Ireland's "Evening Herald" stated that the song "established her as a leading light on the music scene", while the "Irish Independent" called it "shouty". "NME" said that "Kelis's honeyed vocal, which broke into unfiltered madness, was the thing that took this track over the top." Sal Cinquemani from "Slant" wrote that "Caught Out There" is "a song that proves why Kelis's legacy should extend beyond simply bringing the boys to the yard. No, she wasn't "the first girl to scream on a track", as she claims on 2006's "Bossy", but her debut single, released when she was a 19-year-old with pink eyebrows, not only became a girl-power anthem thanks to its livid hook and indignant lyrics, but helped announced the Neptunes as one of the premier superstar production teams of 21st-century pop music." "Sunday Life" noted it as "attentiongrabbing". The music video for "Caught Out There" was directed by Hype Williams. In the video, Kelis, in her technicolor spiral afro, blond, gold, orange, red, and fuchsia hair, starts in a confessional style, before opening to the chorus where she rips up the living room. Afterwards, Kelis and a group of fed-up women boycott and picket men. Finally, as she sings, "Got something for y'all", a gun cock is heard and the video finishes by alluding to her exacting revenge for her former lover's infidelity. In 2003, "Q" magazine ranked "Caught Out There" at number 649 in their list of the "1001 Best Songs Ever". In 2010, "Pitchfork" named it the 161st-best track of the 1990s. They wrote, "Soundtracking this post-breakup mania is a top-rate, ahead-of-its-time Neptunes production, with snapping keyboards accompanied by high-pitched tones that sound like dynamite exploding in space. In a word: Damn." In 2012, "NME" placed the song at number 24 on its list of the "100 Best Songs of the 1990s". In 2012, "Porcys" listed the song at number 24 in their ranking of "100 Singles 1990-1999", adding, "Here's the classic Kelis at its best. A perfect, uncommon bit of Neptunes in the foreground is the perfection of this protest- or rather statement-song."