Why Is ‘Ojitos Mentirosos’ Trending on TikTok?
Photo via @eskidari TikTok
TikTok trends are known to help revive music classics. The latest song getting a second life? “Ojitos Mentirosos,” a hit track released by multiple artists, like Mexican cumbia band Tropicalísimo Apache, Colombian cumbia group Moab y Los Líderes, and most recently, Chino Pacas.
The trend reportedly started after drawing inspiration from 2019’s drama film Chicuarotes, directed by Gael García Bernal. Chicuarotes follows two characters as they try to earn money and escape their barrio life by telling jokes on a bus (and later, bigger schemes) while wearing clown makeup. The new trend shows people with clown makeup à la Chicuarotes in Mexico’s neighborhoods with the cumbia track in the background. The trend is intended to show the daily life in Mexico by showcasing their surroundings, such as schools, churches, mercados, and the streets that they routinely pass by. But more specifically, like the film, there’s an emphasis on showing the precarities of the lives of Mexico’s economically marginalized communities specifically.
However, people outside of Mexico are now recreating the trend, and it’s causing a stir online. Recently, a TikTok user recreated the trend in Orange County, CA, which attracted online criticism. A social media user wrote: “this trend its not just a trend the original ojitos mentirosos trend reflects the poverty of mexico and the thing that people from mexico go through the broken economy system and politcal system this trend has already gone out of context.”
Though the song is part of a trend, the composition has transcended generations. Composed by Peruvian songwriter Coré Cuestas Chacón, “Ojitos Mentirosos” is a song that’s been popular for over 30 years. Before Tropicalísimo Apache’s famous interpretation released in 1993, the song was also sung by La Sonora del Perú in 1982. Since then, the song has been covered by many artists like Moab y Los Líderes, La Sonora Santanera, and Los Dinamiteros de Colombia with Ely Guerra. Recently, Chino Pacas released a música mexicana cover of “Ojitos Mentirosos,” where he features a young woman with clown makeup in the official music video.
