Not much more than a year ago, Grammy-winning teen songstress Lorde was just a slightly younger teenager, hanging out on 4chan’s music board, /mu/ and asking for critiques of her songs.

Except that she wasn’t.

The rumor that Lorde is a former 4channer started with an archived /mu/ post—anonymous, of course—from Dec. 2012:

“Hey /mu/, I’d appreciate any criticism and feedback on a song I am doing. Thanks. in b4 tits and the kitchen,” and linked to Lorde’s future megahit, “Royals,” on Soundcloud.

Don’t get too excited, though. The anonymous poster was merely a poser, Lorde confirmed on Twitter:

dead at people thinking i posted my music on 4chan last year… the caption i supposedly wrote “in b4 tits and the kitchen” o i am laffin — Lorde (@lordemusic) February 3, 2014

But if the mystery poster wasn’t Lorde, it was someone who jumped on the bandwagon very early. “Royals” hadn’t been up on Soundcloud for long before it hit 4chan.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with /mu/. The forum’s hipster “patricians” are known for trying to one-up each other by discovering new music.

In this case, though, some posters didn’t foresee Lorde’s massive success. The first comment on the song was a bit of a backhanded compliment:

pretty cool, dawg. don’t like your background vocals on the chorus. you should get other people to do that. it’d be cool to have dudes for that, like you were the queen of them or whatever. It just gets grating when it’s your voice x1000, you have a strong enough voice to hold on its own, but having it layered makes it sound a little odd… Solid song though, would listen again.

Hey, everyone’s a critic.

Screengrab via lordeVEVO/YouTube