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This is really a non-news story, but it bothered me enough that I wanted to write about it. I haven’t watched MTV’s Video Music Awards (VMAs) in probably ten years, if not longer. However, I saw this video everywhere, and it just killed me. The VMAs have been around long enough that celebrities actually consider it an important award — not as good as a Grammy, but still a big deal.
This year, Taylor Swift (one of my favorite artists) won Best Female Video, only to have the award ruined for her by a no-class idiot named Kanye West. Watch it for yourself:
So, as Taylor Swift is in the middle of giving her acceptance speech, Kanye West storms onstage and takes the microphone from her, announcing that Beyonce should have won for Single Ladies. The camera pans to Beyonce, who looked mortified. Kanye then gives the microphone back to Taylor, who stands there looking like she’s about to cry. It was Taylor’s first VMA.
Beyonce’s video for Single Ladies did win Best Video of the Year. And Beyonce very graciously asked Taylor Swift to come up on stage to share in the award with her, so that she could have her moment.
Kanye West, on the other hand, issued a pathetic excuse for an apology.
I feel like Ben Stiller in “Meet the Parents” when he messed up everything and Robert De Niro asked him to leave… That was Taylor’s moment and I had no right in any way to take it from her. I am truly sorry.
That sounds so sincere.
I write about this for a few reasons. First, celebrities are revered in today’s world. It’s easy to brush this off as just another idiot celebrity running their mouth. But celebrities are looked up to these days. Their opinions are asked on topics they usually know next to nothing about. Journalists like Katie Couric, Matt Lauer, Larry King, and more ask celebrities to come onto their programs and then probe them about things they often are clueless on, like politics. Yet we’re supposed to listen to them, to admire their opinions, and respect what they say. Singers and actors who are lucky if they even have their high school diplomas are suddenly experts on economics, foreign policy, education, and so on. They’ve become role models and intellectuals. Celebrities aren’t mere entertainers anymore. People used to be famous because they were special; now, people are special because they’re famous. We live in a culture of worshipping celebrities who are very rarely deserving of worship.
And so celebrities have become legitimate figures in the public eye, even as they usually ruin their own lives through drugs, sex, and various addictions. Kanye West’s outburst, I think, just goes to show how far we have fallen in the arena of celebrity worship.
Celebrities, like Kanye West, are used to people asking them their opinions. They’re narcissists by nature. They think that we’re all just clamoring to know what they think, what they feel, what’s going on in their lives. And so why would it be inappropriate for Kanye West to do what he did? All of America must be dying to know what he was thinking, because he’s Kanye West, an artistic genius. Most celebrities wouldn’t do what Kanye did to Taylor, but most of them do share what was undoubtedly Kanye’s thought process.
Kanye’s outburst is just one more example of how disgusting more celebrities are — narcissist, prideful, hedonistic, immature idiots who look at themselves as talented, special, intellectual people that we Americans sit around and idolize. Why?? Why do we put these people on such pedestals? Because they’re pretty? I think we’re seeing that more and more we’ve created a monster in Hollywood, and Kanye West is just the tip of the iceberg.
It brings to mind two quotes I remember:
“George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” — Kanye West
The other one is from a construct of “Janeane Garofalo” on Team America World Police…and I’m paraphrasing here, hopefully only slightly:
“As actors, we have a responsibility to read about current events…and to repeat what we have read, as if it is our own opinion.”
Kanye’s outburst is just one more example of how disgusting more celebrities are — narcissist, prideful, hedonistic, immature idiots who look at themselves as talented, special, intellectual people that we Americans sit around and idolize. Why?? Why do we put these people on such pedestals? Because they’re pretty?
We’re bored. Bored as hell. What we find to be a pleasing distraction, is a reflection upon the everyday work from which we need to be distracted. And it’s a very poor reflection. As a society, we simply aren’t feeling very good about the work we do.
Yeah, I’m saying Kanye West is everybody else’s fault. We’re like Rome, about the time Christians were being fed to the lions. I don’t believe this is our final decline, I do think we have brighter days ahead, but it will require a massive effort and a long hard slog to pull our culture out of this funk.
I think Morgan’s on the right track (though I disagree with him about the final decline part…I think we’re pretty much screwed at this point; most people just don’t realize it). But I’ll say it in less tactful terms.
“First, celebrities are revered in today’s world. It’s easy to brush this off as just another idiot celebrity running their mouth. But celebrities are looked up to these days. Their opinions are asked on topics they usually know next to nothing about.”
Cassy, society is reflected by the people at the top. These people, whether we like it or not, represent our hopes and aspirations (as well as our most notable failures). You say we have douchebag politicians and entertainers (and I’m not disagreeing with you here, just making a point), but these people came out of this country’s families, schools, etc. If these people are shallow and conceited whom are fawned upon, then it’s because we’re a pretty shallow and conceited society (there are probably a few more terms I could add, but I don’t want to get too carried away).
Morgan, it’s true that we require a massive effort and a long hard slog. However, who’s going to give that effort? The Millenials? Please! They’re too interested in playing with the new Blackberries and IPods and mindlessly regurgitating leftist propaganda that they were spoon-fed in school. Their kids? Again, the family structure is slowly collapsing in this country. They’ll be too screwed up psychologically to want to do anything about it, assuming they can. The Boomers? Cripes, they’re pretty much responsible for putting us into this mess to begin with. GenXers (which I’m a part of)? Perhaps, but they tend to be pretty apathetic (and pretty dumb at times too).
One big difference between now and in previous decades is that the world is far more competitive than it has ever been. You think China and Co. are going to slow down and wait for us to figure things out? Yeah right. BTW, you think things are bad now, wait till China calls in our debt they’ve been buying off for years. If that doesn’t truly finish us off, healthcare and social security will (and all of these idiotic taxes the Messiah keeps dreaming up).
David Hateyah says: Kanye you are a sorry guetto punk, you bring your ass to Houston & I will personally throw a claw hammer right at your fat skull…pick on someone your own size you baby penis jerk and see waht happens..you took race relations back 100 years as far as Im concerned..bring it on ‘Boy’!!
Mat,
You might very well be right. But in the end, optimism is always more productive than pessimism, if only because pessimism just doesn’t lead to anything worth doing (unless you’re trying to prevent something).
If you’re looking for encouragement, I would simply comment on this: So far, every single downward-slide action, has been met with an equal and opposite “WTF???” reaction. This past weekend’s event is sufficient as an example. I would argue the “WTF???” moment has always been there, each and every time, all you have to do is have your eyes open to it.
And throughout human history, every revolution has been started with a nice healthy “WTF???” This is the cool thing about America. We are allergic to socialism; resistance to it is written into our DNA. The sad part is, we tend not to see it coming. It’s like a dish we cannot eat, but we keep getting suckered into ordering it because we like the smell.
We will NEVER gobble it up and actually keep it down…like some other spots on the globe. UK, France, Sweden, Norway, Canada, et cetera. We’ve got what it takes to see this long hard slog all the way through.
Mark says: Just as pathetic as Kanye’s sophomoric behavior is the complete lack of one true man, one who would have slapped that mike out of his hand and pushed him aside.
Chris M-G says: I was wondering when you’d pick this up. Imagine if the reverse had happened (Beyonce had won, some white guy had stormed up and said Taylor should have)- said person’s social life would be over and the media would be crying racist for months.I do have to give a lot of kudos to Beyonce for her olive branch. She really had no reason to save Kanye’s pathetic excuse of a rear end.
“Mat,
You might very well be right. But in the end, optimism is always more productive than pessimism, if only because pessimism just doesn’t lead to anything worth doing (unless you’re trying to prevent something).”
Yeah, I tend to be pretty pessimistic and am pretty cynical. Hence my statement. I also equate pessimism with realism. I would love to think that we can turn it around, but I have a pretty bad feeling that this whole thing isn’t going to end up well at all.
“If you’re looking for encouragement, I would simply comment on this: So far, every single downward-slide action, has been met with an equal and opposite “WTF???” reaction. This past weekend’s event is sufficient as an example. I would argue the “WTF???” moment has always been there, each and every time, all you have to do is have your eyes open to it.”
Oh, there’s no doubt there are a lot of “WTF” people out there. The question is whether it’s too little, too late. I work at a university and the students I see (even grad students) are just utterly brainwashed. And remember that many of these people are going to have kids (horrors of horrors!). Those kids will have these goofballs as their mentors so I can’t wait to see what they’re capable of. It just seems that since the Boomers, we’ve been going in a steadily and increasingly wrong direction and the longer it goes on, the more unlikely we’ll be able to turn the ship around.
“And throughout human history, every revolution has been started with a nice healthy “WTF???”
True, and many of those have been extremely bloody affairs. Are you really willing to have this country drenched in blood to turn it around (and yes I’m aware of the possibility of that happening as much as it turns me off)?
This is the cool thing about America. We are allergic to socialism; resistance to it is written into our DNA.”
Don’t count on that. I’ve heard plenty of people say “it can never happen here…” It doesn’t really take much to implement and I’d even argue that we’re already on our way with all the current nonsense we have now.
“The sad part is, we tend not to see it coming. It’s like a dish we cannot eat, but we keep getting suckered into ordering it because we like the smell.”
Very true. We also tend to be a culture that’s extremely short-sighted. Hence my comments above. We’re a very opportunistic society. That’s one of our great strengths and also one of our greatest weaknesses.
When you get people stuck on an idea that they don’t have to worry about anything because the government will provide everything for them, it’s very seductive. Unfortunately, critical thinking seems to be in short supply these days for most people.
The way I ultimately see it is that we have a chance to reverse this, true. However, that window of opportunity is shrinking every day.
WayneB says: Now see, everyone needs to look at the brighter side of things. There were two bright things in this one:
1) Beyonce got a chance to show what a TRUE class act looks like, and
2) We found something we can agree with the President about (When he called Kanye a jackass)
Wayne,
Regarding the president, he would have looked like even more of an ass than he did when he stuck up for the raging professor if he backed up Kanye. What was he going to say (“Taylor Swift should have known better than to provoke Kanye by winning that award like that…”)?
Agree with Wayne on both counts.
Beyonce, beautiful on the inside as well as on the outside. She deserves a round of applause for this one.
MotherOfMayhem says: Obama and Kanye are both self-righteous. Which one shall we all bow down to?
BTW, David Hateyah you are a racist dumbass.
BigJohn says: I guess this is more proof that “Kanye West doesn’t care about white people.”
… yeah, I went there…
Like most celebrities, West reminds me of the tree falling in the forest. I think he spends every waking moment terrified that if there aren’t cameras pointed at him, he might not actually be happening.
As for the whole “Celebrity opinions on weighty issues” matter, I always like to cite the Star Trek cast as evidence against actors being taken seriously about anything.
When I used to go to Star Trek conventions, there was once some poor social cripple who would ask the late James “Scotty” Doohan about some complex engineering question about “What would happen if the Enterprise was no longer able to use dilithium crystals for fuel?” And poor James, PBUH, would stand there uncomfortably, mutter something in the Scotty voice about “Err.. she’d be limpin’ along on one cylider, wouldn’t she? Next question…”
Now, the details of warp drives are a load of nonsense, but there’s a lot of Trek books written on the subject (I’ve got a shelf full of them). And further, Mr. Doohan really hadn’t done much since 1966 that didn’t require him to talk about squeezing more power out of the dilithium crystals. And that shelf of Trek Tech manuals I mentioned exists solely to make him sound more authoritative when he talks about it. And he couldn’t put a sentence together about it when he didn’t have a script in front of him.
Every day, for the past 40+ years, George “Sulu” Takei hasn’t really done anything that didn’t require him to say “entering standard orbit, Captain,” and if you were to quiz him on the specifics of what a standard orbit entails, he would stammer dumbfoundedly.
My point is, if actors who have played the same part for four decades can’t tell you the first thing about what their characters were actually doing, then why in the name of Taylor Swift’s burgundy-painted toenails should we listen to actors’ opinions of real, complicated, serious issues based on far less experience? You wouldn’t ask Walter “Chekov” Koenig to plot you a course to Alpha Centauri instead of actual astronomers just because he spent 40 years playing a Starfleet navigator, so why should Meryl Streep lecture Congress about banning pesticides because she spent six months filming a movie where she plays a farmer’s wife, and be treated like a bigger expert than the people who actually work on the ranch where she got to play pretend?
Kupocygirl says: Fact is Kanye and lots of mainstream singers are just puppets of the Elites.
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