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Comment by muglug | Hacker News Reader

What's happening to Kanye is a lesson to us all. He's 15 years past his peak cultural relevancy, and desperately wants to claw some of it back — but not by releasing great records or designing clothes that everybody wants to wear.

Instead he's the brave truth-teller telling us things that the Man (who, it turns out, ia jewish) doesn't want us to know. You see a bunch of celebrities and regular people alike fall into this trap — think of the former popular kid in high school who ended up as a janitor who spends their time "researching" the connection between vaccines and autism.

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> He's 15 years past his peak cultural relevancy

I'm the farthest thing from a fan of Kanye West, but this is false:

"West remains a considerable force in pop music. Every album except his debut, 2004’s “The College Dropout,” has topped the Billboard 200, including 2021’s “Donda,” which received a Grammy album of the year nomination. In the run-up to “Donda,” he held public “listening parties” at football stadiums in Atlanta and Chicago that were livestreamed on Apple Music (he was roundly criticized for bringing out special guests DaBaby and Marilyn Manson, who are each under scrutiny for bigoted language or alleged abuses). His sold-out December show with Drake at the L.A. Coliseum affirmed he’s still a formidable concert draw, one of few hip-hop acts who can credibly headline major global festivals." [1]

His continued popularity is precisely what makes his comments so dangerous.

1. https://archive.ph/cg6YO

Fame can have a long half-life — Billy Joel still regularly sells out stadiums, and he's 40 years on from his peak cultural relevancy.

There's no denying Kanye's words still have an impact, but his star is dimmer than it once was, and he knows it.

Genuine question- if you don't measure a musician's cultural relevancy by album sales, concert attendance, or award nominations, how do you measure it?

I mostly agree with the parent that just sales of all sorts are not a sign of cultural relevancy.

However, measuring said relevancy is a very subjective endeavor (due to the fact that it’s hard to objectively evaluate things outside of our own bubble). In my view it’s whether the artist is “talked about” and whether they are influencing the current music (and a broader culture) - that’s what makes them relevant. Kanye is still doing both of those things, so he is very relevant.

Donda (and Donda 2 to a smaller degree) was a very noticeable cultural event. Listening parties, album guests, the controversy around his romantic relationships (scandalous IG posts, etc), merchandise (tied to his big fashion releases)…

Billy Joel has none of that. Nostalgic concerts are definitely not a sign of relevancy outside of his fandom bubble.

engagement?

So... How do you measure that then? Twitter followers, Instagram likes?

And isn't Kanye also still popular by those metrics?

The Yeezy brand did $4-$5 Billion in sales in 2021. Until recently, he was married the most famous social media celebrity in the world.

He's definitely lost his mind but to say he's lost his cultural relevance is a stretch.

I don't know much about him but isn't he super successful with his businesses? Looking from the sides it doesn't seem like he's culturally irrelevant either but maybe I'm too old to realize that.

When was the last time you heard a new Kanye West track on the radio? Or saw someone famous wearing his clothes?

I haven’t listened to radio for more than 2 decades. Is being played on the radio still a sign of being current and popular?

His sneakers are worn by many famous people.

But I agree the last couple of records weren't exactly radio friendly!

Yesterday

> track on the radio?

Probably never?

So was Howard Hughes, but it's usually his declining mental health that gets attention because no one helped him.

Early in the pandemic there was a notion that the entire antivax movement was white, racist, right wing nut jobs.

Reality is quite different. The people not getting vaccinated are the people who have dealt with the government the most. They have a certain distrust after years over years of dealing with the government.

Meaning, the vast majority of the antivax hate ends up impacting the most vulnerable in our society.

Hate is bad. It's anti-human and a huge step back. It doesn't make anyone, anywhere, morally superior and it definitely isn't a marker for intelligence.

In fact, swallowing wholesale the narrative by people who have a vast history of lying(or no history of any truth/intelligent ideas) is the least intelligent thing one can do.

> there was a notion

These are weasel words. The antivax movement among progressive west-coast parents in the US has been covered frequently in the national media e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/06/us/measles-outbreak.html

> The people not getting vaccinated are the people who have dealt with the government the most.

This is also not true. They're mostly people with low educational attainment who are more susceptible to misinformation, but I can see the narrative you're trying to create!

> In fact, swallowing wholesale the narrative by people who have a vast history of lying(or no history of any truth/intelligent ideas) is the least intelligent thing one can do.

Good governments generally understand this, and the most effective health policy during the pandemic was to give the mic to the scientific community.

> This is also not true. They're mostly people with low educational attainment who are more susceptible to misinformation, but I can see the narrative you're trying to create!

How is that creating a narrative? People with low education are also often people who deal with government programs a lot. Through medicare, social security, VA, police, public schooling, public housing and I can keep on going, these people are often dependent on government. And that combined with lower mental capacity really doesn't help.

> Good governments generally understand this, and the most effective health policy during the pandemic was to give the mic to the scientific community.

That's what they did in my country... And in my country, the covid anti-vaxxers are very relatable to the ones in the US. Hell, they get most their information from Q-anon.

I'm not sure why you're suggesting I am being dishonest, twice.

There are billions of webpages that presumably say just about everything possible. The link to the NYT article that was never promoted doesn't do much in this regard

There are also plenty of scientists who have different opinions. Only scientists with certain opinions are given interviews/timeslots. This applies to Fox as it does CNN.

None of that matters though.

My points were not about vaccinations, they were about hate. The why isn't really important.

A lot of the people not taking the vaxx were waiting for the science to stop changing, It never did. Stop talking down to these people.

Genuinely asking: wdym waiting for the science to stop changing? I thought science is always changing, that’s how it works.

I thought so too, and yet I can't count how many times I've heard the phrase "the science is settled" when it came to any pushback on the prevailing narrative surrounding COVID or mRNA vaccines in general.

Even just the argument to support mandates has completely changed, and yet too late for those who lost their jobs.

The self-declared vaccination prophets are quite exhausting to deal with. Especially since it doesn't hinder transmission as much as first assumed. You can argue that this is better than nothing, but I argue that many people should be ashamed of themselves for making blind demands.

> The self-declared vaccination prophets are quite exhausting to deal with.

This is no less true of the self-declared anti vaccination prophets, and their cousins the lab leakers. The one area in which "both sides" tends to be true is that there are condescending extremist never-shut-ups on every side of every issue, and even their allies often find them exhausting.

And both sides pretend the loudest idiot of the opposition is the baseline opinion of the entire group.

Reminds me of Inception. At least when I think of the overall outcome which I get to see daily.

It is, but to a lesser degree because they don't have any demands like keeping me out of the public life if I don't have the correct papers or masks or whatever. Lab leakers were censored for political purposes while the question was open. Or it still is open as far as I know. Not too relevant for me personally, but I believe it shouldn't be possible to censor such opinions and that alone warrants a closer look. Self-inflicted harm in that case. They too don't have many demands.

Categorically, do you tend to believe statements that place fewer demands on yourself?

No, but I have higher demands for evidence of their necessity if they do. Otherwise I may just leave the question open.

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