If a girl sings popular music, that doesn’t mean she can’t rock a rock band’s merch, and if she does so, that doesn’t mean she’s got no clue about it. But the patronizing online trolls were eager to prove different when the North Carolina-based TikToker Zaria Joyner pulled off the look in a classic Metallica Ride the Lightning t-shirt.

The musician, who usually performs R&B and soul songs to her 124.7k followers on the platform, was immediately bombarded with comments like “name three songs” and “you don’t really like Metallica.” But Zaria didn’t go astray and accepted the challenge.

The next day, Zaria posted a response video saying “So my response to you guys is, like, really? Only three? Only three songs? How ’bout I play ’em on guitar for you?” She then proceeded by dropping the sickest guitar solo, shredding parts from Metallica’s hits “Master of Puppets,” “Enter Sandman” and “One.”

The video got 467k views, but Zaria didn’t stop there. She posted yet another TikTok of herself practicing Metallica’s “Unforgiven,” and trolls… well, I suppose their melted faces are busy wondering if it’s them who really like Metallica now.

Trolls made fun of Zaria for wearing a Metallica t-shirt and asked her to name 3 of their songs, so she dropped this badass response video

@zariasmusicReply to @paytonnsmith I hope this video finds the #Metallica fans lol, not my best #guitar playing but that wasn’t really the point #guitarist♬ original sound – Zaria

Bored Panda reached out to Zaria, a TikToker and R&B singer from Charlotte, North Carolina. Zaria, who’s currently a junior in college taking classes remotely at UNC Chapel Hill, said that her initial reaction to the comments was frustration. However, she soon realized that she had a really funny response to silence those critics.

It turns out, Zaria started playing guitar around age 14 and listened to a lot of Metallica throughout her life. “The first time I heard Metallica, I was sitting in my 5th-grade classroom when my teacher played Enter Sandman. I was like ‘this is the best song I’ve ever heard’ and I asked her who the band was. She told me it was Metallica and a few years later, when I got my first guitar, the first riff I learned was Enter Sandman.”

She then proceeded to shred Metallica’s “Battery”

@zariasmusicReply to @davidgriffith970 too much reverb but u get the point. Comment suggestions and I’ll play for y’all #guitar #guitarist #metallica♬ original sound – Zaria

Zaria said her wish was that people would help to spread the word about this whole story so that it would reach Metallica

@zariasmusicTag ##Metallica on my last Instagram post also a bird shit on my arm 2day and my dad said it was good luck so don’t let me down ##guitar ##guitarist♬ original sound – Zaria

The year Zaria got that guitar, she only listened to Metallica and explored their entire discography from start to finish. “I definitely remember feeling very different from other kids my age who weren’t into that kind of music, but I was so drawn into it that I didn’t really care.”

After going to college, Zaria said she had to work a lot to put herself through school. Turns out she couldn’t play guitar as much, but “Metallica has always been in my heart.” In fact, “they have ultimately inspired my whole relationship with music,” Zaria said.

And… Metallica responded, sharing big ups to Zaria!

The singer said she was ecstatic when she got a response from Metallica. “I actually cried when I read their comment on my page. They mean so much to me as players, and artists, so to get recognized by arguably the biggest band in the world and my personal favorite band was something that I don’t think a lot of people my age really understood.”

This past year, Zaria began to build an audience on TikTok to support her pursuits in music. “And even though I hadn’t previously shown my guitar skills to my online audience, I think this video was an epic debut of that interest, and I’m excited to integrate more of my guitar playing into my R&B music.”

Now the Tiktoker said her life was complete and she thanked everyone for helping to turn this into reality

Zaria called this whole experience “simply one of the most special moments of her life.” “It meant the world to me and I didn’t care if anyone else realized the magnitude of what had happened.”

“Not only did they leave a very nice comment on my last post, but they followed me back on Instagram, which was surreal and incredibly overwhelming in the best way possible,” the TikToker concluded.

And this is what people had to comment

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