Kanye West Appears Unintelligent and Over-Confident on Twitter, But The News Exaggerates These Flaws and Mocks Kanye

Kanye West is famous for more than just his success in the music industry. He has over 10 million followers on Twitter, and his tweets have been brought up in multiple news stories. Through his tweets, Kanye appears somewhat unintelligent and over-confident, and the news definitely emphasizes these flaws. However, the news has gone overboard and has mocked Kanye on numerous occasions.

Kanye’s Love For Kim Kardashian is Mocked By The Daily Beast

Kanye’s tweets, as well as the way he has talked about Kim to the public, make it clear that he truly loves his wife. However, news sites mock Kanye’s love for Kim and make it sounds like they don’t think their marriage will last long. Reflecting on an interview between Kanye and Kris Jenner (Kim’s mother), the Daily Beast writes, “Then there’s this fantastic segment when Kanye tries to talk about how much he loves Kim but instead epically insults her.” This “epic” insult was Kanye saying that despite the fact that people told him having a relationship with Kim would “damage his credibility as an artist,” he still wanted to be with her. Yes, this comment makes Kim look bad, but this was clearly not Kanye’s intention. The use of words like “fantastic” and “epic” to describe Kanye’s comment demonstrates how the media mocks him and his relationship with Kim.

The VMAs Incident With Taylor Swift Gives Kanye A Bad Reputation

The 2009 VMAs incident when Kanye interrupted Taylor Swift’s award speech caused Kanye to gain a lot of negative publicity. Multiple news articles were posted which depicted Kanye as self- absorbed and arrogant, and many people were offended by his actions. Kanye created a huge scene and he later apologized to Swift for his rude behavior. Two years later, Kanye made a joke about the incident, and tweeted at Britney Spears to congratulate her for taking the number one spot on iTunes. 

News Sites Accuse Kanye of Starting a Twitter War With Britney Spears

Many news sites did not take Kanye’s tweet as the harmless joke that he intended. Despite the clear joking tone and “LOL” that Kanye included, MSNBC and other sites reported his tweet as slander. Kanye reacted by posting a bunch more tweets about how the media needs to learn to take a joke and stop making up stories. He even admits to his poor writing skills and says, “If the media wants to make a story…just say that I have atrocious spelling and bad grammar.” The news had every right to negatively depict Kanye after the VMAs incident, but his harmless, self-mocking tweet to Britney Spears did not deserve such an angry reaction. U.S. Weekly posted an article entitled, “Kanye West Wages Twitter War With Britney Spears.” Clearly, the way the news portrayed Kanye’s tweet was very different from Kanye’s intended meaning. All he was doing was making a joke out of a past incident and congratulating Spears, but somehow the news managed to turn this into a “war.”

Jimmy Kimmel Mocks Kanye’s Interview With BBC, Leading To a Twitter Fight

Another incident when Kanye was publicly mocked was on Jimmy Kimmel’s talk show. Jimmy Kimmel had a young boy act out Kanye’s interview with BBC. The interview was summed up in this statement, “He talks about his greatness, some leather jogging pants, and music.” When Kanye saw the mock video that Kimmel produced, he was very offended and went on a twitter rampage, posting multiple aggressive tweets at Kimmel. Kimmel fought back with offensive tweets at Kanye, and eventually Kanye appeared on Kimmel’s talk show where they apologized to each other. From viewing Kanye’s tweets, he seems to have a very bad temper, especially because of his continuous use of caps lock. However, the tweets also show how upset Kanye was about the mock interview, and this detail is left out in news articles. If the news explained why Kanye was so offended, then Kanye would not have looked as bad as they made him look.  

The Twitter Kanye Vs. The Kanye On the News

Kanye’s tweets display that he is very confident in himself and his music, and maybe even a little too self-absorbed. In addition, he makes a lot of grammatical errors, which leads me to think he is not very intelligent. The way that Kanye is discussed on the news is basically just an exaggeration of the person he appears to be in his tweets. The news focuses on Kanye’s big ego and mocks his “unintelligent” remarks. Overall, Kanye’s flaws are emphasized in the news, whereas his Twitter includes his good qualities, such as his love for Kim. 

The U.S. Music Industry is Much Bigger Than That of Africa's, But Africa's Small Industry Continues To Grow

The music industry in the United States is much bigger than the music industry in South Africa. Due to the digital divide, many citizens of Africa do not have access to computers or the Internet, and they listen to music on cassettes. Africans that do have access to the Internet have used the website Musica to download their music. Musica offers over 400,000 songs, and many of these songs are by U.S. artists. However, Musica is very expensive and many Africans cannot afford it. Many resort to illegally downloading music for free.

Similar to people living in Africa, a great deal of U.S. citizens illegally download music. Multiple websites exist where Americans can simply cut and paste the link to a YouTube video and download that song onto their computer within seconds. This quick and easy way of downloading music is not possible in Africa because they use broadband services. Downloading just one song can take up to 15 minutes, whereas in that time, someone in the U.S. could probably download 15 songs. Since it is so easy for Americans to download so many songs for free, it is no surprise that many people have reduced the amount of music they purchase and increased the number of free songs they download. Peer-to-peer file sharing has also caused a decrease in the amount of music that Americans purchase. The Recording Industry Association of America studied the effects of file sharing and found that since the file-sharing site Napster emerged in 1999, music sales in the U.S. have dropped 47 percent.

Although U.S. music sales have dropped, we still have much more music purchases and overall, a much bigger music industry than that of Africa. In fact, the U.S. is the largest of the world’s music markets, and it is where the Big 5 music corporations all have headquarters. It is hard for these corporations to work with Africa because the economic situation outside of South Africa means a lack of profitable markets. However, the biggest record label in South Africa, known as Gallo Records, is an exclusive licensee for Warner Music International. This helps Africa’s music industry grow, and the industry has made a lot of progress in the past few years.

One of the major problems with Africa’s music industry used to be that there was no way to download music legally. However, with the creation of Musica, Africans are able to buy music online and download it legally. Musica has definitely helped Africa’s music industry grow, but there is still the issue of Musica’s high-priced songs. Fortunately, this past December, Apple’s iTunes Store was launched in South Africa. Now that Africans have access to thousands of more songs, most of which are much cheaper than songs on Musica, it is likely that more and more people will purchase music. Musica’s marketing and HR manager, Moenieba Abrahams, predicts that CD sales will also increase “as they will benefit from additional exposure through iTunes.” Similar to Africa, the U.S. music industry has benefited from iTunes and the popularity that this store brings to artists. Although Africa’s music industry is much smaller than that of the U.S., it is continuing to grow as more technology is introduced.