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Ye, better known as Kanye West has released a song titled "Heil Hitler"
I have to admit, it's quite catchy, especially the unlikely refrain "nigger, Heil Hitler", which definitely has an intriguing ring to it. Whether Kanye is a truly great artist or not, he's nothing if not a skilled craftsman.
I've long since lost the ability to treat anything on the internet seriously and my reaction was limited to squeezing my eyes shut and suppressing a chuckle, but I suspect that the wider audience is also outraged only in a performative, inertial way. I doubt it will end up making any real impact on anything and waves in the social media will likely fizzle out in no more than a few weeks.
I wonder if we're seeing the first signs of postmodern corrosion eating away at the last grand unifying narrative of our age: WW2 mythos, with Adolf Hitler at its center not as mere historical figure, but as the archetypal villain and the secular devil. In many countries the taboo is backed by legal force, but legislation doesn't truly govern things of this nature. The law may end up hollowed out and irrelevant long before someone cares to remove it from the books
Maybe I will live to tell my incredulous grandkids about how we were all expected to perceive one specific 20th century dictator through a prism of quasi-superstitious dread.
Should this really happen, good riddance. Though on the other hand, we might end up remembering having this kind of culture spanning, unifying narrative as kind of comfy compared to total balkanization
“This Post from @kanyewest has been withheld in Germany, France, Poland based on local law(s). Learn more”
Speaking of the legal force. Maybe you will have better luck on YouTube, or failing that just use VPN.
It's banned on YouTube and every single streaming or music hosting service (Spotify etc.). X is the only place that allows hosting it.
It cannot be denied that it's a truly transgressive song, and a genuine act of rebellion, given it warrants this response. Can anyone else think of a single song that has received this treatment despite the ubiquitousness of explicit material in that genre?
Some actual literal nazis in the vein of 'gas the Jews like we actually literally mean that' have had their pro-holocaust songs banned everywhere, I think. I can't remember a case of an American being banned from literally everything though, so that might have only been after a German court order or something.
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