Lil Nas X dominated the internet with his single 'Montero.' This is how he used the backlash to build hype.

• Lil Nas X released his newest single "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)" on Friday.
• The song's music video features the singer pole dancing into hell and grinding on Satan.
• Amid backlash, Lil Nas X has dunked on critics online and spoofed the moral panic around his song.

If there's any celebrity who's guaranteed to win in a Twitter fight, it's Lil Nas X. The 21-year-old singer, who's known not only for his music but also for being extremely online, released his latest single "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)" on Friday, and those who deigned to raise their voices against him never had a chance.

"I had 9 months to plan this rollout. y'all are not gonna win bro," the singer tweeted on March 29, three days after the single's release, in the midst of confronting a moral panic over his single and a sneaker collaboration with MSCHF known as "Satan Shoes."

The music video for "Montero" is a lush, erotic ride flush with Christian imagery. Beginning with a snake seducing Lil Nas X in the Garden of Eden, it notably ends with the singer pole dancing his way into hell before giving Satan himself a lap dance, killing him, and taking his crown.

The song, which Lil Nas X has said is based on a man he fell for, and its music video, which quite literally shows him denying heaven to fully express his sexuality, seemed perfectly primed to ruffle the feathers of American conservatives and evangelicals - and ruffle they did.

In a Twitter tour de force, Lil Nas X has dunked on his critics - who range from South Dakotan Governor Kristi Noem to right-wing Twitter personality Candace Owens - one by one. And as New York Times pop music critic Jon Caramanica wrote, that performance was just as artful as "Montero" itself.

On the day of release for 'Montero (Call Me By Your Name),' Lil Nas X quickly responded to early criticism

On the day of release, Lil Nas X was inviting, and even celebrating, backlash and criticism to his new song interspersed with posts hyping it up. Before that, however, he posted a letter to his younger self, setting the tone for the discourse going forward and explicitly codifying what was apparent: "Montero" was deeply personal, provocative, and political all at once.

"You see this is very scary for me, people will be angry, they will say i'm pushing an agenda," he wrote in the note posted shortly after the song's release. "but the truth is, i am. The agenda to make people stay the f-ck out of other people's lives and stop dictating who they should be."

From there, the dunking began. When someone asked if men should "dress androgynously and sleep with satin [sic]" Lil Nas X responded "yes." In another tweet, he wrote, "y'all love saying we going to hell but get upset when i actually go there lmao."

Later, he celebrated the discourse around the song making it to Facebook, sharing a screenshot of a post calling him "a whole new level of demonic."

On Saturday, he reiterated his message within the context of the growing backlash. "I spent my entire teenage years hating myself because of the sh-- y'all preached would happen to me because i was gay," he wrote in a tweet. "so i hope u are mad, stay mad, feel the same anger you teach us to have towards ourselves."

After the announcement of 'Satan Shoes' following the song's release, Lil Nas X fielded criticism from conservative figures online

On Friday, the day that "Montero" was released, SAINT also announced "Satan Shoes," a limited-edition collaboration between Lil Nas X and MSCHF of which there were only 666 pairs. As Insider's Canela López reported, the sneakers, which each contain a drop of human blood, incited outrage online. The singer was quick to respond with a fake YouTube apology video about the shoes and a parody Chick-fil-a-themed shoe emblazoned with "John 3:16" on the side (Chick-fil-a is known for its Christian affiliations).

The shoes also invited conservative names into Lil Nas X's mentions. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, who is a member of the Republican Party, tweeted that a child's "God-given eternal soul" was more exclusive than the Satan Shoes, saying that "we are in a fight for the soul of our nation."

"ur a whole governor and u on here tweeting about some damn shoes. do ur job!" Lil Nas X tweeted in response. When Noem responded with a verse from Matthew 16:26, Lil Nas X responded with a lyric from "Montero."

Candace Owens, a right-wing media personality, tweeted on Sunday that Lil Nas X and Cardi B were part of "keeping Black America behind," citing the former's Satan shoes and the latter's Billboard Woman of the Year award, Insider's Claudia Willen reported. In response, Lil Nas X called Owens a "flop" and quote retweeted her tweet, saying "you know you did something right when she talks about it."

Throughout the day, he also exchanged blows with Kaitlin Bennett, better known online as the Kent State "gun girl," and continued to poke fun at the sneaker controversy and moral panic over his video. He tweeted that he was going to sample audio of right-wing pastor Greg Locke speaking out about his song and sneakers. By Monday, the singer was tweeting about making it onto Fox News.

Throughout the controversy, Lil Nas X responded to parents and people accusing him of corrupting children

A great deal of the backlash around the single and the sneakers was focused on children, and the notion that Lil Nas X was targeting them with his music. Some said that the singer's breakout single "Old Town Road," which went viral online in 2019 and broke Billboard chart records, had given him an audience of children that he was now exposing to mature content.

Lil Nas X responded to a tweet on Friday, the day of the "Montero" release, by saying that he was "not gonna spend [his] entire career trying to cater to your children. that is your job."

As Insider's Ashley Simone Johnson reported, Joyner Lucas, a rapper with a 5-year-old child, said in a since-deleted tweet on Sunday that he thought the "biggest problem" was that Lil Nas X didn't "understand 'old town road' is every kids anthem." Lil Nas X replied by pointing out that he sings about "lean & adultery in old town road," and that Joyner had allowed his child to listen.

Lil Nas X has an extremely online history

One glance through Lil Nas X's social media - Twitter, TikTok, you name it - makes it evident that he grew up on the internet and knows how to use it. The singer admitted in 2020 that he was a "Barb" - a Nicki Minaj stan - and confirming long-held rumors that he used to run a stan account focused on the rapper. Before, there had been long-held speculation that he ran an account with the handle "nasmaraj," but as Insider's Kat Tenbarge reported, he didn't explicitly claim it.

Furthermore, his breakout single "Old Town Road" rose up the charts with a meme effort driven by the singer himself. It found a home on TikTok in 2019, and Lil Nas X released remix after self-aware remix of the track, culminating in a record-setting 19 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100. He's been teasing "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)" on social media for over nine months, building up hype and giving him plenty of time to prepare a social media strategy.

All of that explains how he's been able to execute dunk after dunk on social media, but it doesn't mean that the vitriolic response isn't real.

"I'll be honest all this backlash is putting an emotional toll on me," Lil Nas X tweeted on Monday. "i try to cover it with humor but it's getting hard. my anxiety is higher than ever and stream call me by your name on all platforms now!"

Throughout all of the discourse around "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)," Lil Nas X has hit back at those who come for him, sent out funny tweets about getting sued by Nike (the company is suing MSCHF, the maker of the Satan Shoes), and reposted TikTok memes about his descent into hell. His ability to tweet through it is just as much a phenomenon itself.