Kanye West – Idiot, Meanie, or Genius
A debate has begun swirling around the water cooler about Kanye West’s behavior at the MTV Video Music Awards. It’s not about whether he should apologize to Taylor Swift for his actions, or even whether radio stations should ban his music. This debate involves the notion that Kanye’s actions were nothing more than a publicity stunt, perpetrated by Kanye himself, or if he had help from the show’s producers and maybe even Taylor Swift herself.
The problem with this allegation, at least from a media observer’s perspective, is that it’s difficult to prove. Afterall, we face being labeled cynics or conspiracy theorists if we even question the mass media’s story that Kanye was just, as our president said, “a jack*ss”. But what if we didn’t see ourselves as cynic, but rather as a skeptic. We question the “truth” that’s fed to us by a media industry driven by sensationalism and profits.
The tough part is that we may never know the truth of why this really happened. All we know is that this year’s VMAs have received more media attention than they have in recent years. And isn’t media attention what gets people to buy records and visit MTV.com to view the clip (with an ad placed right before it)?
The fact is that these types of shows don’t have the audience or the influence that they once used to. In the old days, artists used to get a bump in sales when winning an award, but the effect is less prominent these days. However, it would be interesting to see if both Taylor Swift’s and Kanye West’s records begin selling more than usual in the next week or two. Afterall, radio stations have now been playing both artists in heavy rotation lately, in addition to talking about the controversy. All of this has to help record sales.
One last point is about reputations. Doesn’t Kanye West have a bad-boy “I’m loud and obnoxious” image to begin with? What better way to reinforce that image than to do something like this? And isn’t Taylor Swift’s image that of the young, innocent little flower? What better way to reinforce that image than to make her a victim, right in front of a TV audience? It couldn’t hurt on both accounts.
Again, it’s impossible for regular people to ever know if this was a spur-of-the-moment thing, or if it was a highly crafted attempt at getting us to notice these two artists and the network this show aired on. In the end, does it even matter? They got us talking, which was bound to happen either way.
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