Kanye West Meets His Maker

How do you cover a story like Kanye West?

One of America’s biggest pop stars was always going to go down in history, but now… Well, Kanye West has told his story many times over.

I wasn’t sure of writing this, and if you are not sure of something there is no clearer sign to take three steps back. But that level of insecurity comes with the territory, here. Kanye West’s spiral towards Nazi propaganda and Hitler-enthused diatribes has been as compelling as it is devastating. And to think that my overarching, gut-feeling is a severe form of empathy usually reserved for the Sick and Weak. An old horse limping through a field, an old lover wasting away after you have moved on. That’s where we are, folks. We are living in Interesting Times.

Last week was extremely busy. I spent hours of it hiring for my team and many hours more contemplating what this column was going to focus on. There was only one certainty, and that was that I would not discuss the maniacal and selfish actions of Elon Musk. And Kanye… some beasts you almost don’t want to tackle. But here we are. And so I want to be clear: Kanye West’s last 12 months have been everything that everyone has said they were.

There is the catcalled gaslighting of mental illness, the religious experimentation, the cult-paranoia, the erraticism, and the on-air screaming of an artist who is doing everything he can to be Bigger than Himself. Many have pointed towards Mr. West’s recent anti-semitism as the ultimate bridge too far; others pulled up their lines in the White Lives Matter chorus of weeks prior. And there are many arguments, almost all valid in some way, that Kanye West deserves what he’s getting. Because make no mistake: Kanye West is a grown man.

But I see more in Kanye’s story than his actions, regardless of motivation. I see a man who is the catalyst of a culture we have created, right or wrong, and the multiple spinning wheels of reaction and anger we have turned to fuel our media, our socialising, and ourselves. He is a symptom of everything: of Celebrity; of Mental Health; of the way our Media spins; of the Grift Economy. He is a reaction. And that is not to excuse anything. Who said this would be easy to talk about, eh?

Here is what happened: Kanye West, once suspended from Twitter, was re-instated amongst a swell of other charismatic characters by the platform’s owner, Elon Musk, in perhaps the latest publicity attempt from the World’s Richest Man to make His Story a good one. Mr. West has a fairly long and rambunctious recent history of saying and doing things Less Than Pretty, and this cycle was continued when he returned to the platform. The limit, further than his previous tally of hate speech, sexism, anti-semitism and defamation, was tweeting a picture of swastika – one that was manipulated over a Star of David – itself a symbol of some new cult I don’t have the space or willpower to go into.

Of course, this all happened on the same day that West appeared on conspiracy theorist and bankruptcy expert Alex Jones’ podcast to declare “I like Hitler”. West wore a full face covering for the duration of his appearance, which included a particularly disturbing nonsensical role play sequence involving inanimate objects and puppets. Yes, even Alex Jones had to – at times – try and pull Kanye down from the wall, only to watch him sprint back up it even harder.

ALEX JONES: [Jones’ Grandfather] was there three years. By the time they got to Germany, they went into this death camp, and there were piles of dead bodies a hundred feet tall with black birds eating peoples’ eyeballs out. All I’m telling you is that just because you hate the globalists…

KANYE WEST: …Yeah, but Nazis are kind of cool.

Later, Kanye responded to Jones reminding him that Hitler killed people by saying that, well, Barack Obama probably did, too. This is premium internet discourse: posting made, designed and – easily seen – across the many online forums we’re permanently on. It is meme culture come to life and treated seriously. West is not the first to fall for that trap.

For some time now, Grifters on all sides – but particularly the reactionary right – have had their fingers sunk deep into the mind of Kanye West. Everyone from Donald Trump to the depressing figure of Milo Yiannopoulos have found their way into Kanye's Inner Circle – itself a space becoming increasingly smaller and paranoid with every broken tweet and erratic public appearance. This is not a new game, just a new Main Character. They are running his Presidential campaign; having him on their podcasts; re-sharing his quotes across social media. Even Elon Musk’s particular grift engaged Kanye West as an attempt to rally the base of the world’s most desperate Head of Twitter. He’s One Of Us Now, they’ll say, until it’s time to move on.

And perhaps all of that gives too much credit to West. He is autonomous and he is talented. There is every chance that his actions are completely of his own making and that these media spinsters are only in on a joke that Kanye himself is telling. There is all possibility that he is a uniquely gifted, focused genius, who in many other ways is thicker than a pile of shit. People are complicated.

These are people who see opportunity and to grab at it desperately. That is the game and it always has been. And Kanye West is discovering that the skills he was blessed with – the ones that enabled him the ego to profess his Genius – do not always translate to other mediums. Kanye West has spent months and years rifling through a long list of Talking Points and reactionary arguments that hundreds of people turned into lucrative careers in Trump’s America. But Kanye West is not believable. He is just embarrassing. Stranded on an island filled up with ideas that are not his, he is trying to co-opt the rally cries of others to build something beautiful. It worked for music, right? But he cannot pull the strings together. This is not his game.

Which is not to say this is all without influence.

Kanye West has always been a media lightning rod. It does not stop at interrupting Taylor Swift at an award ceremony, or at his marriage to perhaps the most famous woman in modern history. He has been famous for more of his life than not. To see a man like that so publicly Say The Quiet Parts Out Loud (“Hitler had some good ideas” rather than “very fine people on both sides”) is spectacularly jarring, even for the spokespeople of the New Right. Kanye speaks like someone raised by Internet message boards, but without the critical thinking skills to realise that words on screen don’t always translate to Real Life. It depends on your audience, I suppose.

On the internet, there are plenty of ways to make credit off of Kanye West. Most of them don’t even involve him. And in the hours that have followed West’s latest suspension and continued spiralling, enough viral content opportunity has Flooded the Zone to make most political strategists weep. What Mr. West has done is terrible and dangerous. But it is perfect fodder for the social internet. Viral tweets, from every one of every political persuasion, gave more than a few of us the Dopamine Rush of recognition and following. Short videos on TikTok, YouTube essays, and painstaking reporting of every chip in West’s armour spilt out like hot butter. If there was an argument to be made, it was right there on your screen. And if there was a joke to tweet out, it was sent again and again and again.

It is easy to focus on the grifters who have physically stapled themselves to West, but we are all playing this game in some way. Yes, Kanye West is famous and holds direct links to a former President. He has been a role model to millions. Believe it. And his actions are newsworthy by that merit. But the rising tide of internet virality – a machine that West navigated so expertly in his early career – does not discriminate. There have been entire media cycles around a tweet from the House Republicans that referenced Kanye West and when it would be deleted. Bernie Sanders and President Biden have weighed in. Every podcast host alive has made a statement (and cut it into a 90 second vertical video, too). Taylor Swift fans are celebrating his demise, a long-held feud over a decade old. There are snakes all over the place – and most of them are poisonous. And who can blame them. This is the world we built for each other.

My friend Johnny called me the other day and asked me what I thought of Kanye West’s mental health. This is a conversation I have had a few times. There is complication to the lives of others, and there is further chaos when making decisions about the mind. You do not have the context; the understanding; the real-life experience; the qualifications. But speculating on a star’s mental health became a respected and accepted hobby in the 2000s. And while we may have evolved beyond Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, and our understanding of mental health has developed greatly, none of that has been able to take away from the Thrill of playing Armchair Doctor. That is a phenomenon that is not going anywhere.

So here is what we know: Kanye West has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He has, by his own admission, been through multiple manic episodes. He was hospitalised for a psychiatric emergency in 2016. The efforts of loved ones and friends to intervene or help West have been at times painfully public. And so have the outbursts. Kanye’s role in culture as one of the most famous people on the planet does not make things easier, and all of this creates a whirlwind of conflicting ideas about how to cover him, what to cover about him, and where (and whether) to… give him a break.

It is hard.

Kanye West has a microphone. There is an obvious and valid argument about West’s mental health – and the way it influences his actions – that points towards the many millions of people with similar struggles who do not turn into Nazis. And this is true. Having bipolar does not cause you to be antisemitic. But Kanye West is not everybody else. It can be hard to feel sympathy for those who don’t want it. It is harder still for anyone other than a handful of people to understand what Kanye West’s everyday life has been like for years, and what that would do to you as a person. Consider for a moment your own mental health, and then imagine millions of people liveblogging it. Do you think that would feel good?

But this is not about forgiveness. I will say it again: people are complicated. You can make a choice to not forgive Kanye, but it is also worth considering the multiple venomous and treacherous influences around him, who seem bent on rolling him out like a Circus act in an effort to mainstream their reactionary, racist, or chaotic ideas.

My colleagues in the media have all told me they are having conversations in the office about how to cover Kanye West. Certainly there are things you cannot ignore, but there are also ethical and moral realities surrounding any decision to platform a man acting like he is. I mean, even the people who genuinely love Nazis (and West may indeed be one) do not – for the most part – use the largest platforms available to them to publicly announce “Hitler is great.”

And so I don’t think Kanye West’s actions are a symptom of his mental health. I think they are a symptom of Kanye West. A man whose life has plenty of sadness. A man who is trying to stay above water. A man who is clasping onto greatness. A man who is confused. Kanye West has been held and nurtured by a team of his own managers, and then married into a family that is more Business and Media and Drama than the regular Brady Bunch. He is a man who has had every eye in the world on his creation and on his work. He is a man who seems, at least to me… desperate and sad.

Kanye West should be responsible for his actions. He is an adult – and your freedom of speech does not shroud you from consequence. But ultimately it is only sadness and empathy on my end, a conflicting feeling that I’m not all that happy with. There is guilt in my body for not wanting to punish Kanye further; there is doubt in my mind for not wanting to take every awful thing he does at face value. Idolisation of celebrity, and the alignment of good work with good character, was always going to get us here. We have been here before, after all. The internet we have built is about wins and losses – and Kanye’s scorecard has taken a mighty plunge.

But there are many Kanye Wests in America, and even more across the world. Because we have made it easy to become that person, and easier still to live in a world where there are enough people to echo you and make it all feel sustainable.

The media will continue to struggle with the coverage of Kanye West, and our conversations online will never make everyone happy. Because that is not the point. Kanye West has seen the peak and now he is seeing the trough.

The line between both is thinner than we’d all like to admit.

How do you write about Kanye West? I’m not sure there’s an answer that satisfies. It would be simple to write about his actions and our own responses to it all. And it would be logical to point at his enormous influence, and the danger all of that poses, when he begins a rhetoric that is more than flirting with dangerous ideas. Both of those things are real and happening. But I still feel a lump in my chest about it all.

All I am sure of is that I am happy I am not him. And there is a certain amount of unhappy comfort in that.