Lil Nas X

“This you?” are two of social media’s most dangerous words. Often deployed when their recipient makes a statement contradicting earlier foul behavior, they can be especially devastating when their subject is a known troll who likes to post outrageous provocations for engagement. Today, Lil Nas X won the gold medal in their use (or he would have if such a thing existed) when he flipped the script on rainbow-haired agitator Tekashi 69 via Twitter.

After 69’s running buddy Akademiks posted a New York headline about China’s new supposed COVID-19 protocols, Tekashi chose to use the moment to disparage Lil Nas with a tasteless, homophobic joke. Tekashi responded to the headline — which reads “China Makes COVID-19 Anal Swabs Mandatory For Foreigners” in a fairly typical attention grab — by commenting “Lil Nas X has entered the chat.”

However, Nas, who plays the social media trolling game as well as Tekashi does — arguably better, considering the outcomes of their respective last two years — had the perfect response. Posting a video of himself dancing to his song “Call Me By Your Name” — titled after the Timothy Chalamet coming-of-age romance about a boy falling in love with his male tutor — Nas superimposed a screenshot of Tekashi’s comment over the video, followed by another screenshot of 69 sliding into his DMs on Instagram.

“Yo,” reads the direct message. “Gonna be in your city soon what you doing lol?” The question is followed by a heart emoji and an upside-down smiley face. We’ll let you draw your own conclusions, but it’s clear that Lil Nas is implying that perhaps this is a case of the pot calling the kettle a certain color. Check out Lil Nas’ reversal of Tekashi’s insult below.