Pro and Con-ye: Inside the Twitter Feud

Last month, Kanye West gave one of his signature self-aggrandizing interviews to BBC reporter Zane Lowe, with hilarious (though surely unintentionally so) results. In response to Mr. West’s assertion that he considers himself “the number one rock star on the planet,” talk show host Jimmy Kimmel responded with a satirical spoof of the interview in which he used young children to portray both West and Lowe. And to everyone’s great surprise, Kanye got mad and posted a series of caps-locked tweets condemning Kimmel’s actions. On Wednesday night the feud came to a head when West appeared on Kimmel’s show and gave a mostly one-sided interview about his place in society. Kimmel gave a semi-apology claiming he never meant to hurt West. But who was really in the wrong?

Team Kimmel

By Alexander Olapade

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first. Making fun of celebrities is Jimmy Kimmel’s job. Some comedians take this a step further, like Stephen Colbert and his farcical caricature of public figures he believes are conceited elitists in American politics and society. No one even blinks an eye when Colbert ridicules a Glenn Beck interview or a Ted Cruz speech, and these people are arguably as fervent about their causes as West is about his.

For all the racism whistleblowers out there, take a look at the array of celebrities Kimmel and other hosts regularly shoot down (Paris Hilton comes to mind). It’s easy to make accusations of racial prejudice, but in this case, Kimmel’s skit should just be taken at face value and enjoyed for the humor that comes from a regrettably-formed celebrity statement.

Kanye should be respected for his self-awareness and the fact that he’s had to swim upstream all his life to “make it,” but that fact and Kimmel’s response to Kanye’s quote are unrelated.

Team Kanye

By David J. Kurlander

Kanye West’s Twitter feed pulsated with frustration only minutes after Jimmy Kimmel’s offensive recreation of West’s revelatory interview with BBC host Zane Lowe. Especially accurate and incendiary was Yeezy’s “JIMMY KIMMEL IS OUT OF LINE TO TRY AND SPOOF IN ANY WAY THE FIRST PIECE OF HONEST MEDIA IN YEARS.” Whatever anyone says about potentially racially-motivated elements in the Kanye-Kimmel saga, “honesty” is the most crucial theme.

No other pop culture figure has fought against the exponentially multiplying cynicism and snarkiness in media today more than Kanye. From the start, whether going unscripted on telethons, speaking his mind at award shows, or expressing his disdain for the paparazzi, Kanye has pushed against the corporatization and predictability of pop culture in consistently unexpected ways. Originally a far more outspoken and controversial figure himself, Kimmel has allowed ABC to mold him into a relatively bland late-night host largely indistinguishable from his contemporaries (in fact, the Kanye skit is the first polarizing thing he’s done in quite a while). As a result, he has become a castrated figure, making fun of any figure who shows hints of vulnerability. Why wouldn’t Jimmy Kimmel be jealous and want to paint West as a child?

Kimmel minimizes Kanye’s bravado, entrepreneurship, and enthusiasm because Kanye uses those skills to counteract exactly what Kimmel, and much of the pop-culture community, has become: a nastily ironic tool for the status quo. Kanye is entirely capable of irony (as in the “Watch the Throne” track “New Day”: “I mean I might even make [my son] be Republican / So everybody know he love white people”), but instead of using his irony as a filter, Kanye allows himself to emote unfettered. It’s not surprising that Kimmel and the rest of the networks see that as infantile, but those who still believe in genuineness all know who the real children are.