Super Bowl Sunday at SoFi stadium in Los Angeles felt like the Met Gala, or at least a night at the hotspot Craig’s. Justin and Hailey Bieber shared guac with Kendall Jenner and her Phoenix Suns star boyfriend Devin Booker. Drake put $1.25 million on the Rams, and Ben Affleck and J. Lo packed on the PDA. Prince Harry hung out with his cousin Princess Eugenie. But then a voice rose above the whispers about whether Kanye could even see the field through his full-face mask: “Oh my God, Tinx!”
Baited to a suite by the promise of tequila shots and shrimp, 31-year-old TikToker Christina Najjar — better known to her followers as Tinx — ended up befriending the owner of said voice, one of her 1.5 million fans on TikTok.
“I spent the entire game with her. I’d never met her before in my life. I took a date, and I literally barely spoke to him because I was just vibing with my follower so much,” Tinx told The Post. “We were still texting yesterday. That rapport people feel with me, that relationship I have with my followers — it’s all completely real.”
Tinx’s schtick is that she’s relatable. She downloaded TikTok for the first time during the first pandemic lockdown, out of “boredom-slash-depression-slash-despair,” just like millions of other people. At the time, she was “a writer — an out-of-work one, more specifically” in LA. Nine days later, a video of her trying out a Kardashian-favorite salad at Health Nut randomly amassed 2.2 million views.
While Tinx’s overnight success is certainly unique, it didn’t happen because she’s so much better than anyone else. According to Tinx, “The age of the perfect Instagram grid, not being vulnerable, only showing your rock-hard abs… it’s over. And it’s over because, firstly, it’s not real, so it’s not captivating. And secondly, people just don’t have the appetite for it anymore.
“I don’t want to see a girl who I could never look like, who never has a hair out of place, who has a perfect relationship and a perfect boyfriend and a perfect house and a perfect dog,” she said. “I’m happy for her, but that’s not what I want my Instagram feed to look like. I don’t find it interesting, and I don’t find any value in it.”
So she films videos in under-eye masks and towel turbans. She posts bloopers, shot accidentally when she didn’t realize her phone was still recording. She inhales breakfast burritos within mere inches of the nearest camera.
At 31, Tinx has earned the title of “TikTok’s big sister” — as Bustle recently put it, the new “Agony Aunt” — speaking to a generation of younger women, offering advice on dating and dealing with issues like anxiety and online trolls, while also making in-the-know parody videos of “rich mom” types in America’s wealthiest enclaves (though she’s not a mom herself).
The “rich mom of Southampton” is jokingly categorized by Tinx as owning Hermés sandals in every color — “not only because they’re expensive, but also because, like most wasps, you have no sense of personal style.” The Hollywood Hills version loves a totally ridiculous house that “screams OnlyFans Airbnb rental” and gets her hair done before working out. The prototypical rich mom of Tribeca is a fan of $2,000 strollers (“for your nanny…duh”) and Ganni sweaters (“so that everybody knows you’re a cool mom who understands Scandinavian fashion”).
Women who actually are rich moms eat it up, leaving lots of “It me” and “This hits close to home” comments. Tinx even attracted the attention of one famous rich mom.
“One day, my followers were like, ‘Um, have you noticed that Gwyneth Paltrow is following you?’ And I was like, ‘Oh. My. F–king. God.’ “I have been a superfan of hers forever. Like, obsessed, ever since I was young,” said Tinx. “I love Goop, I had tried a lot of their products, and I had naturally spoken about them online. So I was talking to Goop about something else, and I was like, ‘Do you think Gwyneth would ever do a Rich Mom with me?’ And they were like, ‘One second … Yeah, she’s totally into it.’”
The two filmed a “rich mom of Brentwood” video — winkingly detailing the “starter pack” one would need to fit it — with Tinx explaining, “Nab a modern farmhouse just north of Sunset with a G-wagon already parked in the driveway.”
“Actually, Tinx, we’re doing Teslas now,” Paltrow corrects her.
“Right, right, the environment.”
“No,” Paltrow sighs, “we’re all friends with Elon.”
Looking back on it, Tinx told The Post, “She’s the queen of rich moms. So it was genuinely the best day of my life. She’s so cool, so in on the joke … and best of all, she held the mini mic.”
Tinx made the mini-mic famous, holding it slightly too close to her mouth while she talks so fast it’s almost hard to keep up — she nearly cuts off her last thought as she rushes into the next, editing with a choppy, amateurish technique that’s become a TikTok staple. It’s deceptively casual, but there’s strategy behind it.
“It’s something that really used to bother me — that people didn’t know how hard I worked,” Tinx said. “People love to beat up on influencers … I was speaking to my friend Lauren Bostick [the influencer behind The Skinny Confidential podcast and social media], and she was like, ‘If people think your life is easy, you’re making it look easy. And in that case, props to you.’ Because that’s an even higher level of execution — if people just think that you’re eating bonbons all day, then you’re actually doing your job really, really well.”
Tinx was born in Washington, DC, grew up in London, studied at Stanford and later moved around a lot, from San Francisco to New York to Los Angeles, where she lives now. “I think, because of that, I was always really interested in what makes a place a place,” she said of what’s influenced her location-centric videos. “There’s so much focus on these cities. I just really liked them, and I was interested in what made New York the best city in the world, for example.”
After college, she worked in fashion merchandising at Gap before trying her hand at writing for magazines. She was, as she told Bustle, “a freelance writer and creative consultant, which is a nice way of saying I was unemployed” when she started making videos.
Now, Tinx is signed with mega talent agency WME, home to such stars as Matt Damon, Christian Bale and Michelle Williams.
As Tinx’s popularity skyrockets, there’s pressure to perform. “Every day that goes forward, I’m so grateful — but the stakes get higher,” she said. To keep up with demand, she’s sold “Rich Mom” sweatshirts, and partnered with brands like Chipotle and Erewhon to design limited-edition menu items. Up next: “The podcast.”
Episodes of “It’s Me, Tinx,” which launched a week ago, will cover the topics she already talks about online, packaged into two 20-minute episodes per week. “I want people to be able to pop my podcast like M&Ms. I don’t want it to ever feel like homework,” she said. “Listen while you’re on a rich mom walk, getting ready for a date…whatever it is.”
Of course, there are a few more personal things Tinx keeps close to the vest. Early in her TikTok career, she divulged intimate details of her romantic relationships, which she admits “was very fun for a while.” But, she added, “I have taken a step back from talking about my dating life. It’s partially just growing up a little bit, and it’s partially because I don’t think it’s that good for me, personally, to be adding that layer of stress to my life.” Despite rumors linking her to DJ Diplo, Tinx seems to be single and dating.
Still, she said, she can’t worry too much about what she puts out there. “Most of the time I’m just posting off the cuff, and that’s when you make mistakes. I post, in some form, 50 times a day. Of course I’m gonna screw up.” She recalled how Jessica Alba recently posted the lyrics to JAY-Z’s song “Sweet” on Instagram and it really resonated with her: “Couple mistakes here and there/ Not always right/ But I’m always real/ That’s how I sleep at night.”
Said Tinx: “I’d rather f–k up and say ‘sorry’ a few times than over-filter myself.”
Photos: Tamara Beckwith/NY Post; Elise Sandvik w/SeeMGMT; Hair: Glenn Ellis; Makeup: Taylor Fitzgerald; Stylist Assistant: Karoline Spenning; Location: Magic Hour Rooftop at Moxy Times Square.
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