The accompanying music video was directed by Ninian Doff and depicts a dramatization of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis where John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev express doubts about pushing a button to start a nuclear war.

"My Trigger" was written by Miike Snow's three members, Christian Karlsson, Pontus Winnberg and Andrew Wyatt, for the band's third studio album, iii (2016).

[2][4] As the original instrumental is "chopped" and incoherent, Wyatt learned the piano chord progression to complete a continuous pattern that the source material lacked.

[5] Wyatt explained to Rolling Stone that they experimented with many different samples on iii, stating that they are "all pop songwriters" and they try to conceptualize songs from "as weird of a place" as possible.

"[6] In an interview for Spin, Wyatt deemed "My Trigger" the album's "best combination of song and track", elaborating on the difference of the two terms, "I think a 'song' is, like, just play it on the guitar and sing it.

[8][13] He previously dated a stripper, which inspired the single "Silvia" from the band's debut album Miike Snow (2009), but he told Notion that the narration of "My Trigger" is "totally fictional".

[9] William Sutton described it as a "fun slice of light hearted pop" and wrote, "The electronically manipulated vocals can be slightly grating at times but this is still a good track.

"[9] Sputnikmusic's staff reviewer Rudy K. perceived "My Trigger" as a "genuinely great addition" to the band's catalog and commended its position as the opening track of iii.

"[20] DIY critic David Beech felt "My Trigger", along with two other album tracks, "possess a pop pomp that's been hinted at only slightly in the past".

"[21] Spin's Rachel Brodsky was critical in her review, stating that the song "lives in the upper register but ends up suggesting the unappealing prospect of Gnarls Barkley cutting an ELO record".

[10] Writing for PopMatters, Andrew Paschal felt it lacked "sonic depth", asserting, "While catchy, the song comes across as a factory-produced collection of hooks arbitrarily pasted together with no overarching concept or emotional nuance to guide it.

[22] Doff also directed the visual for iii's previous single "Genghis Khan", starring actors Edward Hayes Neary and Adam Jones.

[23] The two actors returned for the "My Trigger" video, this time portraying American President John F. Kennedy (Hayes Neary) and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (Jones) in a dramatization of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

[22][24] Doff described the visual as "an apparently very serious political drama about the Cuban Missile Crisis which starts spiraling into a sort of hallucinatory musical".

Kennedy is anxious of the decision, and the scenery cuts to his fantasy where Marilyn Monroe (Fran Dearlove)[26] dances seductively atop an oversized red button, tempting him to push it.