With the release of her second studio album on the horizon, Beer is ready for the world to truly listen to what she has to say.

Madison Beer doesn’t care if you don’t love her. In truth, she doesn’t even need you to like her, although it’s always an interesting concept: thinking someone would dislike a person who, with hundreds of millions of followers across all of her social platforms, seems to be rather well-liked. But as the 23-year-old musician isn’t afraid to admit, there are plenty of people who don’t.

“I think that the right people will listen,” Beer says of making peace with any animosity aimed towards her online. “That’s what I’ve learned the most, is that the people who I’m truly trying to reach will understand, will see it for what it’s worth, and will actually, even in the quietest voices, I think the right people will get it.

Why would someone dislike Beer, exactly? Maybe it’s her ability to sing about heartbreak in a way that’s devastating, sexy, and vengeful all at once — especially on her upcoming album (coming soon) — that intimidates people. Maybe it’s the It Girl quality that’s evident in everything from her Instagram feed to the way she speaks to the outfits she wears that haters can’t get over. Maybe it’s the fact that faceless internet trolls feel a need to project their own insecurities onto her, assuming there’s no way that someone as cool or as pretty or as successful as Beer in their eyes could ever possibly experience any sort of hardship.

But ask the singer about her relationship with the massive following she’s been growing since first entering the social media-sphere at the young age of 13, and she doesn’t mention any of this. Instead, she sums up her online presence with the understatement of the century for someone who’s been through what she has, simply explaining, “It can be a double-edged sword.”

“I feel like I’ve spent a lot of time feeling unheard. I could be shouting a message from a rooftop and people would just be taking pictures,” Beer says, diving deeper into her misunderstood dynamic with social media.

“I think [having a large following while growing up] impacted me negatively in a lot of ways. I think that I am overly paranoid,” she continues. “I think that I’m constantly looking over my shoulder. I think that it’s hard for me to trust people. I feel judged by people that I’ve just met … It’s definitely been a lot of undoing as I’ve gotten older, because growing up, it was nothing but exciting.”

On one hand, Beer is grateful for the following (originally spurred by an “At Last” cover and a now-famous 2012 tweet from a certain Justin Bieber) that’s allowed her to release both a successful EP (As She Pleases in 2018) and studio album (2021’s Life Support) ahead of her sophomore effort’s 2023 debut. On the other, she can now look back on her whirlwind social media-fueled upbringing with the kind of clarity that comes from reflecting on her past and working on herself (both of which Beer has done in spades recently) to get to the point where she can truthfully say that she’s been there, done that, and got the PR-team-sent T-shirt. The way Beer sees social media now? She’s just kind of over it.

“It’s very easy nowadays for people to be like, ‘Oh, you’re irrelevant now because you’re not getting 10 million views on TikTok,’ and I’m like, ‘Well, I don’t care,’” Beer says. “I’m putting that value on real-life things in my real-life relationships and my music and my tour.”

Which brings us to her music. More specifically, her new music — a body of work with an entirely new energy that Beer teases is prepared to explore more than ever before.

“To me, this album is more of a memoir. It’s not really about one specific event, but more about specific things that have shaped me into the person that I am today,” Beer says of the album’s overarching themes, though she remains tight-lipped about what exactly those “specific things” are. “I’m trying to do a very good job this time around of keeping things very secret until it’s really time,” she admits. “I can’t say anything too specific yet.”

What she can say is that beyond singular themes of heartbreak (one of the main inspirations behind Life Support) or growing up in “a bit of a chaotic household,” her upcoming project contains a mixture of many experiences that all contribute to a “mature, honest, and vulnerable” piece of work that she believes would make her former self — the one that may have been more concerned with what others thought of her — beam with pride.

“I think there are songs [on this album] that I would hear and be like, ‘That’s really cool that I’ve come to a place that I could honestly say those things and not feel ashamed or scared or whatnot,’” Beer shares.

That’s not to say her next album is completely devoid of the kind of heart-wrenching lyrics that’ll take you back to your most cataclysmic breakups — quite the opposite, actually. What differs this time around is that Beer is now able to sing from a place of reflection, drawing on the experiences of relationships past rather than the present. Which is partly because, in case you were wondering, her relationship status as it stands today couldn’t be better

“I’m super happy within my relationship, and I feel really safe, and I feel like I’m with someone I consider my best friend, which is very important,” she says when comparing her nearly two-year romance with boyfriend Nick Austin to prior ones. “In the past, I haven’t really spent ‘friend time’ with my boyfriend, whereas now, I kind of do. So, it feels good.”