A video of TikTok user Nate Di Winer dancing with "Nasty" edited over it became a meme on Twitter in April 2024, causing a surge in streams for the song.

[11][12] Later that month, she released a capsule collection of "Nasty"-themed merchandise, including condoms, temporary tattoos, boxers, hockey jerseys, socks, towels, pendants, tank tops, t-shirts, and hoodies.

[20][17][21] The song has "robotic" hooks[18] and, in its second verse, she details a sexually charged date night, singing "Shotgun, my thighs on his seat/I ain't got nothing underneath/Looks like you're 'bout to spend the night/Looks like I'm 'bout to change your life".

[16] Variety's Steven J. Horowitz called the song's instrumental "sparse" and "hollow" and Chris Kelly of the Washington Post wrote that it was made up of "a barely-there beat and dial tone melody".

[14] It rose to number 69 on the chart the following week, prompting Tinashe to tweet that "Billboard matched [her] freak", referencing the sex position of the same name.

[27] For Vulture, Jennifer Zhan wrote that "Nasty" was "a perfect example of what Tinashe does best: making sexy dance tracks with near-hypnotic hooks".

[29][30] Steven J. Horowitz of Variety also called it "one of the most unshakeable anthems on this side of the year" and Nick Seip, for Slant, identified "Nasty" as an outlier on Quantum Baby for its "catchy hooks" and "endlessly meme-able lyrics".

[9][31] Tarisai Ngangura of Pitchfork praised "Nasty" as "the platonically great Tinashe song: easy and exquisite, an evolution without a departure".

[32] Chris Kelly of The Washington Post also dubbed it "the platonic ideal of a Tinashe song" that "feels much bigger than its Billboard chart position" on which "beat, bass, melody, message and attitude sync like clockwork".

[28][36] Following its release, Ivan Guzman of Paper described the video as "a study in sexy surveillance, shot in the desert and intentionally timed around the recent eclipse".

[43] "Nasty" first became popular online due to the virality of a video from February 2023 of British TikTok user Nate Di Winer,[15] also known as Nates.Vibe—who wears glasses[29] and whom critics described as looking nerdy[28]—wining, gyrating his hips, biting his finger, and sticking his tongue out to the soca song "Bind" by Hey Choppi alongside his dance instructor.

[49][50][51] For Variety, Stephen J. Horowitz deemed "Nasty" a "cultural event" that had been "memeified across social media" by May 2024, while Tinashe stated that RCA Records was likely "gagging" at its success without them.