Why are we so angry with Kanye West?
Three years ago, I published an essay called Why are we so angry with Jonathan Franzen? where I attempted to understand why people on social media are so upset whenever this lovable weirdo is mentioned. It was a very successful piece in terms of visitors, which lead me to an unavoidable observation : sometimes we’re a little bit ashamed of how hard we react to celebrity gossip online. Because sometimes the way we react is insane. The unchecked anger towards Jonathan Franzen is a good example of that.
So, today I want to try this exercise again with the most divisive online figure ever: Kanye West.
Ye is somewhat of an unassailable figure to me. He’s the most internet person I’ve ever seen in my life and by that, I mean that different versions of him exist in the consciousness of every soul on the internet. This is something Kanye understands well and uses in his creative pursuits. Nothing can be taken at face value with him. He understands his power over popular culture and whenever he opens his mouth you have to wonder: what is the message he’s trying to convey here? Why the fuck is he doing what he’s doing? Because there is a reason.
Without further ado, let’s dig deep on my theories on why we are so angry with Ye.
Theory #1: Celebrity turned him into a fascist
This is the most common explanation for the ire directed towards Kanye. It’s easy to understand why: he notoriously wore a red MAGA hat (which is a symbol of hatred) and said that slavery was a choice on TMZ. He did apologize about that, although it wasn’t as reported as the inflammatory statement. That is a common thing about Kanye West and the media. The way we feel about it is very much shaped by the narratives we like to tell ourselves.
Obviously, Kanye doesn’t think 400 years of slavery was a choice. He’s a notorious poet of the double entendre and there was definitely an agenda to what he was saying. An ill-advised agenda for a tragic, indelible blunder… but an agenda still. Kanye is a big believer in how the way you think informs the way you act, which therefore involves the way you’re perceived. He talks about it earlier in the interview. This comment was his weird, roundabout way of saying you have to break free of limiting mindsets. Was it wrong? Yes. Was it gross? Yes. But Kanye doesn’t believe that slavery was a choice. Any scrutiny to this claim doesn’t hold. If you sincerely believe that, you’re either an idiot or don’t pay enough attention to who Kanye West is and what he represents for society.,
Same goes for his republican party affiliation. He gave money to Hilary Clinton’s campaign in the 2016 U.S presidential election. He also gave 15K to the Democratic National Committee in 2014. His motivations for wearing the MAGA hat are nebulous too. West claims in the TMZ interview that it was a subconscious feeling he had. That he wanted to deprogram the way people were taught to think. Once again, I don’t condone his actions but this man is politically confused at best. You cannot believe in good faith that he’s a fascist.
You could also claim that his statements have done some damage to important causes, but they didn’t. No one wants to claim his actions. No one ever talks about them anymore unless we’re explicitly arguing about Kanye West. Kanye’s never been an important political factor in anything. No one votes a certain way because of him. You might be angry with him because of his politics, but you’re angry with him for the wrong reasons. Not even his most ardent defenders lend him any political credibility. They either think it’s a coded message that is supposed to mean something else or that he’s off his rocker.
Theory #2 : He doesn’t make good music anymore
This is the easiest one to debunk. Outside of Jesus is King (which is a weird outlier in his discography), he’s kicked ass pretty consistently in his career. If you don’t think that, you’re probably just not a Kanye fan and that’s cool. There was an era from 2008 to 2013 where he was the coolest thing in music and that it was simply good taste to be a Kanye fan. It was the Pitchfork thing to do.
But if you look at his musical trajectory since the iconic My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, you got the equally iconic Yeezus, the slightly weaker The Life of Pablo (that still has bangers like Famous, Wolves and No More Parties in L.A on it), the disorienting and heartfelt Ye, the excellent Kids See Ghosts, Jesus is King (this one was weird) and Donda, who breaks through even the harshest hater’s defenses after a couple listens.
Kanye is not as pop as he used to be. He’s an experimental artist at heart. He started breaking the boundaries of hip-hop on 808s & Heartbreaks and never really stopped. Budding producers and music enthusiasts really bonded with his work because of that. These people still like Kanye’s music today. They might not like the man, but they can sit down and enjoy his work for what it is: hip-hop that is unique, forward thinking and connected with its times in its own weird, convoluted way.
Theory #3 : He’s different
I believe this is it. I believe this is why people are angry with Kanye and that every day, the denial of that difference widens the gap between Kanye and so-called “normal people” a little more. See, Ye suffers from bipolar disorder. This is a documented fact, which is consistently dismissed in arguments because he allegedly refuses to medicate himself. He explained himself in an uneasy, manic interview with Joe Rogan that he believes medication kills his creativity. That apparently angers people.
I hear all the time the arguments that “he’s still narcissistic” and “he’s still a right-wing fascist”. What if the disease made him that way? Common symptoms of a manic episode are hallucinations (I don’t know…. thinking that God talks to you while you’re in the shower) and delusions (talking yourself into the conclusion that Donald Trump likes black people?). There’s a common misunderstanding that bipolar people are still responsible for their behaviour in the midst of a manic episode. That is a very big misconception about mental health. Mental illness takes control of you.
Now, there’s the entire question of why he doesn't want to medicate himself. That is well within his power. There’s two questions you should ask yourself then: 1) is the person happy? and 2) is the person hurting anybody? In this case, the answer to these questions seem to be 1) yes and 2) no. Kanye stated on Ye that his bipolar disorder is his super power. It makes him do weird stuff, like wearing a stocking over his head or inviting cancelled artists to play on a song he already recorded because he wants to be like Jesus and redeem the criminals in the eyes of God. For all we know, he might think he’s the new Jesus.
Every time we get angry or dismissive at how weird Kanye is, the weirder and more different he gets because he feels like his message doesn’t get across. So he feels like he needs to get bolder, more provocative. This Kanye-vs-the-world confrontation is tragic because it is based on two skewed perspectives. His that is skewed by the disease and ours that is skewed by our ignorance of that disease and our inherent desire for conformity. Don’t even try to tell me he was narcissistic before he was bipolar. A disease doesn’t appear out of nowhere because it is named. It can be treated because it is named. That’s different.
Truth is, we’ve always low key hated anti-conformists as a society. We hate the successful ones even more. We like to think: who does he think he is? He thinks he’s so much better than me. He’s just devoted his life to being interesting, which takes a lot of courage and artistic devotion and come hell or high water, he’s succeeding. No one takes Kanye seriously as a person, but everyone takes his music seriously. Maybe it’s time to chill and appreciate him while we have him. This type of genius tends to leave way before their time.
