Kanye: Marketing Genius, Nut Job, Crypto Evangelist… or All 3?

This week, we witnessed two groundbreaking historical events:

North and South Korea agreed to put their nearly seven-decade standoff behind them…

… and Kanye West unleashed an epic stream of consciousness Twitter storm — culminating in an exchange with Trump that lit the Internet on fire.

Touching upon diverse topics ranging from his clothing line to making America great again, Silicon Valley to human consciousness, Kanye’s Twitter barrage left spectators wondering whether he’s a marketing genius…

a nut job…

or perhaps a crypto evangelist.

But no matter. What’s truly momentous about Kanye’s Twitter revival — after a nearly year-long hiatus following a public meltdown — is what it reveals about where information-sharing is headed and how people of varying social strata will interact with each other in the future.

When Worlds Collide

The now-infamous Kanye-Trump Twitter exchange is illustrative of a longer-term trend: The walls between the world’s most powerful politicians and its most influential pop culture icons are breaking down (“wall” pun intended).

Thanks to Twitter, we’re seeing entire worlds collide — worlds that previously existed almost exclusively in parallel, aside from Hollywood’s occasional railing against the establishment or the occasional actor becoming president (but those are exceptions that prove the rule).

And this isn’t limited to politics. If you have sufficient clout and influence, you can use social media to bring just about any pipe dream you want to fruition.

If Kanye Can Do It, So Can I

But this breakdown of barriers isn’t limited to celebrities. Social media is also removing the obstacles between the everyman and the leaders of the free world. If I have something to say to the president, I don’t have to pay $25,000 for a seat at a fancy fundraising dinner, nor do I have to address a personalized envelope to the White House. I can just Tweet at him. If I’m incendiary enough, or flattering enough, or plain ol’ lucky enough, he just might read it (although he probably won’t respond unless I have well over 100K followers — and at a paltry 131, I’ve got a ways to go before I start flying under Trump’s radar).

Twitter gives everyone a platform for self-expression (although for better or for worse, we usually indulge in knee-jerk Tweets that indicate a complete lack of forethought). Thanks to Twitter, everyday folks like you and I can actively participate in the news — in this case, a real-time conversation between the president and Yeezy. The craziest part? Our collective tone and the sheer volume of our reactions to a Tweet can shift the narrative of a story. Case in point: Kanye’s Twitter rant made the headlines — and so did our reactions to that rant.

Want to Be the First to Know? Don’t Read the News

It’s no secret that breaking news hits Twitter faster than it lands in media outlets — for example, witnesses to terrorist attacks or shootings post their iPhone photos to Twitter before journalists have even reached the scene of the crime. I receive headline notifications on my iPhone roughly 15 minutes after they’re already old news on Twitter. Word travels fast in the Twitterverse — and although this is often to the detriment of society, it’s a truth to which we must adapt and which we can leverage to our advantage if we cultivate enough influence (and that’s a big ‘if’ — it’s no easy task to gather a Twitter following, as I know from painful personal experience).

Twitter creates headlines and shapes the news cycle every single day. Reporters have to work twice as hard to keep ahead of the news — and they’re all scouring Twitter 24/7 for their next lead. (A word to the wise: Can’t reach a reporter via email or phone? Tweet at them.)

Kanye: The Marketing Master

Love him or hate him — and absolutely everyone I’ve spoken to has an opinion on the matter — Kanye knows exactly which strings to pull to provoke strong feelings and use them to his advantage. By the way, while he has our attention, why doesn’t he plug his friend John Legend’s new song?

I’ll leave it to you to decide whether Yeezy is a genius, a nut job, a crypto evangelist, or all three. But in the end, it doesn’t really matter — how, where, when, and with whom we communicate is changing, and he’s at the head of the pack.