In all of human history, there has perhaps never been a more ardent believer in the idea that any publicity is good publicity than twenty-four-time Grammy-winning recording artist Kanye West. Ye—as he’s been legally known since 2021—thrives on controversy, provocation, and quite literally anything that will put him in the spotlight. He further proved there are no depths to which he won’t sink in search of attention during the weekend of February 7. Across several X posts, the rapper flew off the handle in a hate-spewing, slur-filled spree that targeted Jews, the queer community, and many others.
Some lowlights throughout the spree include Ye doubling down on his affinity for Adolf Hitler and Nazism, body shaming women, and expressing his “dominion” over his wife Bianca Censori. When all was hatefully said and hatefully done, Ye thanked X’s Elon Musk on the platform for allowing him “to vent,” and saying it was “very cathartic to use the world as a sounding board.” “I tweeted pretty much everything I felt like for about 12 hours and I still have my Twitter. And most importantly, my billions,” West explained. “Thank you everyone for participating in this social experiment.”
It should go without saying that when a “social experiment” requires that the experimenter sell swastika t-shirts, something has gone terribly awry. Ye’s ableist and homophobic slurs, body shaming, and repeated suggestion that chattel slavery was a choice were flung around haphazardly in the name of “free speech.” His “social experiment” intended to push Musk’s commitment to maintaining free speech on the platform to its furthest limits, and that it did. But entitled individuals like Ye, Musk, President Trump, and their supportive fanbases aren’t ever sincerely concerned with the state of free speech. They care only whether their hate can flow freely.
When Ye first developed his antisemitic social media presence in 2022, I suspected that it had been crafted as an experiment, but one of a different kind. I don’t believe he was testing the limits of so-called free speech any more back then than he is now—I think, in both cases, he sought to prove and flaunt his uncancellability. Ye wants to show the world that he is above morality, civility, and accountability, and he doesn’t care who he hurts along the way. He will use however many slurs, enable however many extremists, and endanger however many lives it takes to showcase that he doesn’t have to color within the lines.
This is precisely the brand of entitled, arrogant, unconcerned moral degeneracy that is consuming the United States as I write. Millions of Americans, some rich and powerful, some idolizing the rich and powerful although poor and lowly themselves, masquerade their hate as a lust for “freedom.” You know, like in “the old days,” when America was “great.” I wonder if the MAGA-minded Ye recognizes that the same “freedom” he pretends to care about was the culprit behind every one of his lynched ancestors he pretends to care about. I guess we’ll never know.
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