Kid Cudi is brave, yet Kanye is crazy?
Exploring the double standard.
I remember listening to Kid Cudi’s 2009 debut album Man on the Moon: The End of the Day and feeling my chest squeeze. It’s a beautiful album, but beyond the lulling beats of one of the most chill albums in my collection, it’s the confessional of deeply depressed man. A depressed man who uses drugs to suppress feelings of emptiness, suicidal thoughts, and trauma brought on by personal tragedy. Instead of vibing along to songs like The Soundtrack 2 My Life, Day ‘n’ Nite and Pursuit of Happiness, all I heard was pain.
That’s why in October 2016, when it was reported that Kid Cudi had checked himself into rehab for “depression and suicidal urges,” I wasn’t surprised. He’d been dropping hints for ages.
When the news broke, many of his fans seemed relieved. We all knew he had his demons. We cheered him on with well-wishes and assurance of our caring, and fellow artists called his honesty brave, especially in reference to mental health and the surrounding stigma. It is. Everyone rallied behind him. We love Kid Cudi, and all we wanted was for him to get better.
These days, Cudi appears to be managing his illness well. He recently wrote a note on his Facebook to his friends and fans, thanking them for their support.
Incidentally, Kanye West’s name is among those at the top of the list.
On Saturday, November 19, 2016, Kanye West showed up late to a concert in Sacramento and played three songs — before embarking on a long, disjointed rant. West then called off the show (and later, the rest of his tour), leaving the stage and thousands of fans behind. It was bizarre. It was awkward.
Fans were unsurprisingly livid. Videos of the aftermath show united chants of “Fuck you, Kanye.” Twitter lit up with complaints. Articles and status updates across social media deemed him to be paranoid and crazy, as well as a megalomaniac and a self-important egoist.
“Kanye did it again.” “Can you believe this guy?” “What an ass.” Many love to hate Kanye, and those who do so took this chance to simply say, “I told you so.” On the following Monday, it was reported that West had been admitted to the hospital for dehydration, exhaustion and other “health and safety concerns.”
Like Kid Cudi, Kanye has written numerous songs about his struggles with mental illness (as have plenty of other hip-hop artists, despite claims that it’s a subject that hip-hop is hesitant to breach). A low key Kanye track, titled “I Feel Like That,” in fact, lists the symptoms of anxiety and depression, with West repeatedly and quietly crooning, “I feel like that.” We’ve seen his meltdowns, outbursts and bizarre moments before, from his infamous interruption of Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech to his more recent proclamation of a 2020 Presidential run.
The signs were hidden in plain sight, yet we were quick to call him arrogant or narcissistic. We rolled our eyes and talked about how he let the fame go to his head or how he was drunk on his own success. Hating Kanye became cool and easy.
Now, as reports of his increasingly serious struggle roll in, I don’t see the same outpouring of concern that we had for Kid Cudi. Sure, there are diehard fans tweeting #prayersforkanye, but for all the shares on Facebook and Twitter, I haven’t seen the same enthusiasm in discussing the fact that Kanye West is and has been struggling with some kind of serious mental illness for ages. And the fact that we’ve all been willfully blind throughout it.
So, what’s the difference? As mental illness and support for its sufferers has become an increasingly hot topic, why has Kid Cudi earned our sympathy while Kanye has been received with scorn?
The answer is pretty simple, actually. We are cool with talking about mental illness. We praise people who are brave to admit they suffer from it. We applaud them when they seek treatment on their own and “take responsibility” for their mental health. But we don’t want to see it. We don’t want to actually deal with it.
See, Kid Cudi talked about his depression. He sang about suicidal ideation and the use of drugs as a self-prescribed medication. But he never lashed out. He never showed us his turmoil through actions in ways we couldn’t escape. While Kanye lashes out angrily and erratically, Cudi wrote notes or lyrics, posting some stuff to his Twitter. He never forced us to see his mental anguish, instead interweaving it into his art. If you’re not his follower or you don’t listen to his music, you’d probably never know about his mental health.
He, instead, checked himself into a facility, out of the public eye, until he felt he was on the road to recovery. Kanye, on the other hand, appears almost fully unable to keep himself from acting out. He also self-medicated, and sang about his demons.
The difference, however, is that Kanye West is everywhere. He is inescapable. He made us listen to his long-winded stream-of-thought speeches that made no sense on cable TV. He made us witness his inability to filter what he says at concerts that we, as fans, pay good money for. He has arguably the most popular sneakers on the market, not to mention his numerous clothing lines. He has presented us with the evidence of his illness time and time again, long before it came to psychiatric holdings and suicide watches.
Still, we made fun of him. We rolled our eyes. We tore him apart after every episode and failure. Why? Because witnessing those things made us uncomfortable. Being confronted with his anguish, even if we didn’t identify it as an illness at the time, made us anxious and uncomfortable.
Do you know what common responses to anxiety are? Fight, flight or freeze. In other words, anger, escapism, and (nervous) laughter in an attempt to diffuse our own discomfort. That’s why we hated on him. That’s why we just chalked it up to Kanye being Kanye. That’s why he became the subject of countless jokes and memes.
Is Kanye arrogant? Is he a narcissist? Maybe. Probably. These, however, are likely coping mechanisms to deal with mental instability and insecurity. Maybe telling himself he’s the greatest is his attempt to ground himself in something positive.
Suffering is suffering, whether it’s thought, presented well, or acted upon. They are both deserving of our sympathy and support. Both Kid Cudi and Kanye, despite their differing public presentations and perceptions, need our support. Deriding Kanye while praising Cudi is, simply put, dangerously misguided and wrong.
Get well soon, Kanye.
If you or someone you love is struggling with mental illness, emotional distress or suicidal thoughts, reach out.
