Following his series of bigoted and controversial Twitter rants, Kanye West has returned to the social media platform... But there's a catch. Moreover, it seems like Ye's account is a clean slate, as he no longer has millions of followers but rather around 20,000 as of writing this article. Also, he has no posts on his page at press time, and fans wonder if he will engage in more attention-seeking and try to inspire the ire of a whole host of groups and communities. For now, things are quiet, but we will see if this sad and predictably antagonistic "social experiment" returns in any capacity.
Furthermore, this comes after Kanye West responded to music executive Lyor Cohen's criticism of this rhetoric via Instagram. "You and your whole industry have promoted and got paid off songs where black people glorify killing each other," Ye wrote. "But my t shirt is the worst thing ever. All of yall are like girls who don't take accountability. It's a double standard. Then yall threaten and extort people around me. [...] You start by apologizing and taking accountability for the massive promotion of black death that you've got paid off of for years."
Kanye West Twitter Controversy
If you didn't already know, that "T-shirt" in question is Kanye West's swastika shirt, which prompted Shopify to shut down his Yeezy website due to this Nazi imagery. However, this led to other sellers on sites like Etsy to share similar designs or respond to this move via their own clothing items. Sadly, we have no way of really measuring Ye's impact on these narratives through these Twitter rants, but it does put a lot of people in a tough position. This is in regard to distribution, copyright, promotion, and many other areas that the Chicago artist is happy to challenge and make as problematic as possible.
We will see in due time what Kanye West uses his Twitter account for and whether or not he goes back to his ways, whether you categorize them as old Kanye or new Kanye. It seems like even Ty Dolla $ign created some distance between himself and his VULTURES collaborator. As such, perhaps he will move differently this time around... Until he decides he needs to be the center of attention and throws every sort of community under the bus for clout.
