Kanye

Who is Kanye?  

Ye Performing (1)

Kanye West, Ye, or Yeezy? No matter what he is referred to, almost everyone knows him in different ways. He is a man of many talents who originates from Atlanta, Georgia. His success in music, entrepreneurship, fashion, mental health awareness, etc., has made him one of the most prominent and famous people of our time. While he does have his troublesome moments like running on stage when Taylor Swift was receiving an award and saying Beyonce was better. Or when he made comments on slavery, abortion, and many comments about his family that can be deemed very inappropriate. Through all of these moments Ye has lost a lot of support but there are still people who would go to the ends of the Earth for him. 

Day One Fans

Recently, a lot of Kanye's fans that came from his original albums when he was just a sole performing artist have left the fandom. They feel that he has just gone too far now to be able to support him anymore. These people are hurt, dissapointed, and confused. Ye now supports and has created relationships with people that he once wrote his music about, saying in these older songs bad things about them and their values. Now, Ye has completly changed his tune and has been attracting relationships with Neo-Nazis or making ani-semantic comments with no remorse at all.

Kanye with Candace Owens (2)

Kanye wearing a "MAGA" hat (3)

               

                      Problematic? 

While he has lost a lot of fans because of these controversial statements, there is still, and probably will always be, a large group that are loyally devoted to Kanye and will support anything and everything he chooses to represent. To them, Kanye calls the shots, he is their leader in a sense.

What Kanye Says...Goes

When Kanye first arose to fame, he was considered a relatable guy who grew up like everyone else, so many people connected with him on a deeper level. That is why that if Kanye says he no longer supports or wants anyone to buy from a certain brand, his fandom will listen attentively. This exact situation happened with the popular athletic clothing brand, Adidas. Ye made a claim that they are selling fake Yeezy's, which are his shoe brand, and was claiming they are selling fake colorways that he never made himself. Then, news was released that Adidas was trying to sue him and freeze a $75 million account. This caused an uproar inside of Kanye, resulting in him requesting his loyal fans to drop Adidas and not buy from them. As it was mentioned, what Kanye says, goes, so his fans did exactly what he said. They boycotted the brand, stopped purchasing from them, threw away previous purchases from the brand that were made in the past.

Yeezy

Yeezy is Kanye's fashion and shoe brand that he created himself. Ever since the creation of this brand, the products have been in high demand going for insane prices that die-hard fans are more than willing to spend. The original pair of Nike Air Yeezy 1s that Kanye wore attending the Grammy's back in 2008 broke a national record which was the most expensive pair of sneakers that have ever been sold. The record breaking number was a whopping $1.8 million. This amount of money on a simple pair of shoes shows the extreme extent people are willing to go to be able to own a peice of something that Kanye created. People search in high and low places to be able to find these original pieces that are considered so rare and hard to find.

Kimye (Kim and Kanye)

Picture of Kanye and Kim with text giving
intell to their lives together (4)

If there is one thing about Kanye, when he loves someone, his fans love them, and when he hates someone, his fans hate them. This cycle unfortunately happened with his ex-wife Kim Kardashian. When they first were together, Kanye's fans didn't make much noise about the relationship but as it developed and it was announced they were getting a divorce, the hate started coming in for Kim. It started because of claims Kanye was making towards Kim. He claims when she became pregnant with their first daughter, North, Kim almost had an abortion. Fans immediately attacked her and scrutinized her for even considering "getting rid" of a child of Ye's. Other scrutinization came from fans when Kanye came out saying that Kim attempted to have him committed to treat what she calls "mental health issues". At this point, Kanye's fans did not like hearing that someone they love and worship has other issues. Even outside of Kanye and Kim's relationship, they still come for Kim. She decided to move on and start a new relationship with comedian, Pete Davidson, which resulted in bashing after bashing from Kanye fans. Calling Kim a cheater and disrespectful for not staying loyal to Kanye, almost as if they feel she should act just the way that they do.

Presidential Votes

If there is anything that shows devotion or being a true fan, it's voting for them for a Presidential election and actually feeling like he might have a chance to win and make the world better. Some might call it delusion; fans call it love. On July 4th, 2020, Kanye let the world know that he was deciding to run for the 2020 election. Kanye recieved, 60,000 votes which on the scale of what actual potential canidates get is very small, but for someone with no political background at all, he made a statement. The statement also came from his fans, showing their genuine belief in him as a person, basically putting the well-being of their own lives potentially in his hands. 60,000 people from across America had so much faith in him and everything he's ever done, which shows true devotion and love from fans.

Kanye's Presidential Ad 2020 (5)

Fan-Fiction and Discussion

While most of his fans come from his music, fashion sense, relationship, or his political stance, there are the fans that love the way he looks and goes to the extent to write about. Or they want to imagine what it would be like if Kim and Kanye were still together, or what it would be like if he won the election, etc. So, fans will write fan-fiction to envision the stories that they would want to see happen. Moving on from that, another way fans discuss and connect about Kanye is discussion posts. Different questions fans ask each other to see standpoints on different situations. Places like Quora, Reddit, and Twitter are main spaces for this type of conversation.

Works Cited

(1) https://www.billboard.com/music/rb-hip-hop/kanye-west-ty-dolla-sign-vultures-2-new-release-date-1235664941/

(2) https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/04/candace-owens-interview

(3) https://www.thefader.com/2018/12/19/pusha-t-kanye-maga-hat

(4)https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/kanye-west-kim-kardashian-drama-spirals-but-twitter-doesnt-find-it-funny-anymore-4780508.html 

(5)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U-6nA2E26o 

(6) BBC. (2020). Kanye West election: How many votes did he get?. BBC News.                 https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54849605 

(7) McDuffie, C. (2022). Here are the music artists with the most loyal fanbases. The Root. https://www.theroot.com/here-are-the-music-artists-with-the-most-loyal-fanbases-1849599094/slides/4 

(8)Alex-West. (2024). Kanye West calls for Adidas Boycott and claims company is selling “fake Yeezys.” The Mirror. https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/us-celebrity-news/kanye-west-calls-adidas-boycott-32218127#google_vignette 

(9)Ross, M. (2020). Kanye West: Kim Kardashian tried to commit me after abortion rant about daughter. The Mercury News. https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/07/20/kanye-west-kim-kardashian-tried-to-commit-me-after-abortion-rant-about-7-year-old-daughter/