Music

Kanye West Announces He’s Running For President In 2020; Even He Seems Surprised By The News

THIS REALLY HAPPENED.

by Meg Watson  31 August 2015

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Excuse me, everyone. I’m aware you’ve all got shit on. Maybe you’re at work doing some kind of hugely lucrative business I don’t understand. Maybe you’re studying, finishing off an essay or take-home test that’s due within the hour. Maybe it’s very important. Maybe your entire future depends on it. But whatever it is, it no longer matters.

Something has happened.

The MTV Video Music Awards have just finished up in the US and — though they spanned more than four hours and featured some of the world’s biggest celebrities — it can all essentially be summed up by this one glorious fact: Kanye West announced he’s running for President.

I’ll give more context. I’ll explain whatever madness led to this point, if I must. But, for just one brief moment, let’s let those nine hallowed words wash over us in their purest form. There’s the passionate eye clench, the measured pacing, the inevitable mic drop — take it all in. It’s important that we remember the finer details of this for the history books and/or our inevitable reckoning.

Okay. If you’ve made it through at least 10 more loops with your hand pressed firmly to your chest, we may proceed.

This all came about towards the end of the ceremony as Kanye was given the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award for lifetime achievement in the industry. Six years after he stormed her acceptance speech at the VMAs, the award was presented to him by Taylor Swift who declared he had “one of the greatest careers of all time” in an A-grade throwback. But that was soon outdone by Kanye’s full speech which touched on his occasional remorse for how he treated Swift, and the state of the music industry at large. Over 13 minutes, it seamlessly careens between total confusion and legitimate inspiration.

“Sometimes I feel like I died for the artist’s opinion, for the artist to be able to have an opinion after they were successful,” he said, not so subtly comparing himself to Jesus. “I still don’t understand award shows. I don’t understand how they get five people who work their entire life, one that sold records, sold concert tickets, to come stand on a carpet, and for the first time in their life be judged on a chopping block and have the opportunity to be considered a loser. I don’t understand it, bro! … I just wanted people to like me more.”

After admitting that he had in fact “rolled up a little something” before coming out on stage, he then launched into a larger discussion about his/a generation.

“We the millennials, bro,” said the 38-year-old man. “This is a new mentality. We not going to control our kids with brands. We’re not going to teach low self-esteem and hate to our kids. We gonna teach our kids that they can be something. We’re going to teach our kids that they can stand up for themselves. We’re going to teach our kids to believe in themselves.”

It was right after this he dropped his very official announcement as a Presidential candidate. Do yourself a favour and watch the full thing:

Reaction to all this was inevitably swift and vocal. Some deigned to doubt our supreme leader’s vision for the evening:

Others, including the already established Twitter account PresidentYeezy, have been more encouraging:

Most importantly, Hillary Clinton is yet to make a public response to this betrayal after posing for a happy selfie with West just a couple of weeks ago.

kanyeeee

soon