5 Things We Can Learn From Kanye West’s Recent Twitter Rant

If you haven’t already heard, Kanye West has been causing quite a stir on his Twitter platform. It began with some seemingly inspirational content. Some were easier to decipher than others.

Kanye West is notorious for deleting his tweets. He has tweeted 356 times (at the publication time of this article) since his return to Twitter.

What seemed to be a normal Kanye rant turned sour when things got political.

A couple of other celebrities, including Kim Kardashian, Kanye’s wife, chipped in to the conversation.

The main star himself also chimed in.  

Kanye’s support has always been clear. As I said before, Kanye rarely tweets. In the same 287-tweet spiel, he revealed plans of releasing an album this summer. For all we know, this could very well be a publicity stunt. After all, he is married to a Kardashian. I digress. I chose to use these tweets and the conversations brought up as a learning opportunity. Here are a few things I learned/took away from Kanye’s Twitter rant.

1. People are allowed to have an opinion.

I think this is self-explanatory. People and their experiences shape them. In the same way that someone is allowed to have an opinion, you are allowed a choice to respect it. But people should be subjected to their own thoughts, opinions, morals, etc., without the ridicule of being accused of thinking wrong. 

2. People are allowed to change.

Kanye is obviously a different person than he was in The College Dropout. One of the major differences between him in those years is that he now lives a privileged life. I think Kanye still wants the best for his hometown of Chicago. Do I think the person he supports is the best person to do better for his city? Nope. Do I think it is somewhat contradictory due to the history of the person he currently supports and the history of his relationship with former President Barack Obama? Absolutely. But I do believe that Kanye genuinely wants positive change in Chi-town. Conventional means of obtaining that change, however, are not working for him.

3. Do not use mental health as a means to attack people.

If it wasn’t already obvious, I’m not a huge fan of the Kardashians. However, I think Kim highlighted an important point. I get it. Those tweets didn’t sound like something the old Kanye would say. But with over 43 million Americans living with a mental illness, mental health is very serious and shouldn’t be joked about over a difference of opinion, or at all.

4. Do not idolize celebrities.

Celebrities are flawed just like you and me. Unlike like most people, however, celebrities tend to have a lot of influence over large amounts of people. And it is their choice of how to utilize their platform because they don’t owe us anything. They’re free to live their lives as they choose. It’s important to think for yourself, know what you feel, and control how you react based on what you believe and what you believe yourself to be, not because someone else told you to be that way.

5. Open the dialogue on how to enact social and political change.

If there is anything you can take away from this, please use it to brainstorm ways to create change where you are. Kanye claimed that during Barack Obama’s presidency, there was no kind of recognizable change in Chicago. Chance pointed out that every black person is not a democrat (which points out another issue that implies the dominant two-party political system, but I digress, once again). Both these tweets obviously hurt a lot of people. That means, at least to me, people care–great! There are so many creative minds, especially amongst this generation. We’ve been doing the same kind of political system for hundreds of years and there are obvious flaws. Now stop arguing over the internet and start to talk about it. More importantly, do something about it!

In writing this, I am not implying that I am a free-thinker, nor am I implying that I favor one political party over another, nor am I defending anything Kanye said. But I do hope that other people were able to capture the bigger picture of not what necessarily was said by Kanye, but the different conversations that were brought about because of it.

I love to engage in conversation. Follow me on Twitter (@mearesea) and let’s discuss!

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