--- title: VMAS 2019: Lil Nas Unrolls a Scroll to Become the Best Meme description: Lil Nas X unrolled a scroll at the VMAS 2019 and the memes are hilarious. canonical: https://time.com/5662414/lil-nas-x-vmas-2019/ author: Ashley Hoffman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-08-27T14:08:47.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-12T21:53:22.000Z og:title: Lil Nas X Knew Exactly How to Become a Meme at the 2019 VMAs og:description: Is that a Cheesecake factory menu? og:url: https://time.com/5662414/lil-nas-x-vmas-2019/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7dcb1afad95145dc/698a01fd096a94c4cf6a6dff/lilnasxmtvvmas.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 6000 og:image:height: 3375 og:image:alt: 2019 MTV Video Music Awards - Fixed Show og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Lil Nas X Knew Exactly How to Become a Meme at the 2019 VMAs twitter:description: Is that a Cheesecake factory menu? twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7dcb1afad95145dc/698a01fd096a94c4cf6a6dff/lilnasxmtvvmas.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Lil Nas X Dramatically Unrolling a Scroll Is the Best Meme of the VMAs 2019 > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=888e20d7-000b-4835-8e78-26e0ce115d9f&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) by [Ashley Hoffman](https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/) ## Ashley Hoffman Updated: Dec 12, 2023 9:53 PM UTCPublished: Aug 27, 2019 2:08 PM UTC  Lil Nas X speaks onstage during the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards at Prudential Center on August 26, 2019 in Newark, New Jersey. (Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images,) Lil Nas X speaks onstage during the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards at Prudential Center on August 26, 2019 in Newark, New Jersey. (Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images,) Bryan Bedder—Getty Images, by [Ashley Hoffman](https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/) ## Ashley Hoffman Updated: Dec 12, 2023 9:53 PM UTCPublished: Aug 27, 2019 2:08 PM UTC [Lil Nas X](https://time.com/5652803/lil-nas-x/) just knows how to go viral. That much was abundantly clear when he took the stage at the [2019 MTV Video Music awards](https://time.com/5661499/mtv-video-music-awards-2019-weirdest-wildest-best-moments/) in Newark, New Jersey on Monday night. Clad in his now-iconic red cowboy sharp suiting alongside his partner in collaboration crimes [Billy Ray Cyrus](https://time.com/5650081/old-town-road-sign-stolen-explained/), applause erupted as he accept the award for Song of the Year. “Hold on,” he said putting on his glasses. “Thank you, thank you so much. This is my first award ever. And I want to say thank you to this man \[Billy Ray Cyrus\] for helping me take my career to the next level, and I got a little speech.” And then, he unrolled a scroll. “Little,” it was not. Visual gag deployed, that was the end of his acceptance speech before he kicked it over to Cyrus. But the internet saw to fixing that. It wasn’t long before the scroll moment became a GIF’d extending its life on Twitter.. It was even longer than a CVS receipt so naturally, it was ripe for memedom. The Cheesecake Factory menu was never supposed to be a part of Lil Nas’s speech, and neither were a bunch of other things that quickly took over the internet in meme-form. Lil Nas X’s ubiquitous country rap song “Old Town Road,” spent a record-shattering 19 weeks atop the Billboard charts. He is the first and only artist in chart history to have dominated so long with just one song, even dethroning Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men’s “ONe Sweet Day” and Luis and Daddy Yankee’s “Despacito” with Justin Bieber in one fateful summer. He even got in on the fun, captioning a photo of himself and another summer 2019 monarch, Lizzo with the caption “nope.” > [](https://twitter.com/LiINasaratiX/status/1166195139150139393) See below for the best [Lil Nas X scroll memes](https://time.com/5660856/barack-michelle-obama-summer-2019-playlist/) from the 2019 VMAs. > [](https://twitter.com/SatansJacuzzi/status/1166311893943881728) > [](https://twitter.com/chloebryan/status/1166348785028669440) > [](https://twitter.com/americanamemes/status/1166172100102541314) > [](https://twitter.com/dprincipe3/status/1166316407404974080) > [](https://twitter.com/JKIRKLANDD/status/1166167642513846273) > [](https://twitter.com/CaitlynC12/status/1166171788625240064) > [](https://twitter.com/amandakchin/status/1166170085771362305) > [](https://twitter.com/michael1030%5F/status/1166193314640683008) > [](https://twitter.com/MTV/status/1166168388957351936) > [](https://twitter.com/the412kid%5F/status/1166170958354362368) > [](https://twitter.com/andysambcrg/status/1166166554217607169) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5662414/lil-nas-x-vmas-2019/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5662414/lil-nas-x-vmas-2019/"},"headline":"Lil Nas X Dramatically Unrolling a Scroll Is the Best Meme of the VMAs 2019","datePublished":"2019-08-27T14:08:47.000Z","dateModified":"2023-12-12T21:53:22.000Z","description":"Lil Nas X unrolled a scroll at the VMAS 2019 and the memes are hilarious.","url":"https://time.com/5662414/lil-nas-x-vmas-2019/","keywords":["Newsfeed","vmas","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7dcb1afad95145dc/698a01fd096a94c4cf6a6dff/lilnasxmtvvmas.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Ashley Hoffman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7dcb1afad95145dc/698a01fd096a94c4cf6a6dff/lilnasxmtvvmas.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"2019 MTV Video Music Awards - Fixed Show","caption":"2019 MTV Video Music Awards - Fixed Show","creditText":"Bryan Bedder—Getty Images,","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5662414/lil-nas-x-vmas-2019/","name":"Lil Nas X Dramatically Unrolling a Scroll Is the Best Meme of the VMAs 2019"}}]}] ```