Lil Nas X has been a TikTok sensation since the early days of his career, when the app helped catapult his song "Old Town Road" to record-breaking chart fame. His latest single "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)" is no exception — not only has the artist, whose real name is Montero Lamar Hill, been promoting snippets of it on TikTok for months, but its music video has sparked a litany of memes that are, for lack of a better turn of phrase, hot as hell.
The music video for "Montero" begins with Lil Nas X kissing the snake in the Garden of Eden, and over its course, he's spotted in a cotton candy-palette facsimile of Ancient Greece before dancing down a pole to hell. Eventually, he seduces Satan himself, before killing him and taking his place.
Elements of the music video, particularly the sequence with Satan, have drawn criticism from people accusing Lil Nas X of "targeting kids" with sexual content and saying that the music video was a "whole new level of demonic," Today reported. The singer himself has been responding to criticism and praise alike on social media, sharing a note addressed to his 14-year-old self about the song.
—nope 🏹 (@LilNasX) March 26, 2021
TikTok, on the other hand, can't get enough of the pole dancing scene in particular. Users are creating memes about the singer descending into hell, with many of them making jokes about historic or mythological figures witnessing it.
That particular trend appears to have begun with TikTok user @wolf.cola.official, who posted a video on Sunday with the on-screen caption "Reagan chilling on March 26 2021," referencing the day that "Montero (Call Me By Your Name" was released and presumably, President Ronald Reagan. Audio of "Montero" briefly fades in and out, as if Lil Nas X himself is sliding down the pole and signing right outside the window.
@wolf.cola.official @lilnasx pls notice me
♬ MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name) - Lil Nas X
From there, @wolf.cola.official made the audio a TikTok sound called "lil nas dropping by," allowing others to build on the trend.
@trillium_b_tv I guess that’s a shortcut. 🔥 ##fyp ##lilnasx ##montero @lilnasx
♬ lil nas dropping by - John
@chevin_dash Just minding your own business, then bam! Random pole dancer 🤣💀 ##lilnasx ##lilnas ##callmebyyourname @lilnasx ##chevindash
♬ lil nas dropping by - John
@caiusnumerius DIFFERENT RELIGIONS I KNOW ##orpheus ##hadestown ##greekgods ##callmebyyourname ##lilnasx ##littleniceeggs
♬ lil nas dropping by - John
Others on TikTok have made memes about the Satan sequence that don't follow @wolf.cola.official's format as well.
@arsyndoll Ahh I loved the video though it’s everything! 💅🏾 @lilnasx ##montero ##fyp ##lilnasx
♬ original sound - Christopher Colarusso
@kndjayy ##duet with @lilnasx ##lilnasx ##callmebyyourname ##montero ##comedy
♬ original sound - lil nas x
@ginos_one_man_show he killed that tho ##fyp ##lilnasx ##montero ##SourPatchPrankFund##callmebyyourname
♬ stan LOOΠΔ - Keila
It's little surprise that a Lil Nas X song has sparked a flood of memes and online discourse. Famously extremely online, the singer himself has been creating his own memes — he posted a video titled "MONTERO but ur in the bathroom of hell while lil nas is giving satan a lap dance in the other room" on his YouTube channel on Sunday — and responding to criticism and praise in real-time.
—nope 🏹 (@LilNasX) March 28, 2021
And while "Montero" is, as Lil Nas X said on Twitter, pushing an "agenda to make people stay the f--- out of other people's lives and stop dictating who they should be," it's also a bop with perhaps one of the most iconic descents to hell in modern pop culture.
