Cbat Reddit story — How an obscure EDM song went viral ten years after its release

At this point, Reddit posts going viral on the internet for all kinds of reasons is nothing out of the ordinary. But if there is a post that deserves a shout-out, it is the one that propelled a ten-year-old EDM song from obscurity to number one on Spotify’s Viral 50 Chart. Before the unassuming Reddit post caught attention, Cbat (the song in question) was just another B-side track on a Hudson Mohawke album.

But the situation changed on September 1, 2022, when a Reddit user by the name ‘TylerLife’ made a post on the popular TIFU (Today I Fucked Up) subreddit – a forum where people share unfortunate and mostly lighthearted events of their day and detail the chaos that ensued. Tyler’s story mentions the inclusion of Cbat in his “sex playlist” and how his partner was not too keen on the song choice.

The Reddit user thought Cbat was the “perfect song for sex” and was “devastated” his partner hated the song

Tyler Life (which is apparently his real name) had just found out that his girlfriend of two years did not like the music he played during sexual intercourse and he took it to Reddit to share the information. There was one particular song on his “sex playlist” that was his favorite but his girlfriend did not share the same sentiment and thought that it was a major turn-off.

The song was Cbat by the Scottish-American producer/composer/DJ Hudson Mohawke. The Reddit user explained that he had compiled a list of “love-making songs” to play during the deed to improve his performance by “matching the thrusts” to the rhythm of the songs.

“A little back story; when I first started having sex, I researched into ways to be better as I was a little stiff and pretty much had no idea what I was doing. I read online that you can play music and match the rhythm in order to put on a better performance,” he wrote.

Since it took two years for the girlfriend to tell him that she despised the song, Tyler felt that their sex life has taken a hit since the confession. He recollected all those times he had played the song in the past thinking she was on the same boat as him. In retrospect, it was likely that she had not been enjoying the song at all, making things awkward and embarrassing. He detailed:

“I feel the way I fucked up is I could have possibly asked her previously if she likes the playlist or any songs she’d like to add or change. But to leave it for two years thinking our sex life is great but, in her eyes, has just been ruined by my music has left the whole situation feeling awkward and I’m a bit annoyed. I pretty much played this tune every single time.”

However, Tyler still believes that Cbat is a good song and “perfect” for sex as it has a good rhythm. Therefore, he found it “devastating” that his girlfriend hated it.

Hudson Mohawke, the artist of Cbat, responded to his song’s newfound popularity and humored it as “the dumbest timeline of all”

Cbat was originally released all the way back in 2011 as a song on Mohawke’s 6th Extended Play ‘Satin Panthers’. Before its newfound popularity ten years after its release, it was a relatively unknown track that was not even available on the artist’s YouTube channel. Hence, a fan-uploaded video of the song linked by Tyler on his Reddit post quickly amassed millions of views within days.

Just two days after the post went viral and the accompanying song spawned hundreds of videos and memes on TikTok, Mohawke responded on Instagram. He posted a few comical TikTok videos that referenced the song on September 3, 2022, with the caption:

Moreover, when he found out that Cbat had reached number one on Spotify’s Viral 50 Chart in both the US and UK, he called it the “dumbest timeline of all” in a follow-up Instagram post. Flume, a fellow producer and DJ from Australia, asked Mohawke if he orchestrated the whole thing himself to which he replied:

Since then, he has not only uploaded Cbat on his official YouTube channel but also references the meme it generated in his Instagram bio that reads “‘Cry Sugar’ is better for sex” – Cry Sugar being his latest album. While Mohawke was pleased with the viral phenomenon and appreciated the attention Cbat was getting, he does not want it to define his career.

“I am acutely aware of how fleeting anything viral is. So, this is great, but I don’t believe for a second that it’s going to be anything lasting. My fear is, I have been putting on music for 16 years or something like that. If this becomes the defining point of my career, I’m going to be annoyed,” he told Insider.

The Reddit user has since broken up with his partner and had not expected his post to get such exposure

On September 4, 2022, Tyler updated his situation on the same subreddit and said that people in his life were able to trace the post to him since he had erroneously used his actual name as the username. Also, he had provided the real ages of him and his girlfriend and the accurate timeline of their relationship in the original post.

He had not anticipated the level of exposure his post would end up getting:

“The attention hasn’t been exactly positive and this hasn’t been the best thing to happen for my relationship and it’s now sadly ended. I didn’t expect it to blow up so much, I should [have] used an anonymous name instead of my real name and our real ages,” wrote Tyler on r/TIFU.

It turned out that the younger sister of his girlfriend came across the Reddit post and recognized his given name and age. She showed it to their parents and the family was not pleased about the situation. To make matters worse, the parents were familiar with Cbat as he had once played it at a family dinner when they were discussing their music preferences. They were all aware of his “odd taste” in music.

His relationship with his girlfriend has come to an end since the first post gained notoriety on the internet. He wrote:

“We are over now and I am moving on. I don’t think the song is that bad and I had no idea she didn’t like it until recently and as soon as I did, I stopped. I didn’t force her [to listen to] Cbat, not all can handle Cbat, I know it’s different.”

The Tab reached out to Tyler and learned that although he found the reactions to his story funny, he had not intended for it to go viral.

“I just used to play the music and get lost in it. Everyone has their own ways of doing things… I’m glad everyone is having a laugh,” he said.