Wednesday afternoon at approximately 2pm EST, Kanye West, fueled by his unfathomably and ridiculously awkward "beef" with Wiz Khalifa, began the Twitter rant to end all Twitter rants. When did the rant end? I'm not exactly sure. It's 3:57 EST at this moment, and he apparently is still going. And I'm still processing that A) this is happening/has happened and B) I managed to witness it live.
(Background on B): I'm not on Twitter very much — usually just there to tweet out links to new VSB posts — so I always catch things like this hours after they've happened, not while they're actually happening.)
Anyway, his hour-long tweets of consciousness managed to cram in literally everything that's laudable and loathable about him. Kanye West will never be more Kanye West than he was this afternoon, and here's a tweet-by-tweet breakdown of Peak Kanye Breaking The Internet.
A bit of context: Yesterday afternoon, Kanye tweeted that he was changing the name of his long-awaited album from S.W.I.S.H. to WAVES. I personally gave negative infinity fucks about this news — he could call it "The Check Cashing Spot On Centre Avenue In The Building That Used To Be An Arby's" now for all I care; I just want it to be released — but Wiz Khalifa took umbrage to this, claiming that Max B is the true originator of the Wave Movement, and any allusion to a trend he started is incomplete without his involvement. Or something. (Admittedly, I don't really know much about Max B or the Wave Movement. Perhaps someone — preferably a millennial — can give me more background.)
And then, earlier today, Wiz tweeted "Hit this kk and become yourself." Which, apparently, is a weed reference. But Kanye interpreted it as a reference to his wife, famous White woman Kim Kardashian West.
And then, Peak Kanye began.
1. "Oh niggas must think I’m not petty cause I’m the best that’s ever made music" is, all context considered, the single best tweet of all-time. Its also the first of several tweets that, in retrospect, made people say "It would have been great if he just stopped there!"
2. Here, ultimately, is Kanye's "justification" for what he's about to do and proof that he has no clue what the hell he's talking about. This is basically the Twitter version of Ron Artest attacking the wrong fan at the Malice at the Palace. Ironically, there's a good chance Kanye might have actually been smoking KK when tweeting this.
3. When Panama and I went to LA in 2014 to shoot some promo stuff with Key & Peele, we saw Kid Cudi in the hotel we were staying in. That tidbit has no real relevance or connection to any of this. I just wanted to share.
4. Wiz Khalifa makes rap music for people who don't really enjoy listening to rap music. And people too high to do anything other than burn Hot Pockets. Basically, he makes movie soundtrack rap. I agree with Kanye, but neither Kanye nor I are in Wiz's target demographic, so it doesn't matter.
5. More Wiz music shade. (To Wiz's credit, "Work Hard Play Hard" was light years better than "Facts.")
6. There are days when I think about what it would be like to have a more traditional occupation, with an office I went to everyday and a boss I reported to and shit. Today is one of those days, just because it would be awesome to say "You have distracted from my creative process" to someone. Unfortunately, I do not have that. So I'll just say that to my daughter the next time she needs her diaper changed.
7. "I went to look at your twitter and you were wearing cool pants" and "I screen grabbed those pants and sent it to my style team #Wizwearscoolpants" forged together is the tweet beef equivalent of punching someone in the mouth, but pausing mid-blow to (genuinely) compliment their teeth. More Peak Kanye.
8. #TrueFact.
Also notable is the fact that we're like 10 tweets in and Kanye began this tweet with "3rd." Kanye West is the best artist of all-time. But, apparently, does not understand counting.
Unfortunately, this is where it all started to go to shit. We've reached the end of the "It would have been cool if he just stopped there!" portion of the recap.
9. There's a lot to unpack with "4th you let a stripper trap you" and "5th I know you mad every time you look at your child that this girl got you for 18 years." We're talking a full Guardian storage facility worth of shit to unpack. I won't attempt to do any of that, but I will say this:
A) There are few things wacker than a dude beefing with another dude and putting the business and/or background of the other dude's gf/wife on blast with the beef. Especially if the other dude's gf/wife used to be your gf/wife! Extra especially if the relationship with the other dude's gf/wife led to the single best thing you ever did!
B) Kanye is clearly — clearly!!! — still in love with Amber.
C) Kanye uses Amber Rose's stripper history as an insult. Yet, while he was in a relationship with this stripper, he apparently lusted over — and eventually cheated on her with — a woman whose income and current cultural relevance are literally 100% due to her finding a way to capitalize off her interaction with Ray J's penis. Now, there is nothing wrong or shameful about any of this. Being a stripper, making a sex tape, sleeping with Ray J — whatever. But it's beyond absurd that Kanye finds it in him to continually attempt to shame his ex for her past, when America's first collective acknowledgement of his wife's mere existence was due to a sex tape.
10. How much money would you be willing to be bet that this was the first time millions of White Americas ever heard the phrase "don’t ever come out the side of your neck at me"?
$50? $50,000? $50,000,000?
11. The residue from the Amber-related tweets is ruining the awesomeness of these four. Still, I didn't think I'd live long enough to see the day where a rapper from Chicago saying "I started the tight pants trend" to a rapper from Pittsburgh would be seen not just as a point of pride, but an actual diss. Kanye isn't just bragging that he made skinny jeans popular. He's saying Wiz is wack because he didn't.
12. Saying "I showed you respect as a man when I met you" and following that up with "You wouldn’t have a child if it wasn’t for me" is like saying "Your mom gives the best recommendation letters! And the best blow jobs." I thought this was going to be Peak Bad Kanye, but I was wrong.
13. You know how, when people live in low-lying areas that get frequent floods, they might experience that one flood that breaks them? That makes them say "Yeah, I just can't live here anymore"? This tweet, for obvious reasons, was likely that moment for many of the people still on Kanye West Island. And the people who used to be on the Island, but left a few floods ago, are sitting home in their dry living rooms watching this all and thinking "Man. Leaving three years ago was the best decision I ever made."
14. This is a stupid tweet with a stupid hashtag.
15. Is funny, solely because it's apparently unfathomable to Kanye that Wiz Khalifa might have just decided to get a new phone. Although, it is possible that Wiz gave Kanye a Google number. Because Kanye is totally the type of person you give a Google number to.
16. "But Kanye, Wiz didn't actually mention…wait, nevermind."
17. Again, we've reached another point where those still on Kanye West Island wish he wouldn't have ruined this amazing rant with his terrible Amber Rose and Wiz and Amber's child-related tweets. There hasn't been a bigger turd in a sweeter punchbowl.
18. We get it with the neck thing, Kanye. We know you're Black. You can put your South Side receipts away now.
19. At first, I wasn't quite sure if Kanye was high. Now I'm 472672% sure he was.
20. I know some people will believe this was all a publicity stunt for his new album. Which, on some level, I get. But there are certain people who don't need more buzz. They already exist in a perpetually buzz-filled state. Kanye is one of them. He can tweet "I had tacos today" and, within an hour, Complex will have 25 thinkpieces and listicles dissecting it.
21. I say this as a person who will definitely listen to S.W.I.S.H. or WAVES or VEGAN CHORIZO TACO MEAT or whatever the fuck this album will be named for 96 consecutive hours when it's released, but shut the fuck up, Kanye. Please.
22. You know how we went to war and shit because of some WMDs? And then, like 25 seconds into the war, it was revealed that there are no WMDs? But we're still at war almost 20 years later, because you can't "nevermind" some shit like that?
Spending an entire afternoon tweeting about Wiz's music, fashion, ex-wife, and child, and then saying "My bad" is the same thing. An exponentially scaled down version of the same thing, but the same thing. Because "my bad" doesn't erase the damage done, and definitely doesn't stop the other side from clapping back. Especially if the "other side" has some very intimate knowledge of your proctological proclivities.
(Also, I'm pissed that he deleted the tweets and I couldn't embed them so I had to learn how to screenshot on a Mac this afternoon. But, I'm glad this recap allowed me to gain a new skill!)
I do not know how this will end for Kanye. But I'm certain it will not bode well for his 2020 presidential campaign.