Nelly and Kelly Rowland's Microsoft Excel 'text' mystery solved

It's been more than two decades since we saw Kelly Rowland tap out a message using Excel and it's just as confusing today as it was back then, but now, we might finally have an explanation for the bizarre scene.

As technology continues to advance it's only natural that music videos, films and TV shows will start to show their age through the devices featured, from Monica's thick TV in Friends to the chunky computer in American Pie.

However, not even new tech can be used to excuse Rowland's behaviour in the music video for 'Dilemma', in which she can be seen holding a device and typing a message to Nelly not into a message system, but into Microsoft Excel.

It's confusing, but apparently not entirely ridiculous:

Having Excel on a device so small is admittedly pretty impressive for the early 2000s, but even today it's not a system people typically use to send messages. I'm sure you're aware of the fact that Rowland's actions, then, have been the subject of a lot of memes.

Many people have questioned over the years why Rowland was frustrated at Nelly's failure to respond when she seemingly never successfully texted him in the first place, but Excel expert Dan Strong has come up with an answer.

In a video shared on TikTok, Strong explained that there is a way Rowland could have used Excel to get a message to Nelly. It's a fairly roundabout way, but stay with us.

Strong laid out a sequence of code that can be typed into the system in order to create a link to send an email. He suggests that Kelly may have typed out the message we see in the video, "WHERE YOU AT? HOLLA WHEN YOU GET THIS," as a precursor to a complicated formula entry, which is as follows: "=HYPERLINK("mailto:[email protected]?subject=hey&body="&A1,"Send Email").

Once you've got through all that, a link pops up which would, in theory, have allowed Rowland to send an email to Nelly.

Strong suggested that this was probably what the singer was about to do in the video, but that it was cut off for time purposes.

Now, let's be honest. It's a stretch. First off, the formula needed simply to get an email link is longer than the message Rowland actually wanted to send, so it's definitely a lot of effort to go through. Plus, if she had Excel and email on her device, chances are she had texts too. Also, if she wanted to send an email, surely she would have just sent an email.

But still, the theory has received support from a number of TikTok users including the official Microsoft 365 account, which commented: "This wasn’t obvious?"

If Rowland had been using Excel with the intention of typing out a lengthy formula in order to email Nelly to ask about his whereabouts, then on behalf of the entire internet, I send her my sincerest apologies for all the memes.

If you have a story you want to tell, send it to UNILAD via [email protected] 

Topics: Technology, Music, TikTok, Viral

Emily Brown

Emily Brown is UNILAD Editorial Lead at LADbible Group. She first began delivering news when she was just 11 years old - with a paper route - before graduating with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University. Emily joined UNILAD in 2018 to cover breaking news, trending stories and longer form features. She went on to become Community Desk Lead, commissioning and writing human interest stories from across the globe, before moving to the role of Editorial Lead. Emily now works alongside the UNILAD Editor to ensure the page delivers accurate, interesting and high quality content.