Kanye is tweeting again. A few days ago, he re-activated his account and deleted his entire timeline and called out Nike for ripping off his as of yet unreleased new Yeezy Boost in a tweet that he quickly erased. And now, he has offered up some quotable, choice tweets about society, philosophy, and capitalism. For example, Kanye seems to think he is the only person who saw They Live and that he is a variation on Neo from The Matrix as we see from his latest deep thoughts.
https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/985671904202764288
https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/985672020590546945
Much like Julian Casablancas before him, Kanye has some insights into late-stage capitalism and its effects on a person’s psyche. While it is admirable that Kanye seems to speak out against the consumerist culture which he devotes himself, it does seem a bit hollow. One can’t help but wonder if these tweets are inspired not by profound insights into the nature of labor, capital, and man, but are simply subtweets directed towards his former collaborator Virgil Abloh.
As you may or may not know, Alboh was just appointed Louis Vuitton’s artistic director for menswear, which was a development that gutted Kanye. He mentioned this in his Hollywood Reporter interview of Axel Vervoordt when Vervoordt asked what was bothering him.
“It’s not bad or good, it’s my creative collaborator being the head of Louis Vuitton… Because [Abloh and I] have been fighting to make apparel at a certain price that still has the same credibility and desirability as something at a higher price. … But when they say he was my creative director, that’s incorrect. He was a creative collaborator.”
So, is Kanye upset that his former collaborator got more credit than he deserves when being called a director and not a collaborator? Or is he mad that Abloh has left Yeezy behind to pursue his own career at the more established and renowned Louis Vuitton?
In a twist of fate, this actually makes Kanye more relatable. Almost everyone will become sick of the phony, inherently toxic world of social media, delete their account to take some time off before finally giving in to the urge to re-activate and re-write their timeline like nothing happened. The difference is when normal, non-celebrity people do it, we hope that no one deconstructs it or calls us out on it. But when a celebrity like Kanye does it, it’s breaking news.
