10 and 12” based on his physical size and behavior, but there’s a flaw in that logic.  It’s not a crippling flaw, but it is a flaw.  In the episode “So Many Birthdays” we discover that Steven can subconsciously alter his physical age and mental state by “thinking” of himself as being older.  This is likely tied into the Crystal Gem’s latent shape shifting abilities, but it pokes a hole in the theory that his age can be estimated by his physical appearance.

Now skip ahead to “Lion 3: Straight to Video” where we really get to see Rose and Greg together.  This is important; I’ll come back to it shortly.

In “Alone Together” we have a flashback where Greg tells Steven about the first time he witnessed Gem fusion.  In that sequence everything about the attire to the technology available screams “1980’s”.  Later in “Story for Steven” we see in a flashback Greg meet Rose and the Gems for the first time.  Given the limited view of the technology presented in the scene, and the attire adopted by the Gems, this looks to be about the mid to late 1980’s.  So we’ve now seen in flashback the blossoming of Rose and Greg’s relationship and given that there is little to no visual change between the events of “Story” and “Alone” we can assume this took place over a matter of months to less than a year.

Let’s go back to “Lion 3”.  Visually, Greg and Rose don’t look that different from how they are presented in “Story” and “Alone”, meaning little time has passed since those events.  Rose indicates that Steven will be born soon and she is leaving this message on a VHS tape which was the media of choice of the late 1980s to early 1990’s, which would place Steven’s birth right around 1991-1993.

That place’s Steven’s age somewhere in his early to mid 20’s.

Now the obvious question is: Wouldn’t someone in Beach City notice that Steven never ages?

No really.  He hangs out with the Crystal Gems most of the time, and there is no telling how long he was doing that before he ever tried to integrate into Beach City society.  This is however somewhat supported by Greg’s appearance.

Greg looks to be in his mid 20’s during the flashbacks, and probably about 45-50ish in the modern era, which leaves a huge gap.  It’s one thing for someone to change drastically on a physical level between 20-30, but it’s more reasonable for that much physical change to happen over two decades of life on a beach.

I’ll grant that this theory hinges on one major assumption: that time in the Steven Universe reality is concurrent with our own and that fashions and technology have changed and advanced in respect to their era for our time.

Rebecca Sugar strikes me as someone who never wastes space on the screen.  Background characters come to the forefront all the time and little details are put in set pieces for a reason.  So Steven could have lived the last ten years as a pre-teen, a veritable Peter Pan of the Crystal Gems, but looking at the whole, does that really matter?

Yes, I’ve let my mind buzz on the topic, but it really boils down to “How old is Steven?” as old as he feels.  It doesn’t matter if he’s 12 or 22 or if he lives to be 122 because he’s going to be the person he wants to be.  Let’s face it, if you could have lived out a few more years as a pre-teen, wouldn’t you?

Thanks for reading.