mxmtoon plays a charming show at the Great American Music Hall

Oakland native mxmtoon, aka Maia, played a sold-out show at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco this Halloween. The show, framed by an intimate venue, featured many of the songs from Maia’s debut album, the masquerade (2019)—a lo-fi ode to Maia’s emotions, with charmingly simple lyrics and acoustic versions of all ten songs.

I first discovered Maia the same way I’m sure many of her now-fans did: through social media. On Twitter, where I found Maia through a quirky video about being mixed-race, she boasts more than 100,000 followers and tweets an average of seven times a day. However, the singer is even more popular on TikTok — an app known for its Vine-like tendencies and wide usage among the members of Gen Z — with more than a million followers and 37 million likes on her videos.

When I came across Maia’s profile, I was struck by its similarity to that of Lil Nas X, known for his creation and popularization of the viral song “Old Town Road.” Through his six-figure follower base on Twitter and the transformation of his song into a meme on TikTok, Lil Nas X was able to gain a critical mass on social media, which quickly became an unstoppable force and propelled “Old Town Road” to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for a record-breaking 19 weeks.

Maia, similarly, uses the force of her social media presence to drive her music career forward; although she’ll post on TikTok and Twitter about her music and shows, these posts are scattered among jokes about therapy, pictures of her makeup, and relatable videos about her daily life. For example, one of my favorite videos from Maia is a self-deprecating TikTok poking fun at “catch[ing] feelings for someone.” mxmtoon and Lil Nas X are just two examples of a new type of celebrity, a cult of personality of sorts, who have achieved their following on social media. Unlike a traditional celebrity, Maia is transparent on social media, giving fans a coveted look into her daily life and sense of humor. To her followers, it feels like Maia is a friend, not just another celebrity.

Maia’s show last Thursday maintained this sense of closeness and intimacy. She made lots of inside jokes related to her social media throughout the set, and fans seemed unafraid to interact with the singer onstage. Although mxmtoon doesn’t have a particularly long discography, she chose a great selection of songs and played a short and sweet set. I loved Maia’s melodious voice and ukulele strumming, and the rest of the audience seemed to agree. During “i feel like chet”, Maia asked the audience to sing the supporting lines in the song and we happily obliged, again proving her unfiltered connection with her base. Perhaps most fun was Maia’s performance of “prom dress”, the first single from the masquerade, during which Maia stopped the music briefly to perform a parody of the song popularized on TikTok.

I love that the show’s personality was uniquely Maia, from the costume she wore onstage for Halloween to her jokes and banter throughout. If you’re looking for a new favorite artist or social media personality to check out, I would highly recommend mxmtoon; from her Twitter to her music, Maia’s personality constantly shines through.