Warning: This video contains images of extreme gun violence.

If they haven’t already, someone is soon going to ask you “What do you think of ‘This Is America’?” It’s a song by Childish Gambino, aka Donald Glover, who hosted “Saturday Night Live” over the weekend, performed the song live on the show and then released the music video, above, on YouTube’s Vevo. Though the YouTube post of his “This Is America” performance on the “SNL” YouTube channel has, as of this writing, fewer than 100,000 views, the official music video has racked up more than 17 million—and has become a major media obsession and cultural talking point.

The video features a dancing, singing Glover engaging in hyperviolence—he graphically shoots a man in the back of the head at point-blank range just 50 seconds into the video. (The violence gets even worse later.) This comes right after Glover has sung,

We just wanna party
Party just for you
We just want the money
Money just for you
I know you wanna party
Party just for me

The tone of the song and the video suddenly shifts as the chorus begins,

This is America
Don’t catch you slippin’ up
Don’t catch you slippin’ up
Look what I’m whippin’ up

The video was directed by Toyko-born, LA-based Hiro Murai, who has helmed more than a dozen music videos over the years as well of episodes of Glover’s FX series “Atlanta.” The song’s lyrics are available at Genius.

With its references to guns, police, fear, the black experience and more—well, this is indeed America. The conversation about the song and the video, though, has already gone global. For instance, in a post titled “Review: Childish Gambino’s ‘This Is America’ is a revolution” on the website of Singapore-based street culture magazine Juice, Indran P writes,

Childish Gambino’s new song, “This Is America”, isn’t a chill song. It doesn’t even sound chill—it’s not “Redbone” [Childish Gambino’s 2016 hit]. This is not two years ago; this is the screaming, fiery, horrifying maw of the now in which we’re chewed and crushed on repeat. This is a song you can’t over-read because its extreme vision unpacks and lays everything bare for you.

More reviews and essays and think pieces are sure to follow—by the dozens, by the hundreds—in the media in the days and weeks to come, but meanwhile part of the “This Is America” phenomenon is the way that it’s inspired countless people on social media to try to deconstruct an artwork, and unpack their own emotions, in real time. A sampling from Twitter:

This scene reenacts Charleston shooting. Black people praising Lord killed for no reason. Look at the background, you see people running towards the area and “rioting” for change and cops running after them, just b/c it’s their “job”

#ThisIsAmerica pic.twitter.com/sX0KqozbPU

— Kanisha J (@KaniJJackson) May 7, 2018

The most blatant point of #ThisIsAmerica is that @donaldglover serves as a distraction to the viewer while a lot more meaningful things are happening in the background.

Distracted America has been an issue for decades.

— Aaron T. Starks (@StarkyLuv73) May 7, 2018

And here’s a tweetstorm worth reading in full:

I’ve watched @donaldglover‘s new music video a few times now and the first time I watched it I had a familiar, primal discomfort that I couldn’t place.

It wasn’t until the third watch that I realized it was reminding me of Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971).

Some thoughts: pic.twitter.com/8xCgpaHCXD

— KYLE A B (@kyalbr) May 6, 2018

There aren’t really any shared visual references between the two. But, both seem to consider the levity in “ultraviolence”, and suggests ultraviolence is our true nature.

In CWO, Alex and his droogs cripple a man while assaulting his wife, while Alex cheerily sings. pic.twitter.com/v3SdaGrPKB

— KYLE A B (@kyalbr) May 6, 2018