 How does Lil Nas X give the devil a lap dance and get away with it? Let's talk about it. It's the mat work. All right, so let's start here. Because obviously we all know that if one of the most well-known new artists over the last couple of years in the world slides into hell and gives the devil a lap dance, there's going to be some controversy. And then you hear all these people are like, yeah man, you know, controversy is the cheapest form of marketing or you know, there's no such thing as bad publicity. Well, those are cute sayings, but the reality is there's a such thing as bad publicity. You can ask Carrie Hilson when early on in her career, her label kind of forced her to go up against Beyonce throwing in some sly digs at Beyonce and she ended up taking a nine-year career hiatus because she couldn't take the backlash that came from it from the fans. Right, dealt with a lot of repression and things of that nature. I think she thinks there's a such thing as bad publicity. You can ask even the me too guys, right? All those guys that did such horrible things that we watched out of Hollywood, right? I think it's a good thing that we found out, but I don't think those guys are happy that they were found out, right? Bad publicity is a very real thing, right? So those cute sayings are cool, but it's not going to actually work out if you're trying to practically build out an effective brand strategy. And Lil Nas X knows this because if you read his tweet nine months to plan his rollout, it was that easy and there were no precautions that necessarily need to be taken, it wouldn't take that long. But Lil Nas X strategizes and we're about to get in this video why he's able to do something like this and still be on the right side of the media, the right side of a fan base and not be one of those guys that got the massive cancel messages. Or, you know, at least not be affected by it. And if anything got praised because of it, where they do that at? Whatever. Give me a time. Okay. So if you want to do something controversial, the first thing that you have to do is read the room. Extremely important. Do not forget this part because a lot of times, you know, people do things and they don't understand the environment they're in. Hey, it gets cut off. So what is the room that Lil Nas X was reading? All right. So for an artist with his level of platform, the room consists of two primary things, right? You have popular traditional media and you have social media. You put that together and let's analyze just a few quick snippets about what that looks like today versus how that looked like 20 years ago, 30 years ago. All right. Today, it's far more inclusive, far more about diversity, no shaming, right? Far more open to different types of people, sexualities, creeds, backgrounds, religions, all that good stuff, right? Now, with that being said, Lil Nas X has three superpowers. And this is what you have to do in this climate, in this room, what are my superpowers? All right, for him, you have he's gay, he's black, and he's a rapper. Now, I know that doesn't necessarily sound like a superpower in so many ways, but we also have to consider that the media, right, is different than real life. There's different things that it comes along with in both ways. So let's start with, hey, being gay is far more of a celebrated thing than it was 30 years ago, right? There's so many more messages that are about anti-bullying and pro who you love, right? There's so much more of that across the entire world, black, right? We have so much more of a platform in terms of being black and so much more sensitivity for what black people go through today versus what there was before, particularly in media. There's a reality, and that's why I keep stressing media, there's a reality of what people go through in their actual real day life and the messaging and agendas of media and what's with the current agenda or with the current way of things and against the current way of things, right? That being said, all right? Then the last thing is hip-hop music. Hip-hop music also was not perceived the same 30 years ago as it is today, right? You know, in the 80s, hip-hop music, a lot of people didn't even know if it was going to be around, but then it was extremely negatively looked down upon in the 90s, but that was also when it started to pop and start to integrate into popular culture. And now, if you look at the most listened songs on TikTok, which we know is the pulse of popular culture online when we talk about Gen Z today, over 50% of the music that went up, right? And became popular was hip-hop music, let alone the fact that it's pop is driven, right? And influenced by hip-hop music. So all those being said, he adds three characteristics that weren't necessarily a strength in prior times that he was able to use today, right? Or that work for him today, if used correctly. And again, there's a difference between real life and the media. You have to keep that part of mind and how you can navigate it and we'll get deeper into that in a second. Now, the next question you have to ask yourself is, who's in the room, right? What type of people? What type of cultures? What's going on in that particular room and define an enemy? You have to define an enemy. Why? Because defining an enemy is what allows you to create friction and tension that the controversy will be sparked by. In this particular case, Christianity, right? We all know that the devil is like, I don't know the biggest no-no in Christianity. I don't think there's a bigger no-no than a devil, right? So you take that, right? And you pair that with the concept of hell, right? Him pole dancing. And of course, the messaging, we know that it is a very widely known thing that gay, right? How gay people have been treated in the Christian community has not necessarily been a good, right? Stereotypically, right? We're going to just leave it at that. Stereotypically, because we're not talking about the politics or any of the other one side or the other. It's just about how this works, right? And how you push these buttons, because Lil Nas X, what he's very good at is he knows that, yo, this is a switchboard, and I'm looking at the room, and it's about which button do I push when and why? That's what he's good at. And if you look at Christianity, there's a reason that that's a button that can explode, because it's not just about offending a culture. It's not about going to get some kind of culture or aggravating a culture. One, this culture has to be strong, right? It has to be intense enough and defined enough to be aggravated. If you aggravate something abstract, there's not going to be any pushback, right? So it has to be something that's established. Christianity is very established, right? On top of that, it has to be something that has an actual platform. Christianity has still probably the biggest platform amongst all religions in America. And then the last thing is just awareness on all sides of whatever inside joke or whatever you're raging against, right? Because educating people at a large scale fast enough to create controversy is incredibly difficult, right? But the fact that people know, right, this stereotypical perspective that Christians might have on gay people, like that's a constant conversation that's already been shared, then all he has to do is poke and pry at that particular thing, especially him defining himself, right? Like he's gay. Yo, y'all haven't treated me right or y'all say I should go to hell. I'm playing off of that. And that becomes another part of why he's able to do something so controversial, but then at the same time, be able to navigate it and survive it. And once again, even be celebrated in a lot of ways because of it, because it's like, yo, he didn't take the first shot. That's how a lot of people are seeing it. It's like, well, y'all told him that he should go to hell and y'all victimize him. And what did I say? We're in an era where oftentimes the victims are allowed to bully the bullies, right? Or fight back however you want to receive it. That's not the point of this video. And then you add on to that the fact that Christianity has taken a massive brand hit over the last, I don't know, 30 years, right? If you actually look at Christianity statistically, it's taken a massive decline in the United States. It's not what it used to be. So now you're talking about statistically this entity that's losing power in a lot of ways. While the message that this entity was speaking against is also gaining power, it puts it in a completely different perspective where although it's perceived to have a certain level of strength and take a certain level of courage to go against it, it's not necessarily so. But we'll get into those windows really soon. Let's go to another moment though in time where Lil Nas X played off of just this because he did the exact same thing with country music. There's this massive entity that has this very established culture. Remember that is extremely important to have culture rules and way of operation. So then you that culture can push back against you. And then I might add country music is as culturally traditional as it gets when we talk about genres as a whole. And at that time, when you have this rapper injecting yourself into country music, and then let's be honest, they played a lot of the race cards. So now you have this black guy also injecting himself into country music as a rapper. When we have rules, we have way of operation. There's a lot of respect and tradition, but at the same time, you're being protected by the fact that rap is on the rise and doesn't have the same level of negative stigma as it once did. And now you're in an era where the cultural sensitivity of being a black guy is not the same as it once was. So you put that against country and then you have these people play with these racial undertones. Although the primary media didn't address it specifically, if you listened to local radio stations on both sides and got into more quiet private rooms or podcasts on both sides, it was very, very clear. Some people on the countryside didn't like those things and you had a lot of black people and people more sensitive to black culture, more compelled to support even stronger. So now you have this friction and this thing that's taking this tornado a lot further beyond the initial viral moment that the song created for itself. And I know this sounds extra deep, but this is the reality of the climate and the buttons that are being pushed when you're dealing with a platform on this particular level. And all that's well and fine because you have to read the room, you have to say whatever my superpowers and you have to say, yo, all right, who are the people in this room and which enemies can I pick? But it's not all that simple because I can find a particular position, right? And find a bear to poke. But if I poke the wrong bear and I can't fall back on my audience, then it's counterproductive and I can lose. We go back to that comment that Lil Nas said, yo, I've been building this strategy out for nine months. Y'all aren't going to win. Well, who is Lil Nas X's audience? Well, back on January 5th of 2021, only a few months ago, NPR drops an article with the headline Lil Nas X says children are his core audience right now and that's okay. And again, this video is not about what's okay, what's not okay, what's cool and what's not cool. It's about the reality of the factors at play and what impact they have because there's a few fundamentals when we're talking about kids, teenagers. One, they don't care as much about the things that the older generation is sensitive to. That's just the reality of it, right? When TikTok was facing potentially getting banned from America, the adults, right, or politicians were having a conversation about a country that's an enemy country philosophically possibly having Intel and one up on us and having a digital war. And you know what the kids on TikTok we're talking about? We don't have freedom of speech. You're violating our freedom of speech. It's two completely different conversations. They don't care about what the adults care about. That's just the reality of it, right? So when you want to dilute it from not even just potential war and Intel and spying all the way down to what do you care about whether somebody's sexuality or not, kids are not going to react the same. That's one, right? We've already talked about the decline of the impact that Christianity has on the United States. And then you have the biggest factor, period. We look at this generally speaking, whatever the parents are saying, the kids pretty much are going to rage against that, right? And there's some things, or a lot of things actually, the kids do not care about as much, but the parents put so much energy into it. Now the kids are going to go to opposites and there's no difference in saying, yo man, don't tell your daughter not to date that dude and go so hard on that dude. She's only going to like that guy even more, right? Don't tell your kid not to do this because that's only going to make them do it. They might not have even been thinking about it to that extent. That's the type of mindset that and in psychograph that he's dealing with in his audience, they're not concerned about the things that most of the people were criticizing even care about. Like it's just not the same. We all know this by the way, right? Because that generation is going to get older and then they're going to have the same relationship with the younger generation. That's just how it goes. So when you have that as your core fan base, that's not going to be impacted. And then the adult pushback against it is only going to make them more strongly a fan of you, right? Or even greater support of you, at least within this moment, then you're good. All buttons are pushed, all impacts are created, but you have a cushion to fall on. And last but not least, you got to be willing to double down, right? You read the room, you figure out what button you want to push, and then you got to double down once you push it because you have to be able to push through a lot of that initial negative energy to create enough momentum before you break through and you get to that other side. And that's the part that takes courage. Because even if you're somebody as mindful as a Lil Nas X and you've thought all these things through, when the actual negative feedback comes, a lot of people don't have it in them to push through that negative feedback actively, right? Some people wait it out and then, hey, ends up on one side, but to actively double down where Lil Nas X responds with messages like, yo, man, y'all told me I should go to hell all my life. And that's where I went, right? That's a sense of doubling down. He released behind the scenes versions of videos, not to mention the whole sneaker fiasco with the blood and I can't remember had some devil related name and all that type of stuff, right? That's a sense of doubling down. And he did that again and again on social media and the way he responded to people and kept fueling the fire, which creates more moments, other things to be shared by people and more of a conversation. The doubling down is a massive part of this. And all of this, when we bring it together, Lil Nas X constantly doubles down when it comes to the imagery. A huge part of the organic doubling down and awareness that comes from Lil Nas X's rollouts and campaigns is just gimmicks straight up, right? The imagery, the imagery is so strong that it gets shared. So we're not even talking about just the devil Satan shoes, this entire situation. If you look at it's a holiday, that song, he was Santa Claus and it was very strong imagery on how that was shared. It was like this boss version of Santa Claus and amazing, like CGI and all this stuff done. If you look at the, you know, Old Town Road, the cowboy, that entire gimmick and how that got spread. He's very good at taking those images and putting them in positions where they spread and they themselves become a meme. So it does some of the doubling down for you. And obviously once those messages spread, it becomes one of those things where people can't not know about it. I didn't even know about it until people kept asking me and asking me and asking me because Lil Nas X did, did all this crazy stuff and I'm hearing about it and I'm like, wait, what are y'all talking about? Because I had been off of social media for about two weeks. All right, I'll go online for work, but I was on the social media hibernation from IG and all that stuff. So it was, the message of spreading and people were like, you have to know about this or I need to hear somebody else's opinion on it. That's the impact that he has time and again, one way or another. Now, before we end this, let's go back to the importance of those windows. All right, the windows, it's something that has to be considered because timing is everything. What do I mean? If we look at the decline of Christianity's position in popular media and the way it's supported it, and we look at the increase of messages that might be considered anti-Christian, when it's up here, you don't want to touch it because it can ruin you. There's still some races and religions or things that people can't talk about and or they'll get muted or blacklisted pretty quickly. But once it starts getting right here, most of the people, the general population, don't understand that it's made that transition. They can't see it. So if you have the foresight or the insight, you can make that jump and the impact will be powerful because the public perceives it as like, whoa, you did this thing and you did it first because nobody else was able to see that it was a possibility to do it and not be ruined. To so many people, it looks like this career suicide or something like that. So you get the courage points from that as well. But then, all right, if you're the second person up, it doesn't look the same, doesn't feel the same, you know, this is more of a copy cat thing. If anything, people are already aware that it can be done and as the thing that had power continues to lose power and the other thing that once didn't have power, gains more power, it actually eventually gets to a point where things are flipped, right? And you get almost no points or you get perceived as a bully or whatever, right? That's what the windows look like. There's a time period where there's a transition happening where you can take advantage of certain windows and this looks like something completely different. It doesn't have to be Christianity and homosexuality and like country music and rap or race. It doesn't have to be any of that stuff. But there's windows of opportunities and levers that can be pulled and buttons that can be pushed in so many places of society and those things will always exist because so much of the current state of media is really just the current state of media and how people are feeling currently and have decided at the moment this is our current culture but it's just evolving. It's always opinions and there'll always be current opinions that can be poked, prodded and criticized. And if you're skilled at it, you'll be able to know how to do it like Lil Nas X did and not only not lose your career but cheer it on for it. And that's it. If you want to be able to do something polarizing and have that type of impact, you have to go through those steps, read the room, define an enemy, understand who your audience is and then double down when the time comes and you'll be alright. But it's a science to it and then it's an art in the moment. I can go a lot deeper into this and how you roll out that type of plan but I won't do that in this video. But if you like this video, go ahead and hit that like button and if you're not subscribed, make sure you do it. That's it.