Twitter is a wonderful device for gauging the connected culture of the human race. It keeps track of our trends in news, culture, sports and just about everything else so that we can better understand what the rest of the world is up to. And, much like the human race itself, Twitter is capable of beholding constructive good and impressively chaotic evil.
That dichotomy has played out perfectly over the past couple weeks in the form of Kanye West’s return to Twitter. The cultural tour-de-force returned to the platform for the first time since May of 2017, and his reappearance reminded us all of how the shortening of the distance between us and our favorite celebrities can be just as disconcerting as it is entertaining.
Everything started off fine. Twitter was happy to have West back, going as far as to have founder Jack Dorsey roll out the red carpet by himself to welcome West back from his 11-month hiatus. West started firing off inner thoughts almost immediately, wavering between absurd quasi-philosophy and vague statements that may or may not even have an intended meaning. West’s tweets, along with some other particularly befuddling views on life, told us that West’s uneven temperament definitely had not changed in his time away, and that the brief period of easy to enjoy Kanye tweets could quickly devolve into a more problematic landscape like it has in the past.
Jonah Baker | Argonaut
In all honesty, I had finished a column on Thursday praising Kanye for coming back to Twitter and sharing more of his art with the world. Then the politics started to come out, and once again, Kanye West rewrote his own story.
At this point in the news cycle, there is little else that can be said of West’s aggressively pro-Trump public stance. His defense of Trump without any real take on his policies deserves plenty of scrutiny, but the outright dismissal of contrary opinions is the truly worrying part of West’s latest tirades. There are plenty of commentators online who will simply use West’s tweets as content without any concern for him or the people that see him as a role model, unlike John Legend and Chance the Rapper who both tried and failed to engage in dialogue with West to gain some clarity.
Legend went out of his way to have a genuine conversation with West about his public image without making any attacks on Kanye himself. Instead of simply declining Legend’s advice, West went on to tweet out screenshots of their exchange in an attempt to put Legend on blast. Kim Kardashian-West came out in support of her husband’s right to free thought (while distancing herself from his vaguely right-wing political views) and Chance the Rapper was right to come out in support of the fact that not every person of color has to be a Democrat by default. Those things are all perfectly fine sentiments in a vacuum without Kanye’s intent on bullying Legend and everyone else who has the gall to suggest that maybe West isn’t right this time or that maybe his brilliance does have limits.
The issue is not that West has political views that he proudly exhorts online. He has been taking shots at politicians and policies in public since 2005, when he famously declared at a Hurricane Katrina relief rally that George W. Bush “doesn’t care about black people.” A quick observation of his tweets indicates support for our president that would otherwise seem unlikely, given West’s status as a non-white man and a leader in a musical genre that little reason to support Trump as a politician.
West’s only public contribution to a political entity is a donation to Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2015, so we cannot pretend that Kanye has secretly been a closeted alt-right pariah just waiting for the right time to reappear and appeal to a certain sect of his fanbase. He’s made it very clear that he has no interest in anyone’s opinion except for his own (and maybe his wife’s).
The problem is that Kanye West is almost endlessly influential. From music to fashion and even memes, there really isn’t a facet of culture that West does not have the ability to make waves in. Unfortunately, those waves are now rife with confusion and dangerously bigoted sentiments. It is up to all of us to recognize when our cultural icons lose touch with reality and to not be sounding boards for further bigotry. Kanye West will always be a transcendent and artist, but there is no room in the history books for 40-year-old enigmatic bullies.
Jonah Baker
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