Porter Robinson and Ninajirachi’s long-awaited collaboration finally arrived on July 28, after they debuted it during Nina’s Coachella set in April. The rollout stretched across several months, with the song appearing at different festivals and receiving an unusually elaborate online campaign. By the time it was officially released, anticipation had reached a fever pitch. Fans even joked that Porter was treating this one single more seriously than his last album, SMILE! , making the whole campaign feel almost like an EP rollout. Ironically, both artists told Billboard that they are usually too shy to reach out to other musicians, meaning this kind of collaboration might easily never have happened.

“WannaCry” takes its name from the infamous ransomware attack that spread around the world in 2017. The song is written from the virus’s point of view, turning digital infection into something emotional, possessive, and strangely intimate.

And finally, the song went viral. The virus went viral.

Porter told Billboard that he was “getting messages from people I didn’t even think would like it,” suggesting that the track had already reached beyond the audience he expected. The success completes the joke built into the entire campaign: a song named after a rapidly spreading computer virus began spreading rapidly across the internet itself.

The image above is a screenshot from WANNACRY, the interactive website created as part of the rollout. Visitors are first asked to play a small “WannaCry” game, but the choices are completely meaningless. Whether you click “YES,” “NO,” or even the close button in the upper-left corner, the website eventually forces you toward the song’s YouTube visualiser.

The song is a synth-driven electronic track with strong hyperpop influences. When I first heard the drop through the Coachella livestream, I immediately felt that Porter had written its central melody… and I was right! Porter first came up with the short synth lead, which instantly made him think of Nina. She then reworked the bass and gave the drop a more unstable shape.

Nina’s sharp glitches, distorted textures, and unpredictable details make the song feel much more energetic. At the same time, the bright lead melody and Porter’s vocal chops keep his musical identity clearly present. I also love the whispered line at the end of the song: “I’ve already been there / And I’m already gone.” feel like the virus is speaking. The result feels like a genuine collision between their styles.

The way they present the lyrics is equally interesting. They wrote the song as a first-person monologue from the perspective of the Wanna Cry virus. The virus becomes a possessive and dependent character that wants to enter, control, and write on behalf of someone else:

You say you wanna cry
I’ll write the words for you
You’re running out of time
But I can tell you what to do

The lyrics work literally as the voice of ransomware taking control of a computer, but they can also be understood as a metaphor for relationships shaped by possessiveness and the desire to control another person.

I cannot wait to finally hear this song while I am raving. I already know I will be jumping as high as I possibly can when the drop arrives.