Kanye West

sure, but I'd like to skip even that week

otm

This, uh, is unlikely to end well for anyone, including the namesake of this thread.

no, they'll still be the biggest thing for like a week then no one will ever listen to them again like his last few

Not if he continues to put out albums exclusively to weird stem devices like he did with DONDA 2. Was there even much of a discourse at all for that one?

I even forgot that DONDA 2 was this year.

so did Kanye

maybe if he disappears for a few years but nah if he puts out an album next year I feel like it'll go down about as well as R. Kelly's last one

So his next album will be a Christmas album?

That's the last thing R Kelly put out.

Donda 3 antisemitic christmas album stem player available exclusively via parler

"White Christmas" may hit differently

Is anyone on Parler going to care about anything non-political that Kanye says on there?

No. The right wing has nothing but disdain for music, fashion, and design — the things he says are his passions.

The mainstream American right wing I should say. There are a handful of reactionary dandies out there I guess, but they’re the fringe.

Milo Yiannopoulos to thread

Exactly, Kanye is for some reason aspiring to be that tier of celebrity.

well, the right wing is good at some kinds of art--movies, for instance

Stand up comedy

It'll be run about as well as one of his album rollouts, it seems.

^^^ Toldja. Parler literally just gave away for free what he was buying. pic.twitter.com/OhvN7DraQ0

— JΞSŦΞR ✪ ΔCŦUΔL³³°¹ (@th3j35t3r) October 17, 2022

Just saw the hashtag Klanye, which may be old but was new to me and made me chuckle a lil.

Was there even much of a discourse at all for that one?

not really because it didn't get a wide release and it was so obviously unfinished that i think people were expecting he'd keep tweaking it & eventually release it for real but that never happened

i pirated it but didn't get as far as double clicking any of the files

Thought this was an interesting read

https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/10/17/damon-young-kanye-west-is-boring-too/

This is the key paragraph from that piece.

Sure, Kanye (who legally changed his name to “Ye” but will stay “Kanye” here for continuity’s sake) says and does things that are dumb, ignorant, ill formed, inaccurate, unsound, unhinged, untethered, misogynistic, anti-Black and antisemitic. But — and admittedly it feels odd to say “but” after that litany of defects — I think we sometimes conflate platform and influence. Despite his cultural ubiquity, I just don’t see how Kanye, in 2022, is still influential enough to sway or even slightly nudge people’s opinions on … anything other than Gap Inc.’s annual report. No one takes him seriously — not even the bad faith right-leaning platforms and people desperate, breathless to amplify him, ecstatic that finally someone with a Q Score above hell is on their side. Their relationship is predicated on symbiotic thirst. He’s thirsty for someone, anyone, to validate his current bluster, and they’re thirsty for Black mouthpieces to validate their hate.

On one hand yeah, he's not commanding legions of followers at this point. But on the other, having anyone as famous as him out there getting attention for saying the kind of shit he's saying still serves as some kind of validation and encouragement for other people who want to say those things or who already are saying them online or wherever.

he's lost even the fans who were stanning albums as bad as donda

having anyone as famous as him out there getting attention for saying the kind of shit he's saying still serves as some kind of validation and encouragement for other people who want to say those things or who already are saying them online or wherever

Yes, but the point is just as with the former president, there's zero conversion factor. People who agree with Kanye West about race, or the pernicious influence of the jooooos, or whatever, thought that already. Indeed, they got there before him. He's not a thought leader, he's a thought follower. So yeah, he's a famous bigot. Big deal. This is America. We have plenty of famous bigots already. He can go stand over there *vague arm wave* with all the others. Ted, this is Kanye. Kanye, Ted.

While I hope that columnist’s hunch is right (about Kanye not being a “danger to the larger culture”), I wish he had written more about these angles:

Kanye used to be my favorite artist and still might actually be because his old music is my favorite music. And I have been trying, for several years, to find the word(s) to encapsulate what he stirs in me now when I’m reading or watching one of his interviews or attempting to decipher one of his tweets (…) How does his behavior affect how we assess his old music? Are we over- (or under-) stating the danger of his words? How should we react to people who are both mentally ill and causing harm?

I definitely have some thoughts in response to those rhetorical questions, but it would be interesting to read an actual Kanye fan wrestle with them (not just raise and drop them).

(tbc, I have thoughts about rhetorical questions #2 and #3… but not #1, only a fan to begin with can get into that one.)

i don't think it really changes anything much about how i feel about his old, actually worthwhile music, its strengths & weaknesses are still the same.

like it's just a depressing reminder that he's like this now rather than anything worse

even when I liked him I always kinda wondered if he was Tommy Wiseauing his way into some of the really cool moments on those albums

Otm. Twitter is absolutely rife with white supremach and antisemitism right now. Have no idea why Elon Musk thinks Twitter is too heavily moderated because white supremacists pop up like mushrooms in every reply thread.

Yeah. Up until relatively recently I would report those posts on the somewhat rare occasions I came across them, but over the last few months the site seems to have become positively littered with comments by groyper-types and far-right bots, to the extent that there are now far too many to take the time to report each one. And lately when I do happen to report one, I will get a response from Twitter saying that the tweet didn't violate any rules, even though the post in question is saying really disturbing/inflammatory and not in any way subtle nazi-type shit.

Yes, but the point is just as with the former president, there's zero conversion factor. People who agree with Kanye West about race, or the pernicious influence of the jooooos, or whatever, thought that already. Indeed, they got there before him.

Is this entirely true, though? I feel like one of the things the qanon phenomenon demonstrated is that there are many people who will hear some outrageous conspiracy garbage and then be inspired to "research" it online and end up becoming converts... hence the stories of distraught family members lamenting how their previously apolitical or at least politically moderate relatives came to believe extreme ideas after being exposed to q posts or to public figures referencing ideas from them. Like, in a matter of months coming to steadfastly believe that reptilian overlords are pulling the strings behind world events.

I wish that Trump, Kanye, et al didn't have that sort of influence on people, but it seems evident to me that they in fact do?

^^^ Toldja. Parler literally just gave away for free what he was buying.

gonna have to [citation needed] that. i got the email in question and it only contained my email address

his buds Trump and Elon have the same affliction, which I think is what makes them the 3 most "popular" people in America

frogbs, Wednesday, October 12, 2022 4:04 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah I think our civilization is malfunctioning. These three people are actually insane and very impulsive, constantly saying things that make no sense. And they are the most famous and celebrated Americans.

― treeship., 12. oktober 2022 23:55 (six days ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm

They all got famous for reasons other than that at least - whereas the likes of Alex Jones and Joe Rogan's fame is a direct result of spouting poisonous bullshit

Remember when Charlie Sheen was the most famous person in America for a while

Sheen’s whole moment felt like the start of a decade that led to Trump.

Just saw shared Instagram Reel in my feed with an anti-Semitic Drink Champs clip with the caption “All is being revealed! Watch till the end!”

xps

Today's media operations fail:

Parler sent an email to all users with 300+ of their verified users CC'd instead of BCC'd

Now hundreds of people are replying and everyone has access to the personal emails of many verified users and Parler investors pic.twitter.com/pjjxJtM6dD

— Adam Ryan 🤝 (@AdamRy_n) October 17, 2022

I agree that Kanye is not really "converting" anyone nor is he any sort of thought leader but having a prominent GOP figure go "Death Con 3 on the Jews" sure as hell is affecting the way a lot of these people talk already

Yes, but the point is just as with the former president, there's zero conversion factor. People who agree with Kanye West about race, or the pernicious influence of the jooooos, or whatever, thought that already. Indeed, they got there before him. He's not a thought leader, he's a thought follower. So yeah, he's a famous bigot. Big deal. This is America. We have plenty of famous bigots already. He can go stand over there *vague arm wave* with all the others. Ted, this is Kanye. Kanye, Ted.

I feel like this handwaves away the pernicious effects of this toxic shit being in the public discourse. There's a reason why we are getting more and more younger men and boys buying into these hateful views, because they are exposed to it constantly online. So pretending that (like it or not) a major public figure who gets breathless coverage from wall-to-wall outlets every time he drops new music, one who has *checks notes* 31.5 million followers, spouting hateful bullshit results in "zero conversion" is flat out wrong and, imo, dangerous.

Whenever a friend or relative feels under siege because h/she learns about anti-Semitic cunts like Kanye getting a platform I know this shit has an impact.

We all know how quickly the YouTube recommendation algorithm can go from innocent video to some dark and questionable content under even the most innocent of starting points, imagine when an impressionable mind starts typing some combination of "kanye west" and "Jewish" into the search bar. Obviously that speaks to some larger issues we have to deal with as a society, but another famous person with a massive following providing another entry point to this line of thinking is not something we should just shrug off.

look at the comments on videos, like i was just watching funk flex go in on kanye and there were comments suggesting hot 97 and FF were in the pocket of jewish people, i don't buy that there is zero conversion

i know so many people from my hometown that literally NEVER talked about politics and now drone on about trump on facebook

Even more than anti-Black racism, which has never subsided below dog-whistle level in this country at best, I think there's a sort of forbidden thrill for people dipping their toes into "great Jewish conspiracy" thinking. Post-Holocaust, it's been so drummed out of public discourse that it has something of the allure of forbidden knowledge — especially because of its hints of ancient secrets and all that shit. So when it gets any daylight at all from very famous public figures, whatever their own contexts, it has the capacity to influence people.

i agree with everything being said. even if relatively few people are convinced by kanye directly, his comments add to the visibility of antisemitic conspiracy theories, sending people down rabbit holes. kanye himself was likely radicalized by such a process. it started with getting into christianity, he spends more time in right wing spaces (online and in real life), all of a sudden he starts supporting trump, sympathizing with trump's narrative that he is battling an insidious deep state, that resonates with other, even more pernicious narratives, etc etc

it would be interesting to see a kind of study of this process. so many people who were contrarian or so-called "dirtbag leftists" around 2016 are now extremely right wing in their sympathies. perhaps they are just showing their true colors, but i think they a good number of them were actually pushed into much more fucked up positions.

there's definitely not 'zero conversion', like my mother has friends that she's known for decades harassing her with Trumpian or QAnon conspiracy theories and she's completely shocked by it.

some people are just nutbars and gravitate towards the nutbar - other people are more naive, are angry for various reasons but don't have a singular place to focus their anger. some of these people (Trump, Kanye, QAnon, Joe Rogan) give thing places to focus their anger, and the confidence in which these Dunning-Kruger hall of fame folk espouse their opinions convinces them. especially due to the effectiveness of the gish gallop.

there's a conversation to be had about how much energy YOU PERSONALLY should devote to being worried/invested in what Kanye is saying for your mental health, vs the collective responsibility to show disdain and say "this isn't ok", which are two different things.