Kanye West and his enduring propensity to go off-script at inopportune television moments seems to have forced the entire mainstream media into a state of apoplexy.
Revved up to full hysteric mode, journalists are waxing poetic about the good old days and lamenting the death of civility in American public culture.
Instead of linking West to inveterate yellers like Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) and Serena Williams, maybe some in professional media need to do a little research and rightfully place "Yeezy" among thinkers like Plato and Confucius. Maybe Plato, too, was a gay fish lost in a sea of haters and sharks with his meritocratic Republic.
Taylor Swift is merely a vessel representing all that is wrong in this society, according to a more subtle reading of West's flagrant outburst. Her status as a country music superstar only amplifies the need for more sensitive markers of cultural significance than pure popularity contests. Numbers, you see, not only lie, but often do so in an egregious manner.
Who among us is fit to criticize West for rightfully pointing out aspects of our society that are worthy of suspicion? In fact, I feel utterly unworthy to even type his name out, lest it be tarnished by our grubby attempts at conceptualization.
K_nye W_st it is, then.
Perhaps those outside the realm of media who have come forward with criticisms of K_nye also need examination for signs of possible counterfeit prestige. President Barack Obama jumped into the fray with his own off-the-cuff remark about K_nye being a "jackass." Perhaps Obama, like his predecessor, George Bush, simply doesn't care about black people.
Obama, a winner of a nationwide popularity contest himself who knows a thing or two about misspeaking, should probably just keep riding his wave of public opinion until it crashes up against the rocks of actual legislative process. Undeserving Obama has never forced Beyoncé to do the "Mike Myers face" and probably never will.
Rising up from a devastating car wreck and slowly climbing the ladder of success, K_nye W_st is a spectacular, phoenix-like figure born amongst us mere mortals. K_nye stormed the stage at the traditionally staid and dignified MTV Video Music Awards and took it upon himself to remind the Western media of the inescapable concept of meritocracy.
Beneath these ironclad details lies another searing truth - that K_nye is correct. Having personally spent more than 200 hours breaking down each frame of the "Single Ladies" dance, I am proud to announce that it is the single finest video ever made. If North Korea forces its people to do this dance at their next Mass Games, the awe-inspiring power of the dance itself would cause the geopolitical axis to shift almost instantaneously. Some theorists have opined that this hypothetical spectacle may in fact be the actual triggering mechanism of the Mayan curse of 2012.
Though K_nye W_st himself flirts with the non-meritocratic ideology of race-based distinctions and often times challenges the very bounds of rational thought, his rightful place in the meritocracy is incontrovertible fact. Confucius would surely recognize a true gentleman in the form of K_nye, especially since he got that new leopard haircut.
Tommy Maple is a graduate student in international communications. His column appears on Thursdays.
