Keira Cronin
Jules Hoffman fell into TikTok almost by accident.
They had been singing songs for kids for a few years with Ms Rachel, a creator with a huge following among parents of small children, before signing up. Then they saw their follower count spike last August when they finally made their own account.
"I just didn't expect it," Hoffman, who now has 165,000 followers on the app, told Insider. "As someone that doesn't like to be on their phone a lot."
Hoffman is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, which is they say is a source of pride but also comes with challenges.
"Unfortunately, because of my existence and who I am, being a non-binary trans person, there's already people that are just not going to like me," they said. "Because of something inside of them that makes them uncomfortable."
Hoffman sees their role as a musician for kids as two-fold. Sometimes they're singing a song about a crab that's just a bit of fun, and other times they try to incorporate harder topics they think are important to learn, such as bullying at school, or being brave when facing something scary like surgery. Some of the harder topics are given a little help by Hoffman's puppet sidekick Poppy.
"One of the songs that I'm proud of is the 'It's OK To Cry' song," Hoffman told Insider. "Because I still know so many young adults that are still told, stop crying, you're too sensitive."
But Hoffman finds themselves holding back from some of the deeper topics they want to tackle, because they want to "appeal to as many people as possible." They said they don't express some opinions that are important to them because they don't want to deal "with any of the backlash."
"With such a focus from the public eye, it causes me to be way more reserved than I normally would," they said.
At the end of February, Ms Rachel, whose real name is Rachel Griffin Accurso, said she was taking a step back from social media for a while.
"Hurtful videos and comments, no matter how much attention they get, will not bring you [what] you want," she captioned a TikTok announcing the break. "Only love can do that."
While Accurso did not reference anything specific, fans speculated that she was responding to comments about Hoffman and their identity as a non-binary trans person. One parent, named mama_burg, said in a TikTok she had to "stop watching" Accurso's content because she had introduced Hoffman's they/them pronouns.
At the time, Hoffman posted a video with Poppy, talking about kindness. They said they didn't know how to respond to everything, but wanted to teach kids about love and acceptance.
"Kids around us, they are absorbing and [look]ing to us for our responses, how we react, how we treat others," they said. "They remember what we say and what we believe and it can either bring them closer to us, to share their truest selves with us, or push them away."
Hoffman told Insider the main downside of having a big platform is the impact negativity can have on their mental health.
"My mental health has not been great since more of the attention has been on me," they said. "The love and support is real, but any constant flow, like good or bad, I can feel it."
Being in the public eye has given Hoffman some anxieties over what they should be sharing, especially as someone who is "very careful with my words," and "kind of a perfectionist."
"It becomes hard because I'm also a people pleaser," Hoffman said. "Like, I want everyone to like me."
Hoffman said they are still learning when they should reply and when to hold back, saying it can be exhausting to constantly defend their identity.
They said they often persist because their audience are mostly parents of young children who are "teaching the next generation."
"God forbid that child identifies as anything else than what their parents are dreaming of them to be," they said. "Which even goes beyond gender — it's like, well, I thought you were going to play football and you want to do ballet."
Hoffman's songs are primarily for children, but their presence as an adult is important for parents too, they said. They said they hope parents who "don't fit what we've been taught mom and dad look like" can see someone who represents who they are."
They also want kids who may feel a little different to their peers to see that they are an adult who is happy and gets to "exist in the way that I want to," they said.
"So that they can too, whatever that looks like."
