4/24/2018

When it comes to the 21st century's biggest music superstars, very few individuals can transcend their craft to become icons. Kanye West is an icon. Musically speaking, Kanye West can do no wrong. Over the last decade and a half, Ye's music has caused seismic shifts in the course of both hip-hop and popular music history. As one would expect, his recent Twitter reactivation has spurred much conversation and taken twitter timelines by storm. Since his reactivation, the mogul has shared new Yeezy fashion designs, a tweet-by-tweet philosophy book, five G.O.O.D. music collaborations release dates and a heavy pinch of conservative sympathies.

 First, Kanye tweeted about releasing five new albums this summer, and music fans across the world celebrated. Those types of Twitter announcements are always awesome, but that's not why we're excited about Kanye's return to Twitter.

Outside of the music realm, Kanye's fame is no less immense. That's because he has proven to be one of our world's most unpredictable superstars. Most celebrities of Kanye's magnitude have a team of PR and Communications specialists, controlling the famous individual's image and nearly every statement. Not Kanye. From calling out George Bush to snatching Taylor Swift's microphone, his rogue-ness has contributed and even elevated his notoriety.

Those iconic pop culture moments came to be because Kanye very much says everything he thinks without any vetting. He has always been that way, so it shouldn't be a surprise that he uses Twitter that way, too. For better or worse, Kanye's Twitter acts almost like his stream of consciousness. Take these two tweets for example: "I just threw some kazoo on this bitch" or "BILL COSBY INNOCENT !!!!!!!!!!" For Kanye stans, it allows them to see into the mind of their favorite artist, even if for only 280 characters or less.

Currently, Kanye is on a philosophy kick, tweeting things like “be transparent as possible. Stop setting plays. Stop playing chess with life. Make decisions based on love, not fear.” and the simple, but effective “question everything”. Twitter user @femmeminem shared their thoughts with a tweet reading "Kanye sounds like a college freshman coming home from one semester of a philosophy course".

Despite the content of Kanye's tweets ranging from madness to enlightenment, there is something about Kanye's twitter that is so refreshing. In a world of constant social media glimpses into the lives of celebrities, global celebrities of equal or greater fame, like Beyonce, have heavily strategized social media and PR efforts. Beyonce's Twitter and Instagram are so vetted that it is obvious that it isn't coming from Beyonce herself. Furthermore, Beyonce surrounds both her personal life and her music-related news in secrecy. So much so, that she can coordinate a bomb-dropping Coachella concert that shook the world. It's surprising that even joining the Kardashian celebrity empire hasn't restrained Kanye's braziness any less.

More recently, the rap mogul shared his philosophy on African American far-right activist Candace Owens, tweeting “I love the way Candace Owens thinks”. Pro-Trump internet lost their mind, and the left began their own frenzy over the controversial tweet. Then on Monday Ye tweeted a string of videos of Scott Adams, the pro-Trump activist’s, periscope broadcast about ‘Prisons of the Mind’.  

The upcoming string of summer albums will certainly shed some light on the unfiltered truth behind Kanye’s political stance- straight from the horse’s mouth. The newest projects are expected to address the debate surrounding the rapper’s contentious commentary, and perhaps even draw a line in the sand between fans.

However, with all that being said, it's his celebrity or fame or iconic-ness that makes Kanye's twitter so refreshing. Kanye is not using Twitter like the rest of us. In an online world where everyone -- even you and me -- is vetting their social media posts to create constructed falsified versions of themselves. Kanye literally just tweets his stream of consciousness.

What if we all used Twitter and Instagram this way? (I guess some of us do). But it would be wild AF, and everybody would look just as unhinged as Kanye. Overall, Kanye's twitter has made us think about how a lot of us think so much about what we put out on social media because we care about what other people think and we want to create a made-up image of ourselves.