The internet has become a cult that worships eccentricity. Take, for example, the killing of Harambe, a gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo. After a three-year-old boy got inside the gorilla’s enclosure, zoo officials decided to kill Harambe, fearing for the boy’s life. The controversial decision and odd news story has become the internet’s latest obsession. Through memes like chanting “Dicks out for Harambe,” saying “Harambe died for our sins,” and putting Harambe as a write-in candidate in the US election, the internet’s collective obsession has effectively given the gorilla a new life. Furthermore, any unfortunate person that decides to post an anti-Harambe opinion online becomes the focus of attack by the cult of eccentricity. Many internet users
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Kanye West has mastered this approach. Before the 2009 VMAs incident, where Kanye ran on stage to tell Taylor Swift that Beyoncé deserved the award for Best Female Video, he had already achieved both phenomenal critical and commercial success. Kanye also had already practiced changing styles from album to album, most notably with his 2008 release of the introspective, melancholic, and auto-tune-heavy 808s & Heartbreak. This countercultural production style started legitimizing the perception of Kanye as an extreme narcissist, which had spread through the flood of “Imma let you finish” memes following his VMA antics. Author Steven Hyden notes that following the 2009 VMAs, “Hating Kanye became a brief form of monoculture: people who normally disagree about everything came together to denounce him,” as both President Obama and now president-elect Donald Trump denounced West’s actions (Hyden). Kanye realized that he needed to reconcile with the public, and in turn, reinvented his sound again with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, an album chock-full of the most likeable singles of his entire catalog. Kanye calls the album “a long, backhanded apology,” adding that “I was like: ‘Let me show you guys what I can do … And please accept me back’” (“Behind Kanye’s Mask”). …show more content…
Tired of pumping out easily-digested and likeable work, Kanye “…made Yeezus because going grimy and angry made sense after the double shot of coke-and-caviar excess served up on Fantasy and the Jay Z collaboration Watch the Throne” (Hyden). Then, with The Life of Pablo, Kanye returned to more introspection, portraying himself as a man “…in search of what he’s got to offer to his wife and his family other than his potentially eternal bullshit” (Wilson). Additionally, he seems to have embraced the narcissistic identity that internet developed after the 2009 VMAs, as “West refers to himself in the third person four times more on The Life of Pablo than any of his previous albums – 33 times total” (Barnes). He realizes the importance of Kanye the character to his commercial success, as his vanity is vital to his relevance as a topic of discussion and intrigue online – the VMA incident just went too far. The public expects artists “…to be deep and idiosyncratic,” and Kanye prevents his self-absorption from entirely defining fans’ perceptions of him by adhering to those expectations (Hyden). He portrays this deepness and idiosyncrasy by challenging the public to consume his innovative, evolving music
Kanye West has mastered this approach. Before the 2009 VMAs incident, where Kanye ran on stage to tell Taylor Swift that Beyoncé deserved the award for Best Female Video, he had already achieved both phenomenal critical and commercial success. Kanye also had already practiced changing styles from album to album, most notably with his 2008 release of the introspective, melancholic, and auto-tune-heavy 808s & Heartbreak. This countercultural production style started legitimizing the perception of Kanye as an extreme narcissist, which had spread through the flood of “Imma let you finish” memes following his VMA antics. Author Steven Hyden notes that following the 2009 VMAs, “Hating Kanye became a brief form of monoculture: people who normally disagree about everything came together to denounce him,” as both President Obama and now president-elect Donald Trump denounced West’s actions (Hyden). Kanye realized that he needed to reconcile with the public, and in turn, reinvented his sound again with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, an album chock-full of the most likeable singles of his entire catalog. Kanye calls the album “a long, backhanded apology,” adding that “I was like: ‘Let me show you guys what I can do … And please accept me back’” (“Behind Kanye’s Mask”). …show more content…
Tired of pumping out easily-digested and likeable work, Kanye “…made Yeezus because going grimy and angry made sense after the double shot of coke-and-caviar excess served up on Fantasy and the Jay Z collaboration Watch the Throne” (Hyden). Then, with The Life of Pablo, Kanye returned to more introspection, portraying himself as a man “…in search of what he’s got to offer to his wife and his family other than his potentially eternal bullshit” (Wilson). Additionally, he seems to have embraced the narcissistic identity that internet developed after the 2009 VMAs, as “West refers to himself in the third person four times more on The Life of Pablo than any of his previous albums – 33 times total” (Barnes). He realizes the importance of Kanye the character to his commercial success, as his vanity is vital to his relevance as a topic of discussion and intrigue online – the VMA incident just went too far. The public expects artists “…to be deep and idiosyncratic,” and Kanye prevents his self-absorption from entirely defining fans’ perceptions of him by adhering to those expectations (Hyden). He portrays this deepness and idiosyncrasy by challenging the public to consume his innovative, evolving music