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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   36216 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022

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So...more people have dropped Kanye West in the wake of his "anti-semitic comments" (it took more digging than it should have to actually see what he said - a few articles just leave it incredibly vague which is...problematic). In this case Anna Wintour/Vogue and CAA, both of which are hugely influential, even though CAA only repped him for touring.

To tie it into another recent trend: the Floyd family is allegedly thinking of suing him for suggesting Floyd died of fentanyl though I don't know on what grounds? I guess people have been emboldened by the Alex Jones verdict?

A while ago a rapper called DaBaby went through a similar thing where he refused to apologize until the consequences got too serious - I personally was interested in how far someone could take it. But the outcome proved that "cancel culture" isn't really a paper tiger that only works when people play along because they're too spineless. Nope, it'll work regardless.

This is an interesting test case because Kanye is basically as close to "uncancellable" as a person in a hugely PR-focused industry like music (and fashion) gets. He has a bunch of rabid fans who will buy his music or gear and he's already so vastly rich and famous that he'll likely always make waves. And , according to him, he has an ironclad contract with Adidas

Presumably he knew all this when he - once again - decided to say something he almost certainly knew would bring controversy. But, unlike the "slavery was a choice" or all of the other shit he did, this one is actually leading to the most serious consequences we've seen yet. Ironically for saying Jews cancel people who don't play by the agenda.

Recall also that Nick Cannon eventually was forced to apologize not for racist, Scientology-esque pseudoscience about white people, but specifically for annoying Jews.

It's a shame we don't have a way to see what the median person thinks about this (it's all just elite shunning and op-eds right now) because my first impression when I saw that happen to Cannon is "this is bad for everyone. White people are seeing this - they're basically seeing that anti-white racism is fine and the only whites you don't get to be racist towards are Jews". I wonder how black people will feel if this is what kills Kanye and not...y'know, going against the strongest racial partisan preference in the country.

The portion of his fanbase that posts on Kanye-related subreddits is very displeased with this latest bout of iconoclasm. [Edit: Actually /r/westsubever seems pretty adamant about sticking with the music.] However, I'm curious about the non-Reddit-posting demographic of Kanye fans. I'm not sure whether they're tuned into this issue nor whether they're bothered. I guess I'm basically echoing you: "It's a shame we don't have a way to see what the median person thinks about this."

Perhaps a decent proxy — some comments from theshaderoom's latest Kanye post (celebrity gossip Insta focused on black culture, predominantly black commentariat):

Y’all are not understanding that this guy is trying to build his own empire,but he can’t if he is still in contracts with all them labels and companies! This is all planed

131 likes ^

He’s getting out of his contracts and y’all don’t see the genius in this lmao.

1,707 likes ^

They ain’t move like this when he said slavery was a choice but I guess

1,160 likes ^

Nobody lifted a finger when he was talking about black people though

1,871 likes ^

I think he ending his relationships with the companies but y’all gon spin shit how y’all wanna 🥴🤷

138 likes ^

He used the system to make his money. Now using the platform they gave him to speak uncomfortable truths. The man is a genius. He is already a billionaire he’ll be fine.

57 likes ^

it’s funny when he was saying all this shit against black people (“slavery was a choice”) ain’t nobody end they relationship with him but the moment he speak Jews in the industry and they wrong doings, they ready to clean house with him. It just shows how much they don’t gaf about anybody but them.

3,990 likes ^

Perhaps a decent proxy — some comments from theshaderoom's latest Kanye post (celebrity gossip Insta focused on black culture, predominantly black commentariat):

TheColi is another site with mostly black membership (I had to laugh one time when there was a thread asking you to post a photo of your hand to prove your opinions on hip-hop were worth listening to), here's what they have to say about Kanye:

https://www.thecoli.com/threads/adidas-to-end-kanye-west-partnership-after-controversies-bloomberg-com.943998/

https://www.thecoli.com/threads/adidas-to-end-kanye-west-partnership-after-controversies-bloomberg-com.943998/

I remember when Nas mentioned Doug Morris in hero lyrics and they censored it and it wasn't even that bad , that's when I realized these guys don't play around

^6 likes

Why would companies do anything to Kanye for his comments about black people when you had countless idiots in the black community co-signing his buffoonery? There’s threads on this very site with people agreeing with him on slavery being a choice.

When he said something about the Jews they came together and packed his ass up. You didn’t have Jewish people stepping out of line and defending him or trying to explain what he really meant.

^30 likes

Boo hoo... it's not on white people to be outraged on our behalf.

Seems you dudes are learning the hard way. We should have cancelled him since slavery was a choice came out his mouth. If we had raised the issues back then these companies would have had to respond as well :yeshrug:

Nikkaz gonna keep crying bout Jew power like they are mythical or embrace collective power and learn how to move accordingly. But most would rather still stay stuck on pretending that we can't amass power as well because we don't have the resources. People are the main resource.

^33 likes

fukk Kanye but it’s funny it takes for him to say one thing about the Jews for him to get cancelled for hate speech yet this nikka been running around literally shytting on black people and our ancestors for years now untouched. Either way. fukk him. But fukk the media and the industry too.

^44 likes

For branding purposes , Kanye should at least leave George Floyd out of it. Otherwise, he's not going to have any fans. There is a large overlap of blacks who agree with Kanye regarding Jews and still think Floyd was murdered .

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