Music and Memes: The Rise of Lil Nas X and Doja Cat
As someone in her early 20’s who loves music and entertainment, it’s exciting to finally see people my age become entertainers on a major stage and rep our generation’s tastes and humour. It’s also cool that my peers and I have a big influence on which stars make it as we’re one of the prime demographics music is marketed toward. Of course a defining feature of our age group (Zillennials) is growing up on the Internet. Now we’ve actually seen stars born out of viral sensations, and I think this is best represented by modern music + meme royalty: Lil Nas X and Doja Cat.
Lil Nas X
Lil Nas X blew up from his hit “Old Town Road” which gained popularity in 2020, despite not getting that much attention when it was released in 2019. But before he became successful, Lil Nas X was a college drop out crashing on his siblings’ and grandma’s floors making music in their closets and promoting it online. His rise to fame might’ve seemed random and abrupt, but it was actually strategically achieved through his online promo hustling.
Lil Nax X knew that the importance of promotion was the same as or more important than putting out the music. I mean, what’s the point of releasing lots of music if it’s difficult for people to discover? He made a Twitter account called @NasMaraj, where he posted memes and also was a Nicki Minaj stan account. He posted tons of meme content to build his following so that he could promote his music to his followers.
“Old Town Road” was intentionally goofy. Lil Nas X knew he needed something short, catchy, and funny to catch on with his followers. After releasing it, he posted a hundred memes a month to promote it on his Twitter account. He also posted on Reddit threads like r/HipHopHeads and r/NameThatSong plugging some of the lyrics, asking what song it was, then on a separate account answering it that way if someone looked up the song they would be able to find it in a Google search. He even posted a video of a man standing on a horse with “Old Town Road” playing on YouTube and when the video became popular as a meme he edited the title to include the lyrics of the song.
Of course we know “Old Town Road” was really catapulted into success through TikTok. Popular TikToker @nicemichael found the song on SoundCloud and asked Lil Nas X if he could use it on TikTok. He agreed and @nicemichael started the #yeehaw challenge in which people start the video in their regular civilian clothes and then switch into cowboy clothes. This trend took off because it was easy for everyone to do their own version of it and the song’s quirky and unexpected because of its hip hop/country fusion.
The hip hop/country combination of the song caused controversy around “Old Town Road” that eventually worked in Lil Nas X’s favour. He marketed the song as more country than hip hop because the song had a better shot up against modern country songs on the charts than the hip hop charts. Billboard removed “Old Town Road” from the country charts for not being country enough, which resulted in a lot of backlash accusing Billboard of racism. Billy Ray Cyrus also defended the track as a country song and from there Twitter campaigned for him to be on the track. And so he was put on the remix, which is now probably the most famous version of “Old Town Road”.
From there, Lil Nas X kept making remixes of “Old Town Road”, engaged with fans on Twitter and TikTok, and milked it. He always goes hard on promotion and milking his success especially with the help of stan Twitter. That is why he’s successful.
Doja Cat
Doja Cat on the other hand actually got a major label deal when she was 17 years old (about eight years ago). Her first album Amala, which is her legal name, got a bit of attention, but didn’t take off until she released her song “Mooo!” and its corresponding music video.
She made “Mooo!” and its music video in one day, apparently starting the song at around 2:30 PM and finishing the music video around 3 AM. She was inspired by her cow costume she had gotten for her tour, and the song and music video were an inside joke with her fans. From there the music video didn’t just take off with fans, but went viral. The goofy lyrics, lofi greenscreen background, cute costumes, and Doja’s sense of humour were all so funny and charming. Plus, the song is both ironically and unironically good. It was a perfect combo for virality.
After the success of “Mooo!”, Doja collaborated with other stars like Tyga on “Juicy” and Rico Nasty on “Tia Tamera”, which helped introduce her to their audiences. All three songs were put on the Deluxe edition of Amala. The remix of “Juicy’’ with Tyga charted on the Billboard Hot 100, which was Doja’s first charting song, and Amala charted on the Hot 200.
Doja’s sophomore album Hot Pink was her true breakthrough album with the help of TikTok. The single “Say So” initially wasn’t released as a single, but took off on TikTok with the help of a viral dance. As a result of the unexpected success of the song on TikTok, she released it as a single. In the music video she even did the dance and included the TikToker who created the dance challenge. Doja performed “Say So” all year long and did her best to keep it fresh with different renditions of the song showing her range. This single got people listening to her album so she needed to keep performing it even though she was tired of it.
Doja is also super active on social media, where people become easily enamoured with her ridiculous humour and likeable personality. She posts on TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram regularly showing her Gen Z internet humour and goes on Instagram Live a lot to build her relationship with her fans by speaking directly to them. You can find “Doja Cat Once Said” videos of her being iconic on the regular. My favourite Doja IG live quotes include: “So I was like, ‘I’m gay,’ and then I went, ‘oh-oops I meant happy birthday”; “Stop. I’m gonna fuck you”; and “The song, however, I agree. The worst- Maybe the worst song in the entire world. Not good. Lyrically? Lost. The worst song”.
The IG lives get people invested in Doja as a person in addition to her music. Now she’s built a massive fanbase with her humour and personality, which won over the general public when they listened to her music from the hype because she’s actually very talented and just needed to get noticed.
I think of Lil Nas X and Doja Cat’s promotional tactics as very Internet savvy and Gen Z. Lil Nas X’s Twitter memes and Doja’s meme music video are the first time we’ve seen those tactics work. I think it represents what young people are like these days. But I also wanted to point out that they are both Nicki Minaj fans and use her tactics to build fanbases. Nicki was engaging on Twitter to build her fanbase and uses IG live all the time to talk directly to fans, and both Lil Nas X and Doja Cat followed in her footsteps. Their success shows a new generation in the media. Everyone is online these days, not just the losers on their computer in the dark, and young people don’t take themselves seriously so they connect when they see a big musician holding their phone at an unflattering angle or speak without a filter. Gone are the days of musicians representing unattainable poise and coolness. Direct contact with fans via social media is now essential for young pop stars.
