Victoria’s Secret Singer Jax Talks Barbie and TikTok Stardom

Jax has some recommendation for anybody seeking to make it on TikTok. “Don’t maintain again,” she tells POPSUGAR. “Actually, don’t maintain again.”

It is a lesson that took her a minute to be taught. “I spent my complete life as a songwriter with unfavorable {dollars} in my checking account, questioning why folks do not care,” she says. “And it is as a result of I held again in each approach. I listened to each whisper in my ear about what I ought to and should not be doing, what’s cool and what’s not cool, as an alternative of simply naturally doing what felt proper. The primary time issues began working for me was once I simply stopped caring and I did not maintain again, and I simply unapologetically posted my music.”

Since then, Jax has clearly taken her personal recommendation and run with it. Following the success of her 2022 hit “Victoria’s Secret,” the star’s profession has been on a fast upswing. She’s made a reputation for herself by making what’s basically protest pop, taking up every little thing from poisonous relationships to magnificence requirements in her infectious singles, and it is endeared her to an enormous neighborhood of followers.

She did not precisely got down to make protest music, although. “My intention as a songwriter is rarely a lot to be an activist as a lot as it’s to simply inform truths about what I’ve gone by means of,” she says. “After which, once I go away the studio, cross my fingers and hope that folks can relate.”

It actually appears to be working. She’s at present on tour with Huge Time Rush and is engaged on new music, together with a collaboration with Easy Plan — although within the midst of all of it, she’s discovered a while to chill out and have enjoyable. In July, she partnered with Malibu and launched a canopy of “Escape (The Piña Colada Music)” full with an infectiously summery music video. The mission was “just about the primary and solely time I acquired to hang around and do a pool get together this summer time,” she says, describing it as a “trip day proper earlier than I went on tour.” Nonetheless, the enjoyable hasn’t stopped fully. “Everybody on this tour bus has been ingesting Malibu your entire tour,” she laughs.

Jax additionally managed to carve out the time to see “Barbie” this summer time, and she or he observed quite a lot of parallels between the movie and “Victoria’s Secret.” “I felt prefer it was paralleling ‘Victoria’s Secret’ in so some ways,” she says. “I used to be questioning after they have been gonna handle ideas like cellulite with ‘Barbie,’ as a result of that broken quite a lot of children. I believe rising up, we idolized Barbie’s physique. Now, [in the “Barbie” movie], it is changed into — hey, you’ll be able to’t have a completely patriarchal society, and you’ll’t have a society actually run by anybody gender in any respect, ‘trigger it will not work both approach. That was one of many coolest metaphors I’ve seen in a film in a very long time.”

It is exhausting to not discover similarities between “Barbie” and Jax’s music, which additionally asks audiences to query restrictive social norms by sharing constructive messages in enjoyable packages. And like “Barbie,” Jax has additionally been accused of being virulently anti-man. “I’ve feedback on the web which might be like, ‘Do not blame males for issues,’ and ‘She hates males,'” she says. In the meantime, Jax notes, she’s engaged to a person she loves and trusts deeply. “It is all concerning the man you’ve got in your life,” she says, emphasizing that it is important to have a “companion that is gonna assist the belongings you do and raise you up and make you’re feeling particular in your work, your life, and in your physique.”

Just like the effectiveness of merely being herself on-line, Jax wasn’t at all times conscious of how vital it’s to remain true to herself in relationships. “I positively discovered to not change who I’m for not solely any man, however anybody ever,” she says. “And I discovered to not bend on points that I really feel enthusiastic about. Loads of instances I did that simply to get a man to love me, and I blew it.”

Now, the 27-year-old singer desires to encourage her followers to remain true to themselves as effectively. Jax has a faithful following on TikTok, and although at first she felt pressured to copy the viral success of “Victoria’s Secret,” she’s since leaned into the connection-based facet of the app. “I’ve sort of simply constructed a neighborhood of family and friends on the app, and I see it as essentially the most unbelievable technique to take a look at out new music and get a spotlight group of tens of millions of children to simply inform me whether or not or not they like my songs and if I ought to put them out or not,” she says.

Jax has been capable of meet a few of her followers at totally different tour stops and has even taken the time to collaborate with them on songs and movies in particular person, a course of that is typically given her a “spark that I wanted creatively” throughout the tiring touring course of.

Her digital success has additionally allowed her to assist different folks inform their tales. “Now I simply sort of get to have enjoyable and have different folks’s very distinctive tales on the app, particularly younger children. I’ve sort of taken on the position of honorary babysitter for all the children that wish to bounce on TikTok and write songs with me and inform their tales,” she says. “It has been lots much less about views and numbers. It is extra about how particular the app is for music and for telling tales that have not been heard but.”

In a panorama that always presents musicians bleak outcomes and few potentialities, Jax says, TikTok may also supply uncommon rays of sunshine. “I really feel prefer it’s saved extra lives than folks understand,” she provides, “particularly for songwriters and creatives which were hustling for no cash and lengthy hours their whole life . . . I believe the frequent consensus, at the very least amongst the songwriting neighborhood, is that this app actually modified everyone’s life for the higher.”

It is actually modified Jax’s life, elevating her from a struggling musician attempting to make it in Los Angeles to the place she is in the present day — and all as a result of she determined to cease holding again and letting others dictate the way in which she takes up area on this planet.

After all, TikTok accommodates its fair proportion of toxicity as effectively, however Jax additionally desires to remind followers that it is potential to curate their very own TikTok feeds, identical to it is potential to curate one’s personal self-image and perspective. “The web as a complete is at all times feeding you unrealistic expectations of what folks’s pores appear like and what their our bodies appear like,” she says. “Face-tuned filters, Photoshop, you title it. However with TikTok specifically, you’ll be able to practice your algorithm.” And ever since “Victoria’s Secret,” she says, her feed has been filled with physique positivity, with no filter in sight.

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