“Soon as they like you, make ’em unlike you.”
Photo by Vittorio Cioffi / Unsplash
Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, rapped these words in his 2013 hit song, "I Am God." Strangely enough, these lyrics from nine years ago now describe the shift from Ye’s previously booming career to sudden unpopularity due to his anti-Semitic and racist comments in October 2022. Ye’s music empire is rapidly hitting rock bottom due to his insensitive tweets and blatant misuse of social media platforms to spread racist beliefs. Ye was a talented musician with immense popularity, which makes it hard to believe he is now being canceled by his once-admiring fans. His past success is seen through his swift transition from a lucrative hip-hop producer career to a Grammy-nominated gospel artist, nomination for a presidential candidate in the 2020 election, and net-worth of over a billion dollars. While Ye was able to reach these heights even while suffering from bipolar disorder, unfortunately, most of the fame and following he acquired has disappeared in the blink of an eye as a consequence of his actions.
Though Ye may be a universally recognized "King of Rap," his fans are not letting his comments go unnoticed, and his social suicide has led to a reputation he may not be able to repair. Due to the tense climate of our world, with more people actively advocating against discrimination and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Asian-American Pacific Islander (AAPI) movements gaining traction, comments like that of Ye no longer fade into oblivion, and are referenced and commented on for years due to the nature of social media. Major brands such as Balenciaga are well aware of this, and have since disassociated themselves from the rapper's plummeting career.
Ye’s status didn’t just disappear overnight—in fact, the day after the news of his controversy hit the press, students at GHS excitedly discussed their thoughts, while others checked out his music on Spotify, and still more glued to Instagram as a source of information about the rapper. Although Ye was in the public eye during his mistakes, people were still following his every move.
Greenwich High School Senior Divya Shenoy says, “Ye’s conflict provoked me to stop listening to his music, which I once found pleasure in, but now do not even want to be associated with.”
Ye began to face backlash after wearing a "White Lives Matter" t-shirt to Paris Fashion Week in October. When asked about his intentions behind the shirt, West simply stated that he thought it was "funny." Following this incident, Ye posted screenshots of texts allegedly with Sean “Diddy” Combs on Instagram, claiming that Combs was being controlled by Jewish people. When Meta, Instagram’s parent company, took down his post, this prompted West to make anti-Semitic comments against Mark Zuckerberg and the Jewish religion.
“I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE,” Ye wrote in a now-removed post on Twitter.
West then proceeded to say he can't be anti-Semitic because "Black people are actually Jew[s]." Following this, Twitter and Instagram banned Ye from their platforms, leaving him to ponder the severity of what he had done.
Fellow artists in the industry, John Legend and Lizzo, were among the first to call Ye out for his anti-Semitic comments, saying that any form of bullying is “unacceptable.” Even Kim Kardashian, Ye's ex-wife, broke her silence on the matter, stating in a tweet that "Hate speech is never OK or excusable." Though many celebrities have criticized Ye for his careless comments, it doesn't seem to spark even a sliver of remorse in him. Ye even went as far as to say that he "doesn't believe" in the term antisemitism.
Later in October, West appeared on the Drink Champs podcast, where he was asked whether he regretted his “death con 3” comments. “No, absolutely not,” he said. “I fought fire with fire. I’m not here to get hosed down.” He did say, though, that he was “sorry for the people that I hurt” and the “confusion that I caused.”
Because Ye was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2016, there remains a question about whether it makes sense to shame someone struggling with such severe emotional swings. David Schwimmer, star of the TV sitcom, “Friends,” says that regardless of Ye’s mental state, the comments he made are still just as much hate speech. “If we don’t call someone as influential as Kanye out for his divisive, ignorant and anti-semitic words then we are complicit, ” Schwimmer posted on Instagram, making it clear that he would not dismiss Ye’s comments.
The real impact of Ye’s hate speech was shown when a white supremacist group arrived at a Los Angeles motorway with signs in support of his anti-Semitic comments; one sign read, “Kanye is right about the Jews.” The Anti-Defamation League states that there were photographs circulating on social media with the supremacy group performing Nazi salutes behind the banner.
Most shockingly of all, Adidas, one of Ye’s major partners, has since terminated the production of Yeezy shoes, which the rapper was in charge of designing and producing, while also acting as the face of the brand. The ending of this contract is expected to force Adidas to lose out on €250 million in profits this year. With the Yeezy contract no longer entertained by Adidas, Ye’s net worth plummeted from $2 billion to $400 million overnight.
The question remains: Will Ye remain canceled forever? We live in a time where inappropriate behavior, especially by celebrities, leads to collective outrage from the public. Ye’s career has crashed and burned—but this may not be the case in the long run. The world moves quickly from controversy to controversy, with a collective amnesia; as strange as it may be, there are plenty of people who believe that the rapper’s comments about Jews and racism are rooted in facts (to state facts, they are not). Social media sites, such as Instagram, solely foster a fake intimacy between fans and celebrities; some of Ye’s loyal supporters may fall for his desperate Instagram posts, now that his account was recently reinstated, about how his life has been destroyed by one tweet.
Ye has certainly made history, for better or for worse. Only time will tell whether the former “King of Rap” can reinvent himself and return to public favor, or whether he has become “canceled” with no chance of resurrection.