Today we’d like to introduce you to Jaeden Lincoln.
Hi Jaeden, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I grew up in a small town in GA. In the area where I’m from, being different is not really the hot take. People expect everyone to be the same and fall into the social “norms”. But the question that has always followed me is what is normal? The town I’m from is sports-based, meaning if you did anything other than sports you weren’t really important.
But I always knew I was meant to be someone important. While other “normal” guys were playing football, I wanted to be on stage. During my time growing up, I held on to one of the biggest secrets that were part of me, that I am gay. What made living my truth so hard is that in the town I was raised people like that were looked down upon or shunned and I didn’t want that. Then, I moved to college where I found myself. The rode of self-love was far from easy but not impossible. I then started tik tok around 2020 when covid hit.
In the stillness and the boredom, that’s when my creativity hit the most. I then had a viral video in the first month I had TikTok. It was a cool feeling and I then thought to myself I could do so much more. I kept posting and posting and grew following over time. During my time of my growing up, I wanted to post things that made people laugh or made people just be comfortable and confident with who they are. Now in 2022, I have over 100 thousand followers who I look at no differently than family.
For someone who is just looking at my page, they may think “Wow, he’s so brave” but in reality, it took a long time to get to the point where I could look myself in the mirror and say I love every single part of me. I want to be an advocate for kids in a similar situation as me.
Being apart of the lgbtq+ community is something truly magical and if you are one of those scared kids who just wanna be accepted I want them to know that they have a whole community on their side. Also, teach them it’s okay to not be ready and it’s okay to be scared and that one day they will get to that point where they let everything go and live.
And most importantly let everything go and love.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The road was definitely bumpy, crooked, swerved, upwards, downwards, sideways you name it. In middle school and high school, I got bullied a lot. By students and teachers. Growing up, I’ve always had a big personality and for a guy in my area, they would be labeled as gay.
That is probably one of the most traumatizing things as a young child just trying to be a kid is when people put a label on you before you even get the chance to put the label on yourself. I’ve had male teachers make jokes about me with other students or to other teachers. I’ve had students call me different names that aren’t very LGBTQ-friendly. Also when I got into high school alot of the guys weren’t huge fans of me so I never really got to experience “hanging out with the bros” but maybe that was a good thing lol.
Then, when I went to college and started posting on TikTok and being more open about being gay that’s when family members came into play. People who are my own blood were saying all types of things to people about me and most importantly my parents. What made it worse was that my parents did not know I was gay yet.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
For right now I am an influencer but I would soon love to fulfill my dreams of being an actor. On my TikTok page, I mainly create fun content that people can relate to.
I also am a singer and have released a song that streams on every streaming service and will soon be making more music. My proudest moment honestly was hitting 100k on TikTok. In 2021, I made a new years resolution that I would have a video to hit a million likes and B hit 100k.
I posted all throughout the year trying my hardest to reach the goal. I reached the goal before the next New Year and achieved goal B a little after the New Year. What sets me apart from others is my personality, my fearlessness, the fact that I know who I am, and that I give people the confidence to love themselves.
Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
People can collaborate or work with me by either email, DM, or just by commenting on one of my posts. People can support me by following my TikTok and my Instagram. My Instagram username is @j._.link and my TikTok username is @j_link02.
Contact Info:
- Email: Jaedenlink123@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/j._.link/
Image Credits
@__jasonmassie__, @thecristianlacot, @thearietaylor, @naomistrauss, and @rodneyyyt
