It began as any standard Sunday night would. I headed over to a friend's house to grab some food, sip a cold beer and watch "Entourage" with the boys.
As is usually the case, I was expecting Ari Gold to provide me with the day's quota of arrogant, self-centered humor. But about an hour before Drama, E, Vince and the rest of the crew graced my television with their presence, I quickly learned that I was going to receive an extra helping of a conceited, overbearing, superstar talking just a little bit too much.
Yes, by now we all know that I am talking about none other than Kanye West and his antics Sunday night at the MTV Video Music Awards.
There is no need to recount the story, as we have all inevitably heard about it from a friend or seen the clip on YouTube. Or, like me, you were on Facebook right after it happened, and every single one of your friends posted an obligatory I-Hate-Kanye-West-and-Love-Taylor-Swift status, along with an explanation of the grave injustice he committed.
To be sure, President Barack Obama's description of West as a "jackass" is certainly adept. And if his drunken antics and blatant disregard for Swift's moment aren't enough to move you to tweet your support for Swift and let everyone know you stand in solidarity with her, this should. West interrupted "Entourage" night. Simply unacceptable.
Joking aside, what is our obsession with this 30-second sound bite?
Celebrities pull ridiculous stunts like this all the time, and rarely do we pay homage to them with our collective Facebook and Twitter statuses. And usually CNN doesn't bother interviewing two "experts" (I was unaware that one could be an expert on rappers yelling drunken shenanigans in public) to report on such issues.
West has certainly done dumber things - remember when he fallaciously claimed to be the "voice of this generation"?
Whatever the reason may be, our ire is extremely misplaced. On the scale of injustice, this falls somewhere in between shooting a spitball at your little brother and forgetting to take out the trash last night.
Yes, West was a pompous ass as usual, but why are we up in arms about this minor outburst, yet larger issues such as health care reform, poverty and war barely register a tick on our radar? Hell, after Rep. Joe Wilson's (R-SC) outburst during the president's health care address, I counted maybe three Facebook statuses either for or against it. The next day most students seemed unaware that it had even happened and didn't know who Rep. Wilson was.
The fact is, we are Florida's brightest and best. A little obsession with celebrity gossip is understandable and probably even healthy. But the extent to which we are possessed by an irrelevant rap star's diatribe at a B-list award ceremony speaks to the fact that we need to readjust our priorities and concerns.
There are bigger, more disconcerting transgressions occurring in the world every single day. At least West was drinking Hennessey and keeping it classy.
Kyle Robisch is a political science and economics junior. His column appears on Fridays.
