Kanye and His America

How funny. We just wrote, yesterday, about the silliness of the Emmy Awards, and then, later that night came the MTV Video Music Awards, which featured a now infamous incident involving Kanye West and Taylor Swift. As Miss Swift was making her acceptance speech for an award, Kanye West, (some say drunk on Hennessy), stormed the stage, took the microphone from Miss Swift and proceeded to shout that Beyonce should have won the award instead of Taylor Swift. The outcry from celebrities and the general public was swift and vicious against Kanye West.
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Thousands across the country took to their Facebook's, MySpace's, Twitter's and Yahoo Comments Section's to decry Kanye West, and in many ways, their comments and outpouring of hatred, not to mention misspelled words, was far scarier than anything Kanye West did. Many remarks were filled with volatile hatred, ignorance and outright racism. Some commenters were bold in their use of the "N" word. And the fights which erupted between some of the commenters was disturbing.
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What Kanye West did was stupid, no doubt, but the public's reaction to the incident was just as bad, if not worse. The incident and the reaction to it paints an unflattering picture of a society overly obsessed with celebrity, and the popular media's cynical stoking of that obsession for ratings and profit.
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We need to get a grip, people. First, the MTV Video Music Awards started years ago almost as a joke, as a spoof of "real" awards shows; they were really just a way to get attention and ratings for a new, struggling music channel. No one took them seriously. But now, twenty years later, all the in-house, tongue-in-cheek humor is gone, and the people receiving these Moon Men act as if they've just been given a Nobel Prize, or even an Emmy! The VMA's are a barely disguised way for MTV and the artists and their record companies to promote themselves. The "awards" aspect of the show was included simply as a way to tone down the immodest act of self-promotion. We can't believe that adults even watch the show; the show is clearly designed for 10 year old girls. For grown adults to get visibly upset about anything associated with the VMA's is something akin to being upset when they change the design of the plastic furniture in your Barbie Dream House.
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So maybe MTV should eliminate the silliness of handing out awards and just stage the show as one big, ultimate music concert. MTV would get the same ratings, the artists would reap the same publicity, and Kanye West could work out his ego-driven, narcississitic psychological disorders by performing for the audience's applause instead of for some ridiculous trophy.
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But more importantly, we should all grow up a bit. Uncontrolled rage is one thing, but why not put it to some good use? Instead of railing like a lunatic about an empty-headed, vacuous, semi-talented celebrity, point that rage at the army of lobbyists who are being paid millions to currently storm the halls of Congress to derail health care reform and the reform of Wall Street and the banking system practices which almost destroyed our economy. And lastly, if you are going to leave comments on the internet for the whole world to see, learn to spell. You'll get more respect that way.