(Title Continued) Of All Time
...Okay Kanye, I will do precisely that.
By now I'm sure you are sick to death of the Kanye West VMA story (trust me, I am). But, let me write the last piece of information on the internet that you read on the subject.
On Sunday I was sitting in my dorm not watching the VMAs when all of a sudden my homepage of Facebook explodes with status updates that read "OMG Kanye" and "Kanye is a jerk." This got me interested. I commented on a friend's status asking him what happened. Moments later he gave me the scoop on what had happened.
On Sunday at the VMAs while Taylor Swift was making an acceptance speech for her first ever award for best female music video, (for those out of the loop- this was the first VMA ever given out to a country artist- kind of a big deal) Kanye West (who has a history of whining at awards shows) got on stage, took the microphone, told everyone who he thought should have won, gave Taylor back the mic, and got offstage. This left Taylor Swift shocked and almost in tears with a performance to give in five minutes.
After my friend explained this to me I needed to see what happened with my own eyes. Did I turn on the TV hoping they would replay it? NOPE. I jumped right over to YouTube and typed in " Taylor Swift Kanye West 2009 VMAs." Sure enough, ten minutes after the incident, there was a video of the incident. Sadly, due to copyright laws, I only got to watch the video a small number of times before it was taken off, but, I did get to see it.
This is what amazes me about social media and technology in general. Within twenty minutes of the incident, I had heard about it, watched the video three or four times, read numerous tweets on the subject, and chatted about it with friends. The next morning I even saw the video of Kanye on Jay Leno's show online.
Imagine, 25 years ago when people were outraged by Madonna's "Like A Virgin" performance at the VMAs, you only got to watch it once IF you had MTV unless you or a friend "taped" it on their VCR.
So there you have it; One of the beauties of social media- getting all your celebrity gossip in a time-efficient manner. Oh, and if you haven't had enough making fun of Kanye yet I recommend you go to http://www.immaletyoufinish.com/ - you won't regret it.
I had almost the same exact thing happen to me. I was watching Sunday Night Football and just happened to check Facebook and saw all these Kanye West comments. I got an idea of what took place, and my roommates and I watched it happen as MTV ran the second showing of the VMA's after the first one. This was a classic example of just how "instant" our culture has become. If anything controversial happens, someone on Facebook will let you know sooner rather than later.
ReplyDeleteThis was the same way I learned about the VMA fiasco, although I learned the next morning after everyone was putting their statuses as "Kanye is a jerk". I didn't even remember that the VMA's were the night before, so I was really confused. Also, I am disappointed that I can't find the video of Kanye actually taking the mike from Taylor and making the speech anymore.
ReplyDeleteI liked your blog, Zach, and I'ma let you finish, but I think that the media should drop this now, since we have already come to the conclusion that Kanye was an arrogant prick who was out of line to interrupt a young girl and embarass her by saying that she shouldn't have won (in front of all America, even those who weren't watching).
It is crazy how far technology and social media has come in the last five years, let alone 25 years. I cannot even imagine anymore what it was like not to have Facebook or Youtube. We have the ability of constant communication and feedback. We even get mad or frustrated when we cannot see instant feedback on things. I bet you even got frustrated when they took the video off youtube due to copyright laws.
ReplyDeleteZach,
ReplyDeleteI too wrote about this particular topic for my blog this week. The website immaletyoufinish.com has some pretty funny stuff up there. I know that most people are sick of hearing about it, but I don’t think it’s going away just yet. I heard on the radio yesterday that it came out that Kanye and Taylor have the same manager. So perhaps this was just one big publicity stunt after all. When it comes to Kanye West, nothing would surprise me anymore.
Weird! Facebook is the same way that I found out about this 'scene' at the VMA's. I was just relaxing on my couch watching some football and decided to log on to Facebook just to check-in. I was bombarded with everyone's status updates about Kanye and Taylor Swift and had no clue what they were talking about. I read a little further and saw more posts and comments about the event and figured it out. Since I was watching football and not the VMA's I missed it and so I googled it and came up with a video that showed the incident. You are right in the fact that 25 years ago if I had missed this then I would have been out of luck. Instead, I found out and rewatched the even all with in about an hour of it originally happening.
ReplyDelete