Much ado about Kanye

I wish I was more upset about the Kanye West/Taylor Swift incident at the MTV Video Music Awards last night. Because I don't like Kanye West and this would be some sweet, juicy justification...but I'm not.

For one thing, I'm still trying to wrap my head around why MTV is hosting an awards show for music videos when everybody knows MTV hasn't shown videos since Billy Idol had a top ten hit. At this point, to give out awards for music videos on MTV is kind of like doing the Heisman Trophy presentation on the Weather Channel.

In case you missed it, and I don't know how that would be possible, here's the video:

Basically, what happened was it was decided via some sort of democratic process to give Taylor Swift an award. Kanye West disagreed with that decision and chose to let everyone know about it by disrupting the proceedings to object. Loudly.

That kind of thing sound familiar to anyone? Better question, does that kind of thing sound unusual to anyone?

Sure, it was Taylor Swift's moment and she had the spotlight, but Kanye wanted it, so he took it. Of course it was a dick move, but unless something dramatic has changed in the last 48 hours, I thought we just weren't doing the whole civility thing any more. When I look around at the world I live in, I see a place where we scream at each other instead of talking, we cut each other off in traffic, we shoot each other over stupid shit, our congressmen think it's okay to heckle the president, our athletes think it's okay to threaten to kill an official if they don't like a call and we can't even sit in a room together and discuss something as serious as our own health and welfare without routinely throwing words like "nazi" and "racist" at each other. Hell, we're not above killing each other in the pursuit of Christmas presents (speaking of that, do you think right about now those people are worrying that they might have set the bar a little too high for themselves last year? After all, once you've taken a human life or two in the spirit of giving, merely showing up with "The Beatles: Rock Band" isn't going to cut it).

That's the reality of the world we live in, isn't it? I thought Kanye was just "being real". He even said so himself in his all-caps (how perfectly appropriately inappropriate!) "apology" to Taylor Swift last night: "...WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD!!!! EVERYBODY WANNA BOOOOO ME BUT I’M A FAN OF REAL POP CULTURE!!! NO DISRESPECT BUT WE WATCHIN' THE SHOW AT THE CRIB RIGHT NOW CAUSE … WELL YOU KNOW!!!! I'M STILL HAPPY FOR TAYLOR!!!! BOOOYAAAWWWW!!!! YOU ARE VERY VERY TALENTED!!! I GAVE MY AWARDS TO OUTKAST WHEN THEY DESERVED IT OVER ME… THAT’S WHAT IT IS!!!!!!! I'M NOT CRAZY YALL, I'M JUST REAL. SORRY FOR THAT!!! I REALLY FEEL BAD FOR TAYLOR AND I’M SINCERELY SORRY!!! MUCH RESPECT!!!!!"

So listen, if it's now suddenly in style for behavior like this to bother us again, like I guess it did in the '40s or '50s or something, please let me know. That way I can use this as fuel to generate some real rage instead of merely shrugging my shoulders and rolling my eyes...again.