Jax has some recommendation for anybody trying 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 detrimental {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 method. 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 over the whole lot from poisonous relationships to magnificence requirements in her infectious singles, and it is endeared her to an enormous group 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 via,” she says. “After which, once I go away the studio, cross my fingers and hope that individuals can relate.”

It definitely 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 loosen up and have enjoyable. In July, she partnered with Malibu and launched a canopy of “Escape (The Piña Colada Tune)” full with an infectiously summery music video. The challenge was “just about the primary and solely time I received to hang around and do a pool celebration 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 the complete tour,” she laughs.

Jax additionally managed to carve out the time to see “Barbie” this summer time, and she or he observed a whole 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 had been gonna tackle ideas like cellulite with ‘Barbie,’ as a result of that broken a whole lot of youngsters. I feel rising up, we idolized Barbie’s physique. Now, [in the “Barbie” movie], it is become — 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 method. That was one of many coolest metaphors I’ve seen in a film in a very long time.”

It is onerous 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 in regards to the man you’ve gotten in your life,” she says, emphasizing that it is important to have a “accomplice that is gonna help the belongings you do and carry 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 necessary it’s to remain true to herself in relationships. “I undoubtedly 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. A whole lot of occasions I did that simply to get a man to love me, and I blew it.”

Now, the 27-year-old singer needs to encourage her followers to remain true to themselves as nicely. 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 side of the app. “I’ve sort of simply constructed a group of family and friends on the app, and I see it as probably the most unimaginable option to take a look at out new music and get a spotlight group of thousands and thousands of youngsters 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 in a position to meet a few of her followers at completely 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 youngsters. I’ve sort of taken on the position of honorary babysitter for all the children that wish to leap on TikTok and write songs with me and inform their tales,” she says. “It has been so much 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 usually affords musicians bleak outcomes and few potentialities, Jax says, TikTok may supply uncommon rays of sunshine. “I really feel prefer it’s saved extra lives than folks notice,” she provides, “particularly for songwriters and creatives which were hustling for no cash and lengthy hours their total life . . . I feel the widespread consensus, not less than amongst the songwriting group, is that this app actually modified everyone’s life for the higher.”

It is definitely modified Jax’s life, elevating her from a struggling musician making an attempt to make it in Los Angeles to the place she is as we speak — and all as a result of she determined to cease holding again and letting others dictate the best way she takes up house on the earth.

After all, TikTok comprises its fair proportion of toxicity as nicely, however Jax additionally needs to remind followers that it is attainable to curate their very own TikTok feeds, similar to it is attainable to curate one’s personal self-image and perspective. “The web as an entire 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 particularly, you’ll be able to practice your algorithm.” And ever since “Victoria’s Secret,” she says, her feed has been stuffed with physique positivity, with no filter in sight.

POPSUGAR and Malibu encourage accountable ingesting and just for customers 21 years of age and older.