Pop-Culturalist.com

When Coco Jones isn’t crushing the music scene or slaying her latest role, she’s using her platform to bring awareness to causes near and dear to her heart. Recently, she’s teamed up with DoSomething and truth® for a new emoji compatibility quiz called “Who Has Their Eye on You?” to show teens how Big Tobacco companies are vying for their attention. Pop Culturalist sat down with her to chat about the campaign.

PC: Tell us how you got involved with this campaign.
Coco: DoSomething approached me and my team and wanted to see if the campaign would inspire me in any way. When I first read about it and read everything they were proposing to do with me, I was super on-board because I really liked the message.

PC: Have any fans reached out and shared their stories after taking the quiz?
Coco: A lot of people have been supporting the movement when it comes to my social media and sending retweets and hashtags and everything like that. I think that’s amazing—just to share the information more. A lot of people have been really inspired by the campaign.

PC: Was there one thing in particular that hit home for you that made you want to be involved with it?
Coco: I always want to share knowledge that’s beneficial to this generation, and I feel like I’ve been given this platform for a reason. When DoSomething approached me with the idea, for me, it was just a part of who I am and my goal as a singer, as a ‘ celebrity’—I do not like that word—but my goal is to always inform the people watching me and to help them.

PC: Have you always been this passionate about promoting social causes?
Coco: I have! For me, before I had people following me and had this big social media fan base, I’ve been a big sister and I’ve always wanted my little siblings to see me as, ‘Okay, if she’s living like that, I can do it too’, and I’ve had eyes watching me since I was born—my siblings—so for me, I’ve always wanted to be a role model for them. Then when I started working in this industry and more people started following me and supporting me, my personality didn’t change. I’ve always wanted to be a big role model!

PC: What’s something you learned from the campaign that you didn’t know before going into it?
Coco: I learned how the tobacco industry really targets you based on who you are, where you live, and how much money you make. I had no idea that they went to these extremes to really target and impact certain people, especially African-Americans, people in low-income communities, LGBT.

PC: What advice would you give to somebody who’s trying to quit smoking?
Coco: I would say that tobacco-related disease is the number one cause of death here in the US and you have to treat your body like a temple because you only get one. And honestly, smoking is not even cool! I don’t think it’s cool! I don’t even feel like our generation is super obsessed with it; we’re obsessed with fidget spinners! If you’re doing it to better your social life, please stop, and in general, please stop because it’s unnecessary, for real!

PC: For fans that want to get involved, how can they help spread the word?
Coco: A great place to get started is definitely DoSomething.org. Their website has so many different causes. You can look into them and also, you can enlist in the movement ‘End Smoking’ at thetruth.com and when you see profiling happening, especially on social media, use the hashtag #stopprofiling. Honestly, that’s the easiest thing you can do; anyone can click on the hashtag and see all the photos. Just spread the word!