Radioactive

Remixes keep the first half of the song's opening line intact and swap the rhyming second half for something vulgar, absurd, or purely sonic. The earliest Tumblr version went with "I wipe my ass and I slap my nuts," which scanned close enough to the real lyric that it reads as plausible at a glance3.

Later video edits moved away from rewritten words and toward replacing the chorus vocal with audio clips: death screams from video games, cartoon yelps, or whatever noise paired well with the song's dramatic buildup4. The tone sits between affectionate and mocking, since the actual chorus is already theatrical enough that a small substitution feels in character3.

Creators typically preserve the setup line "I'm waking up to ash and dust" and replace what follows with either a vulgar rhyme or a short audio clip timed to the beat. Video edits often cut Dan Reynolds' vocal under the chorus entirely and drop in game death noises or cartoon sound effects where the lyric would fall.