What is it about?
“Don’t Trust Me” was the 2008 breakout hit of the electronic music duo 3OH!3, a song that peaked at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and ultimately went triple platinum. Everybody seemed to like this song, or at least pretended to like it because the lyrics were edgy and offensive and if you didn’t like it you were lame. In the song, the narrator describes his abusive relationship with an actress, a trust-fund baby with a drug and alcohol problem who says things to her lover in the throes of passion that he doesn't believe.
Why did I like it?
I solely liked the song for its chorus which was upbeat and incredibly catchy, each line punctuated with a falsetto "woah". I also liked the implication within those lines that it was actually possible to be jaded by a woman's touch which seemed badass at the time.
The verses however, never really resonated me, and I always felt uncomfortable when the song’s bridge came on: “Shush, girl, shut your lips/Do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips.” My friends would chant this part like crazy at middle school dances, but I always felt guilty about sexualizing a woman who overcame far more hardship than I'd ever encountered and accomplished far more than I ever would. I’ve come around on it, though. What better way to immortalize the first deaf and blind woman to earn a Bachelor’s degree than to give her props for her twerking game? It’s science. As a woman who could neither see or hear, Helen Keller most certainly had a substantially heightened sense of touch. No doubt she could throw those hips back as smoothly as a finger across a line of Braille.
How does it hold up over time?
Decently. Although the lyrics are still cringeworthy, the chorus is still undeniably catchy. I played this in my college dish room in 2016 and not a single person wasn't singing along-–so I think it speaks to the impact the song had when it was first released. I highly doubt that this song could have be released without generating significant controversy today–it probably wouldn’t even get radio play. But it will forever be a staple of the late 2000s: it was corny, it was offensive, and it was fun.