One Week Later: The Taylor & Kanye Melee

(Written by broken cool writer Brendan Jeffers)

Kanye and Taylor sitting in a tree; S-I-G-H-I-N-G. Yes, one week later, people are still chiming in about the thirty second clash of hip hop brashness and country innocence, that occurred at the MTV Video Music Awards. If you’ve been vacationing on Saturn, last Sunday, Kanye West yet again stormed an awards show stage, this time interrupting Taylor Swift as she won the VMA for “Best Female Video”. Kanye strongly believed, “Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time”. Although they escorted him out, MTV must love Kanye West.

He should be awarded with hosting duties for next year’s gathering. Thanks to Mr. West’s actions and news of it flying around the internet like Pink in her performance, this year’s edition of the MTV Video Music Awards saw a 17% increase in viewers over last year’s event, where Kanye sat quietly. See, while it aired live on the east coast, those on the west coast were only getting word of Yeezy’s antics, and then tuned in hours later, by the millions, to see it all unfold. It doesn’t stop there. Did anyone almost forget about the premiere of The Jay Leno Show until Kanye was set to appear and apologize? Miss Swift also got some valuable time on The View couch, rather than just performing on the morning show. And let the “Kanye Effect” continue as President Obama makes an upcoming appearance on Letterman, where he will surely be asked about his “jackass” remark. What on Earth would we be talking about if Kanye didn’t open his mouth?

The backlash was laughable. Yes, what Kanye did was rude. Shameful. Callous. Heartless. Call it what you want, but had it been Madonna instead of sweet little Taylor, would everybody still be so quick to verbally stone Mr. West? Imagine if he stumbled on stage during Madonna’s drawn-out tribute to Michael Jackson, and said, “Yo, Madonna. I’m really happy for you. I wish I could let you finish, but why don’t you just say, ‘Michael Jackson is the greatest pop artist of all time. The greatest pop artist of all time.’” I’m sure he would have been lauded instead of booed. Instead, he’s being chastised for trying to bring some legitimacy to an award show that’s never really been about that. Let’s be real, if Beyonce’s iconic video for “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)” wins “Video of the Year”, it only makes sense that it would clean-sweep any other category it was in. So how is it that it loses to Taylor Swift’s “You Belong to Me” in the “Best Female Video” category? Well, it makes for great television for MTV to give a Moon Man to its first “country” artist. Swift’s video was great, and Beyonce wouldn’t fret about the award. Oh, but Kanye, with Hennessy swilling around in his belly, had to grab the mic for a couple of bars. At least this time Kanye had watched the video in question. Mr. West, back in 2006, stormed an MTV stage in protest of Justice vs. Simian’s “We Are Your Friends” beating his “Touch the Sky” for “Video of the Year”, mentioning at one point, “…Nothing against you. I haven’t seen your video, but hell nah!” This after listing reasons why his video should have won, which included Pam Anderson starring in it and the video costing over a million dollars.

Maybe Kanye doesn’t care about adolescent, white girls, but thanks to him Taylor Swift has become America’s Angel, Beyonce is the new Mother Teresa, MTV had record television ratings, Jay Leno had a phenomenal premiere, and Barack Obama is now more bad-ass than when he brushed his shoulders off, a la Jay-Z, during his successful run for office. Does all this make Kanye a villain or a hero? Selfish or generous? Foolish or smart? The only thing that is certain is we have witnessed one of the best accidental publicity stunts of all time. One of the best accidental publicity stunts of all time.

Comments

[Stayreal]

absolutely

[msdivab]

I think the media is taking this Kanye stuff way to far. All this talk about boycotting and crap doesn't make sense, its not like he chris browned the gurl he just said what he felt; thats what I love about Kanye you can alwalys count on him to keep it real. I bet they'll al be in line when college dropout 2 comes out lol