In an apology posted shortly after, Najjar attributed the older, fat-shaming tweets to her own insecurities as a 20-something. “I hated myself and had a bad relationship with my body,” she writes. “I tried on many hats, one of which was a mean tweeter to get a laugh.” The Cut noted at the time that her statement hadn’t addressed the 2020 political tweets, but Najjar did eventually in an Instagram AMA and does again in The Shift, blaming her mental state during lockdown. “It was a strange time, and I coped by doom scrolling, not realizing I was engaging with hurtful, harmful, and flat-out fake news content,” she writes. “I deserve to be taken to task for that. Adding to misinformation, xenophobic thought, or divisive rhetoric is inexcusable, and I will always be ashamed of what I did.”
But the scandal was already burning out of control. Followers expressed disappointment, saying the tweets showed a new side to Tinx that was different from the person they’d thought she was. Commenters on Reddit encouraged people to unfollow her en masse; TikTok creators posted videos declaring “I’m Unfollowing Tinx.” Some of the criticism was measured and thoughtful, and fans expressed real hurt that someone they admired would say those things. Others were more extreme. Najjar writes that people posted her home address online and threatened to kill her. Her position on the controversy is that while she deeply regrets what she said, she doesn’t think what she did warranted that level of vitriol. She feels frustrated that the flagged tweets could outweigh all the good things she feels she has said online.
“It was such a dark time,” she says. “Like, I honestly barely remember it. It was so bad. I just remember feeling I had no hope. I just wouldn’t have made it if it weren’t for my family. It was so, so hard.”
What pulled her out of it, she says, were her followers who stuck by her.
“I also got a lot of messages from my community saying, ‘We’re here for you. Please don’t take this to heart,’” she says. “It brought me so much closure in my community because it made me realize there are these wonderful people out there who care about me.”
That’s what has kept her going. Because Najjar isn’t just paying lip service to the idea of being a role model for young women and creating community; it is one of her truest and most deeply held goals. Her “life’s purpose,” she writes.
In reading The Shift, this is something about her that maybe stands out the clearest. Najjar has found deep fulfillment in trying to help other women find empowerment, and she feels intensely devoted to her community. The term parasocial relationship is often bandied about as a negative pejorative for crazy stans, but many people feel extremely connected to people they have only “met” through a screen, and can feel real, meaningful community. And as fulfilling as a parasocial relationship can be for the follower, it can be just as fulfilling for the creator. Taylor Swift gets just as much from the Swifties as they get from her, and Tinx describes her followers as “the reason I get up in the morning.” It’s what’s kept her moving forward in this career after so much backlash.
