Kanye West / Ye

About

Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, is an American rapper and producer well known for his best-selling records and trendsetting fashion style. West began pursuing a career in music as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records^[1] and by 2004, West had released first record album which won that year's Best Rap Album Grammy award.^[2] On the Internet, West is well known for his self-absorbed and often erratic tweets, as well as his on-stage interruption of Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2009.

Online History

September 2005: Hurricane Katrina Remark

After Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, NBC hosted a benefit telethon called A Concert For Hurricane Relief^[6] on September 2nd. During the live broadcast, Kanye strayed from the teleprompter, saying ''George Bush doesn’t care about black people,'' before the show’s producer cut away to another actor, unaware of the sudden change in broadcast.

The clip was made into a YTMND^[3] on October 2nd, 2009. Several derivatives appeared on the site after, replacing "black people" with other things including "my stapler"^[4] and "Mac people."^[5] The video was named the 25th best viral video of the 2000s by pop culture blog Complex^[8], appeared on Encyclopedia Dramatica^[7], and was parodied on a shirt worn by a puppet in a 2006 episode of Arrested Development.

September 2009: MTV VMA Awards

During a live broadcast of the annual MTV Music Video Awards on September 13th, 2009, Kanye interrupted Taylor Swift's acceptance speech for that year's Best Female Video. An exploitable of Kanye began circulating around 4chan paired with the snowclone "Imma Let You Finish".

July 2010: Joins Twitter

After a blog post^[19] in which he claimed "everything that Twitter offers I need less of"^[18] on May 13th, 2009, Kanye joined Twitter as @kanyewest^[10] on July 28th, 2010. Importing the use of typing in all capital letters^[26] from his blog, he began using the site to shout out to celebrity friends and post pictures of goblets and 19th century art. This initial burst of activity was covered by the Awl^[20], TechCrunch^[21], Entertainment Weekly^[22], the Wall Street Journal^[23] and TIME.^[24]

On July 31st, Kanye chose one person to follow, a teenager from England named Steven Holmes^[27], @ste_101.^[28] Kanye and Steven exchanged several tweets^[29] on the first night, calling him the "chosen one."^[31] Within a week, Steven asked Kanye to unfollow him due to unwanted attention.^[30] Since then, Kanye has only followed five people, despite having over 5,841,000 followers as of January 6th, 2012.

January 2012: Return to Twitter

He made a comeback to the site on January 4th, 2012. Over the course of 85 tweets and three hours, Kanye outlined a plan for a new company he has in the works, Donda, named after his late mother, who passed away in November 2007. He outlined the plan over several tweets, planning a 22 department company that would hire people from professions across the board including writers, nutritionists, musicians, lawyers, video game designers, and teachers to make products and experiences people want and can afford. He gained over 23,000 followers in the days following his rant.

The next day, news of his diatribe was covered by Entertainment Weekly^[12], MSNBC^[13], Washington Post^[14], Mashable^[16]. Spin Magazine^[15] collected statistics from the tweet session which included a total word count of 1623, 9 fashion brand name drops, and 1 Matrix reference. In one of these tweets, Kanye gave out an email address for the company, contactDONDA@gmail.com. A fake Twitter account, @DONDAWorldwide^[17], was created that night, claiming they had made the Gmail account and talking about the potential projects the company would undertake.

2020 Presidential Campaign

On August 30th, 2015, at the MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles California, Kanye West received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award, an annual award given to an influential person in music video creation. While it was customary upon receiving this award to do a medley of hits reminiscent of the videos for which the artist had won, Kanye West instead first stood silently for two minutes, then gave an extended and seemingly improvised speech, which included the fact that he had smoked marijuana before attending the VMAS, and concluded with the announcement that he had decided to run for president of the United States in 2020.^[56]

Kanye's announcement instantly caused his name to trend on Twitter. In the 12 hours after the announcement, the words Kanye and President were tweeted together 173,000 times, while the words Kanye West was tweeted 264,000 times.^[57] The hashtag #KanyeForPresident was used over 12,000 times on Instagram.^[61] In addition, many users photoshopped Kanye into electorally-themed media, or tweeted reaction images. The announcement was covered in news sources worldwide, including Fox News, People, and the Daily Mail.^[58][59][60]

Feud with Wiz Khalifa

On January 27th, 2016, West revealed in a tweet that his upcoming album would be titled Waves. In response to West's announcement, Wiz Khalifa, Pittsburgh-based rapper who has had a child with West’s ex-girlfriend Amber Rose, tweeted “Please don’t take the wave" in an effort to credit another rapper, Max B, for popularizing "wavy-ness" as a slang term. Khalifa then tweeted “Hit this kk and become yourself,” suggesting West to come up with more of an original album title by smoking marijuana, which Khalifa and his fans have often referred to as KK, or short for "Khalifa Kush." West, apparently unaware of this shorthand lingo, misinterpreted this tweet as a diss towards his wife Kim Kardashian, and fired back with a series of 31 tweets that took Khalifa’s personal style, music, and relationship with Amber Rose to task (excerpted below).^[62]

Shortly after this exchange, Khalifa followed up on his previous tweet by clarifying that "KK" is his lingo for marijuana, which led West to delete most of the tweets that had been directed at the rapper, though not before they had received more than 35,000 retweets each. The spat was subsequently covered by popular entertainment and music news outlets like Vulture,^[64] Pitchfork,^[65] and Billboard.^[66] Meanwhile, Khalifa’s Wikipedia page was temporarily vandalized by an anonymous editor to declare the rapper dead on the date of the feud.^[63]

April 2018 Return to Twitter, New Albums

On April 13th, 2018, West returned to Twitter.^[69] For the following week, he tweeted esoteric quotes and references to his creative process, as well as references to a book he was working on (examples shown below).

On April 19th, he appeared to confirm he had at least two new albums coming, one to be released on June 1st, 2018, and another with rapper Kid Cudi on June 8th.

Conservative Tweets

On April 23rd, West posted a tweet praising conservative political commentator Candace Owens (shown below, left). The same day, West tweeted a video of Dilbert author Scott Adams holding a stream on Periscope (shown below, right).

Shortly after, West tweeted a call for people to start "breaking out of our mental prisons" (shown below, left). In response, Alex Jones replied that he admired West's "bold moves against the thought police" and asked him to be a guest on Infowars (shown below, right).

On April 23rd, the Hot 97 YouTube channel uploaded a video in which radio show host Ebro revealed West told him "I love Donald Trump" (shown below, left).

Step-back From Politics

On October 30th, 2018, West tweeted "My eyes are now wide open and now realize I’ve been used to spread messages I don’t believe in. I am distancing myself from politics and completely focusing on being creative !!!"

The tweet was thought to be a response to West's involvement in Blexit, a campaign spearheaded by black conservative Candace Owens which West allegedly designed shirts for to get black voters to leave the Democratic party. West tweeted, “I introduced Candace to the person who made the logo and they didn’t want their name on it so she used mine I never wanted any association with Blexit. I have nothing to do with it.” Prior to his tweet, West also tweeted that he supported "creating jobs and opportunities for people who need them the most," "prison reform," "common-sense gun laws," and "love and compassion for people seeking asylum and parents who are fighting to protect their children from violence and war," all of which are left-leaning positions.

Following the tweet, Owens blogged^[76] that she took West's tweet to mean that he felt used by her and the Blexit campaign. She said it felt like "a bullet (piercing) her heart," said that she never said West designed the shirts, and apologized to West and to Donald Trump for Kanye's tweets seeming like an attack on his presidency.

Online Presence

On Twitter

Several tribute projects to his early tweets exist, including embroidered and framed versions^[32] made by Etsy seller supervelma^[33], a song by Josh Groban, and a Huffington Post^[25] slideshow pairing the tweets with New Yorker cartoons. Several generators were created, including a mood-based edition^[34], a Mad Libs version^[35], and one with an API^[36] to place Kanye quotes all over the web.

On Tumblr

Several notable single topic blogs inspired by West have launched on the microblogging site Tumblr. On March 2nd, 2009, the “Where Are You Yeezy?”^[37] blog was created to curate notable quotes and photographs of the rapper until the site was abandoned in July of 2012. On October 8th, 2010, the “Kanye’d By The Bell” Tumblr^[38] was launched, highlighting screen captures from the 1990s television series Saved by the Bell accompanied by captions containing West's song lyrics (shown below).

On December 14th, 2010, the “Kanye Plus Comics”^[39] blog was created for illustrations of comic book characters captioned with West's song lyrics (shown below, left). On January 9th, 2011, the “Kanye Chef”^[40] blog was launched, featuring West's rap lyrics altered to sound as if they were about verses about food products (shown below, middle). On July 8th, the “Kanye With White People” Tumblr^[41] was launched, which reblogged photos of West taken while in the company of white people (shown below, right).

On August 26th, 2012, the "Kanye Wes Anderson" Tumblr^[42] was created, showcasing screen captured images from films directed by Wes Anderson (shown below). On October 19th, Jason Kottke linked to the Tumblr on his personal blog.^[44] On the same day, notable examples from the blog were highlighted on several Internet news sites, including UpRoxx,^[43] The Huffington Post,^[45] The Daily Dot^[46] and BuzzFeed.^[47]

Coinye West

Coinye West^[51] was a proposed Bitcoin-derived cryptocurrency that would use a cartoon caricature of Kanye West as the mascot, similar to other novelty altcoins like Dogecoin and NyanCoin. According to the Washington Post^[52], Coinye West was concieved as a serious attempt to make crypto-currency more accessible to the public at large through a simplification of the currency mining process, which some have humorously referred to as "gold digging" in reference to Kanye West's 2005 hit rap single Gold Digger.

Initially proposed on December 31st, 2013, the CoinyeWest initiative was scheduled for public release on January 11th, 2014, however, the co-founders were eventually forced to abandon the idea after receiving a cease-and-desist letter and legal threats of trademark infringement from the artist's lawyers.

Yeezianity

Yeezianity is a satirical religion revolving around West founded anonymously in December 2013. According to the official website^[55], the followers shall never speak the rapper's real name and may refer to him only as "Yeezus," while adhering to the Golden Rule which states:

Create For Others What You Would Have Created For Yourself

In addition, the website explains that there are five pillars of Yeezianity:

1. All things created must be for the good of all
2. No human being’s right to express themselves must ever be repressed
3. Money is unnecessary except as a means of exchange
4. Man possesses the power to create everything he wants and needs
5. All human suffering exists to stimulate the creative powers of Man

On January 14th, 2014, Vice's music blog Noisey^[54] ran an interview article with the founder of Yeezianity, revealing that he initially tried to recruit members for his new religion through Twitter, but then decided to create a post about it on Craigslist, where it has been met with mixed feedback. As of January 15th, 2014, Yeezanity has been mentioned on Twitter^[54] over 3,200 times.

Ye Release

On May 31st, 2018, Kanye West held a listening party for his new album, Ye, in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.^[70] In attendance were several influential radio DJs and comedian Chris Rock. The album is seven tracks long. West took the photo for the album cover on the way to the listening party.^[71] It is a photo of mountains with the words "I hate being bi-polar it's awesome" written on it (shown below). The album is available to be streamed on Spotify. ^[72]

13th Amendment Tweet

On September 30th, 2018, West tweeted a photograph of himself seated in a plane while wearing a Make America Great Again hat along with the message "We will provide jobs for all who are free from prisons as we abolish the 13th Amendment" (shown below). Within 24 hours, the tweet received upwards of 108,000 likes and 26,000 retweets.^[73]

That day, West was widely criticized for tweeting "abolish the 13th amendment," with some speculating he was advocating for reintroducing slavery in the United States. Actor Chris Evans subsequently replied to the tweet, describing it as "unapologetic conjecture" that is "frustrating," "retrogressive," "unprecedented" and "absolutely terrifying" (shown below).^[74]

Meanwhile, West posted a follow up tweet saying that the "13th Amendment is slavery in disguise" and the slavery "never ended" (shown below).

On October 1st, The Washington Post^[75] published an article titled "Kanye West’s baffling 13th Amendment Twitter outburst: Maybe not so baffling after all," which noted that West may have been referring to the 13th Amendment's "exception clause," which allowed slavery to continue within plantations and prisons.

Personal Life

Kanye West was born on June 8th, 1977 in Atlanta, Georgia. He grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, before taking college courses in the city at the American Academy of Art and Chicago State University. While in college, he began producing tracks for local rap and hip hop artists and ultimately dropped out of school to focus on his music career. In 2000, Kanye began producing for Roc-a-Fella records before recording a verse on the Jay-Z song The Bounce.

After this opportunity, Kanye decided put producing to the site to focus on his solo career. His first single, Through The Wire^[9] was recorded after Kanye was involved in a near-fatal car crash and while his jaw was wired shut. Since 2003, Kanye has released five solo albums, two collaborative records, won 14 Grammy awards, and started his own record label.

#KimyeBabyName

On December 30th, 2012, Kanye West revealed that his girlfriend Kim Kardashian is pregnant to a crowd during a concert performance in Atlantic City. Almost immediately, fans reacted to the news on Twitter with mentions of "Kimye's baby" and hashtag #KimyeBabyName^[49][50], inspiring a slew of baby names and even some photoshopped parodies.^[48]

On June 15th, 2013, a source close to both West and Kardashian confirmed that the latter gave birth to her first daughter.

Mental Health

On November 17th, 2016, a little over a week after the United States presidential election, Kanye West shocked the hip hop community and his fans on social media after openly expressing his endorsement of Donald Trump as the president-elect during a concert in San Jose, California.

“I told y’all I didn’t vote. But if I would’ve voted, I would’ve voted on Trump.”

“There’s nonpolitical methods to speaking that I like, that I feel were very futuristic. […] And that style, and that method of communication, has proven that it can beat a politically correct way of communication. And I fuck with that.”

"I actually think that his approach was absolutely genius. Because it fucking worked!”

“I’m not saying this to diss celebrities at all, particularly on the democratic side -- that’s cool. I just hate the fact that because I’m a celebrity, everybody told me not to say that I loved the debates. I loved [Trump’s] approach. It be like, white people that’s racist, running around saying nigga now. If people are racist and they feel more inspired to say how they feel, then they’re exposing themselves, bro. This is what I’m saying. It’s already the beginning of change. Sometimes things that you might think are bad need to happen, in order for change to fucking happen. Sometimes you might have to not get your way to really understand what to do in the future, to be able to get your way.”

Two days later, on November 19th, West continued his verbal tirades during another concert in Sacramento, California, this time, unleashing a paranoia-driven rant at his former mentor and longtime associate Jay-Z for allegedly avoiding him and scheming to get him killed by hired hitmen,^[67] as well as Beyoncé for getting into petty politics with him over the MTV Video Music Awards (VMA).

“Jay Z--call me, bruh. You still ain’t called me. Jay Z, I know you got killers. Please don’t send them at my head. Please call me. Talk to me like a man.”

“Beyoncé--I was hurt because I heard that you said you wouldn’t perform unless you won Video of the Year over me and over ‘Hotline Bling’ [at the VMAs]. In my opinion…now don’t go dissing Beyoncé, she’s great. Taylor Swift is great. We are all great people. We are all equal. But sometimes we be playing the politics too much and forget who we are just to win. Fuck winning, fuck looking cool. Fuck looking cool. Fuck being cool. Fuck all that, bruh. I’ve been sent here to give y’all my truth even at the risk of my own life, my own success, my own career.”

Ultimately, West abruptly ended the show early, only 30 minutes into his performance, with sharp criticism aimed at President Barack Obama for trying too hard to be perfect.

“Obama couldn’t make America great because he couldn’t be him to be who he was. Black men have been slaves. Obama wasn’t allowed to do this [screams] and still win. He had to be perfect. But being perfect don’t always change shit, bro. Being perfect don’t always change shit, bro.”

Following his breakdown on November 20th, West was committed to a mental hospital after experiencing hallucinations and paranoia fueled by dehydration and sleep deprivation, resulting in cancellation of the rest of his 21 concerts scheduled for the Saint Pablo tour.

Search Interest

Search for Kanye West peaked in September 2009 following the Taylor Swift incident at the MTV VMAs.

External References