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.
After reading Sam’s post, I believe she did a great job showing the extent to which the news and media exaggerates information. Sam provides a strong and effective example of this through exploring the media’s response regarding the celebrity, Kanye West.
ReplyDeleteThe initial headline in Sam’s post is informative and provides us with a sense of the precise efforts the news has made in order to exaggerate information. The overall structure of Sam’s ePortfolio post is quite effective. She starts her post with a brief description of Kanye and how the general public has interpreted him. She then explores various examples, which detail the ways in which the news has responded to his behaviors. Nearing the end of her ePortfolio post, Sam compares Kanye as presented on twitter in comparison to Kanye as he is seen on the news. She reveals the fact that Kanye is depicted accurately as he presents himself through his own tweets on Twitter, while the news focuses solely on his ego, while mocking his flaws.
To strengthen her post, it would be helpful to include true evidence of how the news actually presents Kanye in a false manner. Evidence could include legitimate tweets made by Kanye on his own Twitter account, rather than focusing solely on the efforts that the news made against Kanye. Additionally, it would be beneficial to include confirmation from fans since the extent of truly how obnoxious Kanye is could be interpreted as biased depending on the viewer.