It’s actually not that difficult for ultra-famous celebrities to drive media cycles from their cellphones, an exciting slice of reality Kanye West is very busy demonstrating on Twitter. (Also see: 2016 presidential election.)
The only real quality an A-lister needs in order to be successful at the endeavor is some sense of self-awareness, knowing enough to realize what kinds of statements people would be amused to see posted from their social media accounts. (Chrissy Teigen tweeted about the entertainment media’s impulsive elevation of banal social media posts into news stories earlier this week.)
West’s steady stream of bizarre, hilarious, and bizarrely hilarious tweets has inspired much speculation — but while the implications of his stunt may be complicated, the explanation is simple. He’s smart enough to know that tweeting enigmatic messages inspires unending speculation, that tweeting pro-Trump statements sparks uproar, and that posts like “I’m nice at ping pong” are so stupid they’re funny, playing on the public perception of himself as an eccentric egoist, and scoring not-so hard-earned virality. For West, the road to headline domination is short.
As someone who tweets sporadically, he also knows a random cascade of nonsensical posts will catch everyone’s attention.
And that’s fair enough — his material has been riveting. But what else would you expect from a person fueled by “dragon energy”?
West is both crazier and smarter than your average celebrity: crazy enough to believe some of what he’s tweeting, but smart enough to manipulate the social media world by tweeting it in a stream of performance art weeks before releasing more music. There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as we know we’re just giving him what he wants.
