Let’s Talk About Kanye

So, we’ve all seen the Instagram posts. And the Twitter threads, Tik Toks, and memes about the Instagram posts. Kanye’s very public social media meltdown has become a car crash we’re all slowing down to watch; some of us are making fun of him, while others are expressing concern for his mental health. Many are also concerned about his ex-wife Kim Kardashian and her boyfriend Pete Davidson (or Skete, as Kanye has dubbed him) after Kanye threatened Pete with violence and posted private texts between him and Kim. 

It isn’t the first time something like this has happened. Remember Kanye’s completely unhinged SNL rant about Trump? Or when he humiliated Taylor Swift at the VMA’s, said that he “made that bitch famous” in a song, and then publicly dragged her name through the mud after she spoke up about it? It seems like over the years, situations like what is currently happening have become not only more frequent, but more explosive, too. 

Why does he keep getting away with this, you may be asking? It’s partly because Kanye has immense musical talent and has become a cultural icon over the years. But imagine if Kanye was a woman - would public opinion be different?

We at The Edge say yes. Before there was #FreeBritney, Britney Spears’ struggles with mental health were on the cover of every tabloid, her freshly shaved head and bloodshot eyes shoved in everyone’s faces. She was mercilessly made fun of and cast out of society until it was popular to care about her again. And it’s ironic because it was the media’s invasive and exploitative coverage of Britney that allowed her father to trap her into a conservatorship in the first place.

Thankfully Britney came back into the news cycle, or else she could have continued to suffer. But this points out a larger trend of how things, and especially people, tend to come back even after we all thought they were gone for good.

In a world where you can be canceled one day and praised the next, it seems like the only thing Kanye could do to turn us against him once and for all is to assault or kill someone. There’s always at least one or two conservative pundits whining about cancel culture on Twitter at any given time, but we at The Edge are failing to see the permanence of these “cancelings.” Men are always going to do something awful that everybody’s pissed off about on social media, and women are always going to be picked apart until we all decide we hate them for some reason, but trust us, they’ll be back.

Women have been consistently written off by the media, and therefore the public, for crimes including being annoying, caring too much, having confidence, and giving off a weird vibe. Kanye is currently putting his ex-wife and kids through hell by airing their dirty laundry and feuding (if you can even call it that) with celebrities like Kid Cudi and Billie Eilish. Kanye even posted a list of all his “enemies” on Instagram, including liberals, Obama, Black History Month, Tik Tok, Disney and of course, the whole cast of SNL. In a week or two, we bet this will all have been swept under the rug, especially with the promise of more music to be released. 

So, don’t be surprised the next time a woman’s flaws are used against her like knives or a man is forgiven for something any normal person would lose all their friends and family over. That’s the mass media for you.