WHAT DID ANY of us expect from Tila Tequila? The pint-size Vietnamese American was already the 21st century’s prototypical Internet starlet, having gained notoriety on MySpace and beyond for her nearly invisible outfits and utter lack of content. We all knew she was cooking up something to cross over into real space, but until she actually produced something, we were willing to overlook her musical ambitions and simply click through her profile again and again.

Then, last week, she released her first single, a driving hip-hop number called “I Love U,” and our world changed forever.

The song’s title is misleading. Though she starts off cooing, “I-I think I love you,” she quickly gets to the point: “If you ever hurt me, I’ll fucking kill you.” From there, it’s all downhill—a series of threats and orders, any of which, if resisted, will prompt Tila’s 34-24-36 wrath. She’ll slash your tires, break your cell phone, fuck you up.

“I’m the crazy bitch that’s running the game,” she intones in the refrain. “I’m the crazy bitch that’s calling you names. I’m a crazy bitch, I got no shame. I. Will. Fuck you up!”

There is only one word to describe this: genius.

Forget for a moment the dull-razor whine of her voice, her gangsta-wannabe lyrics, her low-budget rain-drenched writhing in the accompanying music video. Consider this instead:

Here is a woman who until now has been all image. None of us knew her apart from her existence as a collection of titillating pixels on our computer screens. Sure, she played at being a tough girl, but on the Internet anyone can play hard. (Even me.) If we dared to imagine Tila as a real creature, we could give her any personality we chose: Web-geek sexpot, librarian seductress, gourmet chef in stiletto heels (and nothing else). It was that very lack of fixed identity that made her so appealing. (Well, that and the boobs.)

But now, at the very moment when she chooses to fix one particular image in our minds, she picks an identity that all but screams, “Don’t come anywhere fucking near me—I’m crazy!” With “I Love U,” Tila Tequila has transformed herself from the girl of our electric dreams into that psycho bitch we once dated until we realized it wasn’t worth the screaming hysteria. What’s that you hear at the end of the single? The sound of 50 million American men, all falling limp at the same time.

This, however, is the work of an image manipulator working at the most sophisticated levels. What Tila Tequila is saying—what Tila Tequila means as a phenomenon—is that she is, now and forever, all image, no matter what you wish to think, say or write about her. (Check out her use of “that” instead of “who” in the line “I’m the crazy bitch that’s running the game.” Brilliant.)

What’s more, she warns, if you attempt to probe this image she’s so carefully created, you’ll only get hurt. Your conception of sex, the Internet and stardom cannot hold together under anything more penetrating than your simple gaze. Either enjoy the pixels before you, or get out of her face. Not only will Tila fuck you up, she already has.

And they say Baudrillard is dead.

Available now on iTunes, “I Love U” goes into Internet wide release on March 13.

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Matt Gross, TMM’s editor-at-large, writes the “Frugal Traveler” column for the New York Times.