Whoever Wins the Swift-West Stand-Off, We All Lost

As I was sleeping soundly on my memory foam pillow (which is the best way to sleep and if you disagree you can catch these hands), people everywhere refused to go to sleep because of some televised and Snapchatted drama. As I was dozing off and having a very deep conversation with Paul Pogba about hair styles and overall benefits of Arsenal over Manchester (we got more French people Paul, listen to me), people were swallowing up the drama news like it was between their family members.

Here’s a quick recap. Back in February, Kanye West, rap producer, megalomaniac and known habitual line-stepper released an album (?) called Life of Pablo. On that album, in addition to thrice “finished” track Wolves and subsequent banger PANDA (also known as “Father Stretch My Hands”) was a track called “Famous” where Kanye insinuated that he made some (and sorry for the language) “bitch” named Taylor famous. He also implied there is possibility of intercourse in their future. All in all, this was a typical Kanye line of Kanye lines. It had gossip, profanity, insinuation of a famous person’s name and potential for tabloid drama.

The song hit Tidal. Then someone pirated Pablo and the song reached the masses making the masses wonder “what would Taylor Swift’s reaction be?” Her camp got predictably mad. Her fans got mad at Kanye. Kanye fans said the song bangs. The rest of the world gave the predictably minimal amount of fucks as required by law to give to a celebrity feud and moved on.

Here’s a short and incomplete list of things that happened since:

• Kanye fixed Wolves. Like five times.
• Taylor Swift broke up with some dude and then started dating another dude and then it was all over the social media and we wrote a thousand articles too many about it.
• Drake beefed with Diddy.
• Drake beefed with Joe Budden.
• Drake beefed with a ham sandwich.
• Drake release 3 island pop tunes disguised as a 20 song hip-hop album.
• Chance the Rapper broke new sonic grounds with Coloring Book.
• Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump became presumptive nominees for their parties.
• Cleveland won something in Sports
• Police injustice and discrimination in the States has been thrust into the spotlight due to another string of violent incidents.

Obviously this very cursory list focuses on mostly pop culture specific things, and it’s still incomplete. The point is, the life-span of this kind of non-story in pop is between 15 seconds and “who gives a shit.” Until it isn’t.

Now, while the U.S. is in the middle of one of the most divided elections in recent history. While racial tensions are rising again due to a prejudiced and disproportionately biased police force. While Chance is touring the world, we have come full circle to this old bullshit.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to be Selena Gomez and tell you to focus on “other issues,” although if I would I would probably at least try and specify what those issues were in addition to picking a better time to voice my opinion so it doesn’t (rightfully) get misconstrued as a thinly veiled attempt to help out one of my homies. I am just saying that realistically, who the hell cares. Famous bangs. The beat is fire and it’s a Kanye lyric. Taylor Swift is involved in about 3–5 social media or otherwise constructed “conflicts” per year presumably to fuel her career as a singer (I’m guessing that’s what she is). Kim K… I don’t even known. Do with this what you will, but ultimately, who cares.

Odds are, Famous will get more plays in August and we’ll probably be discussing Life of Pablo more around Grammys time and whether or not it’s release process is mirroring the music consumption patterns of today. Taylor Swift will release another five albums, break up with half the famous population of the world and her fans will petition for a statue somewhere. Kim K will continue to print money for no other reason than the fact that she exists. And the rest of us will forget all about it this week.

I think there is a more important discussion to be had on privacy here (did Kim actually have the legal right to record the conversation). Even more so, on celebrity culture and the age of consumption. Hands up who still remembered the Famous feud this July (out of those who aren’t a part of Taylor Swift’s automated conglomerate of fans, and even some of you were too focused on Hiddleston). What is a half-life, and more importantly, cultural value of these isolated social explosions? Does it have something to do with the way we consume pop culture and pop culture personalities? Does it put pressure on generating contrived social narratives that keep us invested? Did all of this happen because Trump was on vacation from saying/doing idiotic things in the public eye? I don’t know, but those are far important things to think about over who won in a Hollywood melodrama brought to you by Kim Kardashian West.

Ironically, I’m probably also part of the problem since, you know, I wrote about this, but I care about that as much as I do about this situation. Not a whole lot.