‘Nah he tweakin’: How Lil Nas X sparked a viral comment trend and what it means
The king of social media strikes again!
Words: Brian Lenord; picture: Instagram/@lilnasx
Lil Nas X, not content with scoring hit records and taking over Taco Bell, has once again proven his dominance over social media.
The ‘Industry Baby’ singer, who is gay, has seen a comment he left on Instagram yesterday (namely “nah you tweakin,” which we’re roughly translating as “no, you’re ridiculous and extremely wrong”) replicated hundreds of thousands of times across multiple platforms.
It’s random as all hell, but this is what cultural clout looks like in 2021, people!
“Maybe u were mad for some other reason”
Some context. Lil Nas, whose debut album Montero is out soon, started the trend by commenting “nah you tweakin” on a picture of skateboarder Tony Hawk on the @rap Instagram yesterday (25 August 2021).
View this post on Instagram
The rapper took issue with Hawk selling skateboards infused with his blood after Lil Nas himself caught heat for selling trainers containing a drop of human blood back in March.
The shoes also feature in the music video for Lil Nas’ Billboard Hot 100 and UK singles chart number one ‘Montero (Call Me By Your Name)’.
Nas’ comment has generated over 125,000 likes and counting.
now that tony hawk has released skateboards with his blood painted on them, and there was no public outrage, are y’all ready to admit y’all were never actually upset over the blood in the shoes? and maybe u were mad for some other reason?
— MONTERO 🦋 (@LilNasX) August 25, 2021
The 23-year-old furthermore tweeted yesterday: “Now that tony hawk has released skateboards with his blood painted on them, and there was no public outrage, are y’all ready to admit y’all were never actually upset over the blood in the shoes? and maybe u were mad for some other reason?”
Now, the comment has proliferated across Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok, and is generating headlines worldwide.
View this post on Instagram
According to Crowdtangle (as per the BBC) “nah he tweakin'” has generated more than 11 million public interactions on Instagram in the last 12 hours.
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