It’s been nearly a year since Kanye West made a spectacle of himself as the MTV video music awards by declaring country singer Taylor Swift an undeserving winner of the “Best Female Video” award over Beyoncé during her acceptance speech. While he tried his best to keep things moving to promote his song “Run This Town” with Jay-Z and Rihanna just days later on the premiere of Jay Leno’s short-lived prime-time show, few could forgive him for upstaging the innocent looking, 19-year-old Swift on one of her biggest nights. Not even in Beyoncé’s name.
So, aside from the many paparazzi shots of West and his now ex-girlfriend Amber Rose, West had largely been under the radar since the VMA controversy last fall. Although urban blogs, especially more hip-hop-oriented ones, had begun reporting Kanye’s break-up with Amber Rose in the late spring, US Weekly confirmed the break-up after Rose was spotted with Reggie Bush, Kim Kardashian’s ex, in the Hamptons over the Fourth of July weekend.
Well the Kanye West media drought officially ended this past Wednesday. All it took were rumors that @kanyewest was on Twitter and, just like that, Mr. West, as some prefer, was officially back in the limelight. Within a mere 12 hours, he amassed more than 150,000 followers. Of course he tweeted about it and even shared this fact: yeah…. we getting about 80 FOLLOWERS A SECOND no exaggeration!!! As of last night, he had over 372,000 followers but, in true Kanye fashion, he was following only one person—-Steven Holmes, @ste_101 in Coventry, England. That decision, of course, made news on July 31, with NewYorkMag.com, among others, announcing the lucky tweeter. Over the weekend, Holmes went from a mere 60 followers to more than 1400 by Sunday night.
Given that West’s notorious Taylor Swift interruption single-handedly help raise national recognition for Twitter, with the social media site reporting that the incident generated almost 300,000 tweets in just one hour, very few of them positive by the way, West’s phenomenal ability to attract so many followers so quickly is a comeback made in social media heaven. And, trust, that, like all things Kanye, his Twitter debut could put any media strategist to shame. After all, it is important to note that, not so coincidentally, West has an album slated to drop this fall.
West actually began his Twitter life shouting out many publications and bloggers, including Rolling Stone and Perez Hilton, with links featuring him of course. He tweeted the video link of his visit to Rolling Stone, suited and booted, channeling James Bond instead of the clichéd “thug” with his pants sagging, to preview his album. His visit to Facebook headquarters has been very well tweeted by others. In both videos, West’s talent is very much on display. “Mama’s Boyfriend,” which he shared very passionately with the Facebook staff, will definitely spark dialogue about single mothers and dating. Of course, his liberal use of the n-word, especially in a corporate setting like Facebook, will give many a reason to pause. Music aside, it’s West’s everyday tweets about his life that are most entertaining.
Twitter affirms how truly unique Kanye West really is. Try as one might, you just simply can’t make his tweets up, although funnyman Aziz Ansari, who plays Tom Haverford on the NBC series Parks and Recreation, certainly tries with #PredictingKanyeTweets. Kanye West, himself, has even retweeted Ansari. “Damn I wish Hermes made edible snacks, Cheezits just ain’t dope enough for my mouth” is a particularly good one. Still, Simon Vozick-Levinson’s declaration that “Kanye West already has the funniest Twitter feed of all time” on EW.com’s Music Mix blog is no exaggeration.
“I specifically ordered persian rugs with cherub imagery!!! What do I have to do to get a simple persian rug with cherub imagery uuuuugh” reads one tweet. “Fur pillows are actually hard to sleep on,” reads another. And, of course, he tweets the obvious: I love me. But he also finds time to share his love for classical music as well as proclaim that “Being nice is the sh[**] … working on being a doper person #ITSAPROCESS .”
West has taken to Twitter so naturally that it’s hard to believe that he once asked, “Why would I use Twitter???” in a blogged response to the Kanye West imposters on Twitter. Indeed, questions about whether West, who once had ghost bloggers, actually tweets himself have surfaced. Saturday, West tweeted: I hate when people ask me if I write my own tweets. I tell em you gotta really live it to tweet it . . .#ROCKSTARLIFE. Only on Twitter for less than a week and he already has slogans.
Of course not everyone is thrilled that Kanye has joined Twitter. Apparently those who don’t follow West have been subjected to his tweets courtesy of those they actually choose to follow thanks to the retweeting function. Some have even shared tips on how to block all things Kanye while others have observed that almost everything Kanye tweets appears retweetable to too many.
Love him or hate him, though, one thing is certain, Kanye West hit it right on the head with this tweet: I think Twitter was designed specifically with me in mind just my humble opinion hahhhahaaaahaaa humble hahahahhahaahaaaa. After all these months, West definitely knows how to put the “power” back into his world.