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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

This is really a story about a celebrity's mental illness and public breakdown. If you haven't been following the news, West has spent the week saying increasingly unhinged things, not just about politics but about Pete Davidson, his wife, and (if I'm remembering right) his kids and the fake actor children that have been installed in his former home to corrupt them. He was interviewed for a show on Fox and a big chunk of what he said was edited out and later leaked; the "people at the Gap" knew about Uvalde, Kanye is now a Black Hebrew Israelite, &c. He's quite evidently sick, and these Parler people are scamming him.

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It's sad because to become successful Kanye had to ignore hundreds/thousands of important people telling him he wasnt good enough and he would never make it as a rapper. Then he became, arguably, the most popular rapper/hip hop artist of all time.

Now image you've done what seems impossible despite countless people telling you it wont work out. You are in the top 1% of fame. Now someone tells you your other ideas are wrong. And that you cant actually achieve x goal. And that you don't know what you are talking about when you talk about y. And that you are sick and need to take meds to fix yourself.

Would you believe them? Or would you believe yourself?

I think Kanye is sick and needs help but I can see almost anyone falling into the exact same trap hes fallen into if they lived his life.

> but I can see almost anyone falling into the exact same trap hes fallen into if they lived his life.

Kanye is a garden variety manic-depressive. It has likely been exacerbated by stress and self-medicating with the wrong drugs, causing instability, paranoia and delusion. Bipolar disorder is genetic, it doesn't develop due to no one being able to say "no" to them.

What you are describing, however, is one way that Narcissistic Personality Disorder can develop. Successful individuals are more at risk of NPD. One of the biggest issues is that NPD patients usually don't suffer, so they rarely seek treatment, which can correct if not cure the disorder in under 2 years, rare among psychological disorders. But the symptoms of NPD not only include an exaggerated sense of self-importance, but also an inability or fear of criticism, and exceptionally strong denial. Narcissists don't listen to anyone, such as those that are trying to help them, yet they require constant admiration.

It is likely West has one of the more benign flavors of NPD, at least, I haven't heard he is violent nor of reports of him berating and belittling others (though I do not follow celebrities). I think his biggest problem is BPD and drug abuse (though the self-medication may be keeping him alive, it is far less than an ideal solution), but due to the combination with NPD and vast wealth, and probably being surrounded by those that will never deny him his insane impulses, he's probably not going to get help until he bottoms out in clinical major depression for months, if he survives it. BPD must be maintained, and if it isn't, inevitably the train leaves the rails.

This is word salad. A bunch of psycho-babel that gives the impression of a deep understanding of the human psyche when in reality it shows at best the ability to memorize the criteria around a few invented categories and give a horoscope based off of them.

I wouldn't make a point of saying this on other topics but it's crazy how much damage this stuff causes to people's lives

Spot on.

Armchair psychiatrists seem to love to diagnoze the people they don't like with various disorders as a way of insulting by proxy.

Since when is a celebrity writing contraversial stuff on Twitter a big deal?

Ad hominem fallacy.

Vagueness fallacy as well as as hominem argument. If you disagree with what I've said, you must specifically speak to it. Handwaving and attacking me personally will never be persuasive.

Do you apply this same stict framework to your medical diagnoses you are handing out for people you've never met over the internet?

I don't need to catalogue the fallacies to point out why this is not a good idea.

This is also ironically vague and there is literally no ad hominem in there. Word salad is critique of the quality of the discourse, not of the person making it.

Also fallacy fallacy, just for good measure

(Retracting my comment. Kanye West has publicly talked about having bipolar disorder, see link below. Thank you to toomuchtodo for digging up that reference!)

https://www.thecut.com/2022/02/kanye-west-bipolar-disorder.h...

> Kanye, who is now legally known by his nickname, Ye, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after being hospitalized for a psychiatric emergency in 2016. In the years since, he’s spoken about experiencing manic episodes, often tweeting and performing through them. He has famously referred to bipolar disorder as his “superpower,” and spoke candidly about the stigma around mental illness on David Letterman’s show in 2019. “I ramp up, I go high,” he said of his episodes, describing feelings of paranoia and delusions, as well as being handcuffed, drugged, and hospitalized.

https://www.google.com/search?q=kanye+npd+narcissist

https://www.google.com/search?q=kanye+drug+abuse+addiction

(In no way is this comment intended to be derogatory towards any party, only citations)

He's been open about being bipolar since before his first album. Check out the song Gossip Flies at 6:48 https://youtu.be/a7SoMfT3PTw

In general, mental illness should be kept jealously private and only discussed with one's therapist, but this is in regards to the patient protecting themselves. Kanye can do what he wants, but if he is glorifying BPD (I have no idea), then he is indulging in his symptoms and heading towards cautionary tale rather than being a positive role model for other BPD patients and an advocate or activist for mental health, such as Patty Duke, Carrie Fisher, Catherine Zeta Jones, Trevor Noah, and many other celebrities. Life is hard for the mentally ill, and though I'm sure a couple billion dollars can make a huge difference, most BPD patients will end up institutionalized, in prison, or dead repeating Kenye's mistakes.

I'm not saying monetizing one's own mental illness is necessarily wrong, and I think many have been successful throughout history doing so, especially in art, without causing harm. But living in the spotlight, whether intentionally or not, one should, like Spider-Man, recognize there is great responsibility, and take the positive and negative effect it has on others seriously. Again, I don't know what Kenye is doing, only getting glimpses from headlines I can't avoid.

Personality disorders aren't curable.

> I haven't heard he is violent nor of reports of him berating and belittling others

I haven't heard about violence, but berating and belittling others seems common for him - it's practically his brand

> Personality disorders aren't curable.

Incorrect. There is no single cure for personality disorders, but that doesn't mean they can't be cured. Any mental illness that is not genetic and which develops due to external causes can be cured. There are many personality disorders, of which NPD is one. While there is no single cure for NPD, in fact NPD can be cured in many cases in one of two ways. Some can be cured relatively quickly with an antidepressant, which eliminates the symptoms, but most with NPD can either mitigate the disorder or completely cure it though talk therapy generally in under two years. It's absolutely true that one can learn to stop being an asshole.

Both you and parent are likely incorrect. The truth is, curability depends on a number of things which we currently lack the correct insight and models to correctly analyze. It's likely case-by-case, and ad-hoc, based on the extremely complex history of the individual.

But most importantly, we don't know, so making broad, absolutist claims is a waste of time.

Personality disorders can be treated and managed, but not cured. Like PTSD, just because a disorder is caused by external factors does not mean that it is reversible.

> There is not single cure for personality disorders (/) NPD (…)

I presume this is because the classification of these disorders is way to broad and unspecific as opposed to hard science diagnostics.

> (…) through talk therapy generally under two years

Would you have a good source for that e.g. a meta study?

What drugs do you think he’s abusing? That’s quite a claim to make.

IIRC it came up in a couple lawsuits with his insurance company a while back.

> Bipolar disorder is genetic

It is not. The question has been settled on a huge scale by historical events.

If illnesses like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia were meaningfully caused by genetic factors, then the Nazi genocide of mentally ill people would have caused a dramatic and lasting reduction in mental illness post-war among the affected population. It didn't.

You might also ask yourself, if something is genetic, shouldn't identical twins (preferably raised apart) both get it or both not get it? Obviously that situation is rare, but researchers do seek out and study instances.

Mental illness is a social phenomenon. There are lots of physical explanations for symptoms similar to psychosis - drugs, infection, immune disorders, chemotherapy, professional head trauma addict, but when nothing else clearly fits, "mentally ill" is the default, the end of the "switch" statement.

The social construction of the category is embodied by the admission process at a hospital's mental ward. They literally go down the various causes that they can check for a disordered mental state, and if they can't find anything else, that is mental illness, end of story. In fact, lots of abnormal blood tests may be ignored if they don't fit into an obvious pattern.

The meaning of the term is defined by what people with the power to assign it do. There is no abstract essence of it beyond the process as enacted.

It's a label that serves a critical function of allowing society to abandon difficult diagnoses and redirect resources to others permanently. It doesn't represent an illness, but the lack of understanding what it is. This is not at all the same as the (unknown) constituent disorders being unphysical or one single entity.

It's sort of like the "scientific creationists" that keep finding God in the gaps of science. There's always something left, but either you have faith in naturalistic explanations or not. If you aren't satisfied with science, you can't talk as though there is such a thing as scientific fact about the scientifically unknown, and implicitly lump it all together.

It can be genetic. But, just because someone has bipolar disorder doesn’t mean they carry the gene for it.

If you have Bipolar disorder you can get tested to see if you have the gene for it. If you don’t then it can’t be passed down.

Source: someone in my immediate family has it and their doctor told them this, got tested, and found out they didn’t have gene for it.

There are many contexts in healthcare where it's considered socially acceptable not to be strictly honest and accurate.

Psych drugs commonly say, or used to say, in the info leaflets something like they "correct imbalances of certain chemicals in the brain".

This is completely made up, and apart from the vagueness, obviously not reasonable when you consider that such drugs usually take a considerable amount of time to have their full effect.

But it's a customary "white lie" (or rather a fiction) to try to sooth patients and keep them confidently on meds. It's not a big secret, or a scandal, but an attempt to manipulate hopefully trusting people for their own good.

As another example of the dynamic, doctors treat patients who are inevitably going to die in the near future, and if they sense the patient is still holding out hope and still wants treatment, they will probably avoid accurately communicating the reality, the number of weeks or days left, and instead say things about progress and remission until the end.

I don't know what context "the gene" for bipolar disorder came up in, but could it possibly be that your family member was obsessed with "the gene" and the doctor humored them? You've heard of sugar pills?

> If illnesses like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia were meaningfully caused by genetic factors, then the Nazi genocide of mentally ill people would have caused a dramatic and lasting reduction in mental illness post-war among the affected population. It didn't.

Citation needed.

The population of Germany alone in 1940 was over 70M people. The Nazi's killed an estimated 230K disabled individuals, including the physically disabled and the mentally ill. That only accounts for 3 tenths of a percent of the population, but ~50% of any population will be diagnosed with a mental illness at some point in their lifetime, so their efforts were astoundingly insufficient from a mathematical perspective.

But whether someone is bipolar or not is not a simple trait like whether their earlobes are connected or whether they can roll their tongue. A massive genome study identified at least 64 regions of the genome that are associated with an increased risk of bipolar disorder. But even if it were a simple trait, there is such thing as recessive traits, so the Nazi's agenda was, of course, totally insane and could never be successful from a genetic perspective.

Schizophrenia tends to run in families, but no single gene is thought to be responsible. Bipolar disorder is the most likely psychiatric disorder to be passed down genetically. If one parent has bipolar disorder, there's a 10% chance that their child will develop the illness.

>Citation needed.

I read (ok, skimmed) an academic study that attempted to compare post-war populations with different histories, and failed to find evidence of an effect; if anything the reverse.

I dislike your sophistry about 50% of the population being mentally ill, as if the victims were chosen from that portion at random. So, out of spite, I'm not going to search for the study and you are free to believe that it doesn't exist.

As someone who doesn't listen to much rap / hip hop, and can only name his cover (adaptation?) of Stronger, I do know who Kanye is. I don't know anything about his music. Mostly I just know of him because he's a very public asshole. Much like his wife.

I find it basically impossible to empathize with him. I just wouldn't ever be in that situation. "Rising against adversity" is not the story I'd be be using here so much as just a typical strongman bravado leading to an absolute disconnect from reality.

I would wager greatly that it's not that he's grown cynical to people saying he can't do something, but that he's become delusional from people telling him a genius. People who convince themselves that they're smart do this thing where they have an idea, and conclude that because they've come up with it and they're smart that it must be a well reasoned idea.

Early Kanye West brought a lot of attention to social issues through his music and was one of the first hip-hop artists to publicly advocate for acceptance of gay folks in hip-hop culture at a time when gay slurs were very common. His first album was downright wholesome as far as hip-hop and there's a reason he was so beloved.

He's been on a long, slow, downward trajectory with his mental health since the death of his mother and unfortunately there doesn't seem to be anybody looking out for him anymore. It's really sad to watch at this point.

This is an interview from 2005 where Kanye defended gay people when it wasn't exactly popular. Trigger warning for gay slurs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp45-dQvqPo

> one of the first hip-hop artists to publicly advocate for acceptance of gay folks in hip-hop culture

That's interesting - I've listened to his music since the beginning and would've assumed the opposite based on his reaction to the South Park Fish Sticks episode. Is there a specific song/album/statement he made that shows support for the LGBT community? As he's turned deeply religious (supports mega churches) + conservative in recent years I'd further expect him to not support LGBT groups.

> Is there a specific song/album/statement he made that shows support for the LGBT community?

The comment you replied to has a YouTube link to a 2005 interview where Kanye says on national TV to stop discriminating against gay people.

"You can still love your man and be manly dog" referring to his cousin https://youtu.be/JwAjANmjajc

I don't feel that's particularly incompatible with anything I said.

GP is simply offering some context since you said you don't know Kanye at all and have only encountered him recently. It was never intended to be incompatible.

> "Rising against adversity" is not the story I'd be be using here so much as just a typical strongman bravado leading to an absolute disconnect from reality.

It's not really a story of rising against adversity though. It's that people who have a lot of success doing something have trouble turning around and doing the opposite. There seems to be a human tendency to double down on what people think got them their success.

> Mostly I just know of him because he's a very public asshole. Much like his wife.

By "his wife" do you mean his ex-wife Kim Kardashian? If so, in what ways is she an asshole?

She's a no-talent clown who bought her way into the public view with nepotistic wealth. She heavily uses photoshop on her pictures, and then sells beauty products to insecure young women to profit off the insecurities her digital media team helped manufacture. Her brand is basically just 'stupid and rich' - not someone I'd ever want any of the young women I care about to idolize. Her fame is a shame of American society: her rise is emblematic of the shift, away from talent, to wealth being the primary factor in modern cultural prominence.

> She heavily uses photoshop on her pictures, and then sells beauty products to insecure young women to profit off the insecurities her digital media team helped manufacture.

This describes the whole "beauty" industry. I think this might be a case of "don't hate the player, hate the game". There are also plenty of other celebrities whose success amounts to appearing on some reality TV show and building an empire off of that. Kim Kardashian is not remarkable in this regard, but seems to get more hate than average.

So, nothing, basically. You just don't like her, which is fine, but this is a list of zeros.

She's under investigation for a crypto scam,

https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2022-183

she's also long been criticized for cultural appropriation,

https://time.com/6072750/kardashians-blackfishing-appropriat...

Oh no, not cultural appropriation! How absolutely dare she!

Crypto scams are bad. your second link can't be taken seriously by people capable of critical thinking and undermines your credibility.

She settled with the SEC: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/03/kim-kardashian-settles-sec-c...

On the flip she has been doing a lot of advocacy for prison reform and is apprenticing to become a lawyer in California, seemingly to that end.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/arts/television/kim-karda...

> and is apprenticing to become a lawyer in California

She's been working on that for nearly four years. And only just passed the 'baby bar' exam this year (The baby bar exam is the exam California gives -first year- law students. It requires a score of 70% to pass. Kardashian has taken four years, and four attempts, to pass the equivalent of the first year of law school).

Much as I hate to say it, those whose lives would be bettered by meaningful prison reform would probably get more out of her doing publicity and fundraising and using her celebrity status to that end, rather than becoming an attorney.

Her dad, of course, was famously a defence lawyer in California…

I agree. Kim has her faults but I don't recall a time when she has been an asshole to anyone.

I think this shows that the commenter is biased and doesn't have the full picture.

I certainly do not.

Though I was under the impression that her entire brand was showcased on a show where they went over the top being vain, petty, and brandishing the biggest ego's they could muster?

Pushing unrealistic beauty standards on to teens

I believe that OP meant that his ex-wife HAS a very public asshole.

>I would wager greatly that it's not that he's grown cynical to people saying he can't do something, but that he's become delusional from people telling him a genius.

I've been wary of defending Kanye online lately, but Kanye's influence isn't just "rap / hip hop". Kanye also broke into luxury/high-end fashion quite unexpectedly where he was given the same sort of push back. It started with him interning at Fendi (when he already was one of the largest entertainers on the planet) alongside a group of other eclectic individuals (the other most notable one, Virgil Abloh, who would go on to become creative director of Louis Vuitton).

He captured lightning twice and I can't imagine that developing into a personality into anything other than "everyone else is wrong".

That said, I don't think he's become delusional from people telling him he's a "genius", or from mental illness. Since 2020, I've seen scores of people all fall into the internet misinformation pipeline and I don't think Kanye is any different - he just has the largest platform. He's no more mentally ill than your uncle who believed COVID was a hoax. Everything he is saying is currently "mainstream" conservative ideology, his talking points are lifted directly from Candace Owens who is employed by The Daily Wire, which is run by the most famous conservative personality, Ben Shapiro, (maybe after Tucker Carlson).

>Kanye also broke into luxury/high-end fashion

the secret here is that the emperor has no clothes, and Kanye's fashion garbage is equally as garbage as the rest of the high end fashion culture. It's not that kanye's that good, it's that its all a crock of dogfood with high end price tags and people who won't say anything trying to fit in for access to the wealthy.

I own a pair of DH Gate "Feezys" purchased for $40. They're comfy, stylish, and surprisingly durable. 3 years of semi regular wear and they're just getting to the point where they look ragged and shitty. I'm strongly considering ordering a new pair of knockoffs simply because they're just a well designed casual athletic shoe. Comparable to something like Vans, except they don't fall apart in 5 months.

I personally wouldn't pay $300+ for them. A lot of his fashion design has a similar utilitarian theme to it, and I believe that the intent with his partnership with GAP was to more or less have an outlet to offer his designs at a more affordable price. Although I could be mistaken.

(I acknowledge the fact that the price of my shoes is because of either some fraudulent factory manager skimming product and/or bad labor practices and that's a bit shitty of me. But they're simple shoes, there is certainly a very high markup on the authentic versions too.)

>Kanye's fashion garbage is equally as garbage as the rest of the high end fashion culture.

This is not something I agree with, I believe there is something like called good taste (http://www.paulgraham.com/goodtaste.html), and just because I don't care to understand it (just like I don't care to understand expensive cars or expensive watches), that doesn't mean the entire field is garbage.

Just because you don't understand an entire art-form and the industry attached to it, that doesn't make it all "garbage".

Might as well go on to say that all modern art or modern cuisine is garbage, and sound just as ridiculous while doing so.

Spoiler alert: weird artsy high-fashion pieces you see on runways are not expected to be sold or worn in real life. Just like visual design of concept cars isn't what's expected to actually drive on the roads.

I think Kanye actually is more mentally ill than our misguided uncles. I believe he has even spoken about his struggles with it during more lucid times.

I think you're significantly overstating his impact on the fashion world.

> I just wouldn't ever be in that situation

That seems to me to be impossible to say with certainty.

Short of something fundamentally changing my personality, I'm absolutely certain that I would never do the things he does.

>Short of something fundamentally changing my personality,

Something like... a mental illness?

Almost as if his mental health (or lack thereof) has fundamentally changed his personality.

It’s odd how in my own personal experience, the only way that I know that Kanye is “the most successful rapper of all time” is people telling me that he is the most successful rapper of all time. I actually hardly ever hear his music, or see him performing anywhere, as compared to other rappers who, if I were to volunteer an opinion based on my own experiences I would think of as “most successful rappers of all time”, like Eminem, or Dre, or JayZ or even Snoop.

It’s almost as if his whole thing was to successfully market himself to be associated with the title of the “most successful rapper of all time”.

But I have to give him that other than such an illustrious title, I do hear of him in countless contexts other than music: his marriage, his shoes, his renaming himself, his presidential ambitions, his beefs with other actual artists, and now his purchase of 4chan.

You’re off the mark with this one.

He is extraordinarily influential in music and hip hop.

Maybe you missed the era where he skyrocketed to the top and spawned a generation of artists that emulate elements of his style to this day.

His impact is undeniable and that’s why you hear about it.

The disconnect is probably that he hasn’t done anything musically relevant in a few years + his mental health has continued to deteriorate in public.

He's literally one of the best selling music artists who single-handedly pioneered multiple substyles within hip-hop over a 20 year career. He's released some of the most critically acclaimed albums of all time.

Strictly as a rapper he might not be listed as "the best rapper ever", but as a musician he's easily up there.

He is in fact the richest rapper according to Forbes, apparently with about $2 billion net worth, twice as much a JayZ

He reminds me a lot of Donald Trump

That's not how his life story went at all.

His father was a photojournalist for the main newspaper in Atlanta and his mother was a Fulbright scholar. He grew up in a solid middle class suburb and he attended a magnet school for gifted kids before getting a scholarship to the American Acaedmy of Art. He started producing music for artists directly out of high school and was producing for Roc-A-Fella within 3 years of starting out in the music scene.

It was at Roc-A-Fella that he decided to be a rapper, and it took him all of 2 years to produce The College Dropout.

He lived an incredibly charmed life before he ever started rapping.

Kanye makes me think of someone I knew. I knew a young woman once whose conversation was impossible to follow. She was a college graduate, and seemed intelligent. But, I think either her mind wandered, or else she simply lacked the capacity to reliably establish context in conversation.

I assure you, I really tried to make sense of what she was saying to me. She was beautiful, and I was interested in her. (I say this to emphasize how hard I was trying to make sense of it all.) But, in the end, I just could not follow. Maybe she had a kind of ADHD. But my point is that her "mental illness" likely went no further than that.

I can't follow Kanye either—though I am far less motivated to do so, by comparison. But, the guy is successful. I'm tempted to give him the benefit of the doubt that, like the young lady in my story, he may know what it is he's saying.

Intellect isn't a single axis. People can be very skilled at understanding the details while being totally blind to the bigger picture.

To a lesser extent, I have found entertainment in speaking with people who start a topic with their thesis (i.e. why are there Yellow Pages and White Pages? So stupid!) To which you lightly counter with some easy to digest fact (i.e. yellow is biz, white is res), and then a few sentences later, they'll conclude with their original point, as if you said nothing at all (i.e. See? Isn't it stupid, yellow and white pages. Makes no sense!). It was frustrating before, but now it's enjoyable to see a person live in a different reality right in front of me.

Note: Sorry for dating myself and using a The Simpsons reference.

Interesting, because personality disorders run in my family (ADHD, ASD, schizophrenia, OCD, depression, anxiety, etc.) and as someone with two of those diagnosed (and likely a third undiagnosed), I tend to follow Ye's line of thought flawlessly.

On the other hand, I often have to speed-watch speeches and lectures, as most neurotypical people stay on the same topic far too long for me to stay attentive. By speed-watching, the subject changes frequently enough for my mind to never start wandering.

It’s like trying to determine whether there’s actually signal there or just random noise.

I don't know much about Kanye, but are reports of people telling him he didn'h have talent to be a rapper genuine, or just something he tells people? Because it sounds like the sort of thing people make up for their own personal narrative. It reminds me of when people say things like "the doctor told me I only had a year to live" - which is something no doctor would actually say because its a massive legal liability, but it fits our personal narrative. Who were these people Kanye had to overcome?

It was genuine. He worked hard to get good at making beats, to the point he got signed at Roc-a-Fella Records to make beats for big artists at the time (Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, etc). He was super known for that in the industry, but Kanye insisted on one specific term of the contract - they gotta let him release his own album. Which they hesitantly allowed, because they thought he was just gonna fail and go back to what they thought he was good at, making beats for other rappers.

They didnt want him to be a rapper, but not for some malicious reason. They loved his beats, but thought no one would care for his songs that were nothing like the mainstream rap at the time, especially since none of them were about bling/drugs/gang stuff. That's just what was selling. And Roc-a-Fella Records wanted their star beatmaker actually making beats for their star rappers, not "pursue dreams". So they allowed him to make that album, thinking the sooner he is done with it, the sooner he will get back to beatmaking.

All of this is confirmed by tons of other people affiliated with Roc-a-Fella Records (like Jay-Z and others) at the time.

A brief dispute over contract terms is not the adversity his stans make it out to be.

> All of this is confirmed by tons of other people affiliated with Roc-a-Fella Records (like Jay-Z and others) at the time.

They're in on the story.

I mean, it's the same story now that's been told since the time all of this was happening, and Kanye was indeed having issues with his first album getting even published. And it is also true that pretty much everyone expected his first album to flop.

Unless literally everything said about the matter by everyone involved was an extremely consistent lie that they all conspired to perfectly maintain for 20+ years and ongoing, I find it very difficult to agree with your statement.

I’m not buying this Kanspiracy theory.

Even among fans, early Kanye was never considered a great rapper (although he was always considered an elite producer). It always felt clear to me that he'd be around and doing big things in the music industry for many years, but I kinda assumed he'd be much more behind the scenes and focusing on production.

Parent commenter is reading too much into Kanye's first struggles to become a rapper in light of this Parler purchase. But parent commenter is right that no one saw Kanye as a rapper initially. Back then, Kanye was only known as a beatsmith and producer, not someone to actually be on the track.

Kanye has a song off his album College Graduation where he talks about his initial troubles[1]

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpbeS15sHZ0&ab_channel=Kanye...

I believe it is also mentioned in Through the Wire

Most artists have to deal with rejection at some point

> the most popular rapper/hip hop artist of all time

Slim Shady stands up [0].

[0] - https://iamyourtargetdemographic.com/2011/08/30/kanye-west-v...

This article is from 2011, but today on Spotify Eminem still has more monthly listeners than Kanye West (53M vs 51M). Eminem also has several songs that have over a billion streams (one with >1.5b), while Kanye has just one and it's at exactly 1b.

So yes, Eminem is still well ahead.

This discounts Kanye's production work as well and might discount many of his collaborations, but I expect Eminem to still have more listens on spotify.

However, in terms of influence on hip hop and pop music as a whole, I think Kanye is above Eminem and it's probably not close. Unfortunately, that's a lot harder to measure.

If we're talking overall influence, it's Dr. Dre and then everyone else can get far back in line.

Kanye likes to claim that his music wasn't about gangster rap and that's why he was sidelined for... a couple years... meanwhile, Dre not only made NWA and Snoop Dogg but managed to convince the entire rap world that a poor white kid with drug problems and abuse issues was the next huge thing by doing things that nobody had ever thought to do before.

Kanye’s 808 & Heartbreaks has been claimed by many rappers from the 2010’s and onwards to have been a major influence. He really went all in on autotune and introspective lyrics. I much prefer Dre but his influence is waning.

The first time I remember hearing about Kanye was on Jay-Z's Black Album, "Kanyeezy you do it again, you a genius", the criticism lobbed against him in the early aughts was that he was a brilliant producer, but not a rapper, and then College Dropout came out, and changed that. It's really a shame to see all of this, Kanye is one of my favorite musicians of all time.

Kanye had tons of collabs as a producer and a huge influence on hip-hop artists to follow. It's not just about streams.

As is Eminem.

As a huge Eminem fan, 2011 was a good time to stop counting.

I love his stuff, Revival, Kamazake, Music to be Murdered by - I probably know 10 songs almost by heart.

But there's no denying that it's been a very different decade for Mathers and not everyone likes it.

Give him a couple of years more to include "Rap God."

arguably the top. Probably no doubt he's in the top 5, which doesn't make any difference to the fundamental point.

This is a very dry comparison between the two, as it only looks at numbers. Is Nickelback has far better commercial success than Rage against the Machine, but I don't think most people would rate Nickelback higher than RATM. Stronger may be Kanye's best selling track, but it's his easily least influential.

> arguably

From this perspective - my intuition is that the likelihood a Kanye West led Parler will be successful is substantially greater than that a rap career will be successful. In some sense West is moving on to more plausible investments as he gets older.

West has had success as an entertainer and as a businessman - I believe he has a successful shoe company. He's famous. If he thinks he can take on Parler, that seems like a crazy challenge but one he is well equipped to take on. I would certainly believe in myself - even if I thought it was low probability I'd feel certain that it was possible.

I don't know if I think it's likely he can make a success out of Parler. That's a very tall order. But I definitely think he's got a better shot at it than whoever has run it to date.

Completely agree. Put another way, it was far dumber for Parler's current founders and investors to try and create the Nth twitter clone in the current year than it is for Kanye to try and run it. Assuming he paid a reasonable price - buying Parler is probably faster, simpler, easier than creating your own app, which Kanye might not have the expertise/team to feel comfortable doing.

In 2006 I saw Kanye West perform at a music festival. This was while he was touring for his second album.

I got an early taste of his mental illness. He started maybe 5 songs, each of which he would cut short in the middle to rant about the sound being off. He was completely unhinged and rambling each time. After 20 minutes he simply walked off stage and that was that.

Ever since then, I've found that his illness has been very evident in the art itself. It precludes me from enjoying it, and there's been a number of times I've felt terribly sad seeing these signs celebrated by those who don't see the connection (which is not to suggest that they should).

All that said, I've never even considered this perspective, so thank you for sharing it. It makes a mountain of sense, and makes the whole situation that much sadder (and more complex).

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. This is a very sad, very public case of mental illness combined with the paradox of success. There's no way, healthy or not, that he wouldn't think he knows better than everyone else for exactly the reason you describe. Anyone in his position would be fighting back the naysayers. The major difference is that Kanye has had enough failures and stumbles now that his whole "god" and "GOAT" persona is publicly falling apart and he doesn't know how to handle it. The mental health issues are just exacerbating his inability to reconcile his personal ambitions with reality.

Just think about it... if you've been a success for so long and suddenly aren't, who would you blame? If you didn't say anyone but yourself, you're not Kanye.

It's also common for people who win a Nobel Prize to go on to endorse and study widely discredited crackpot ideas.

https://slate.com/technology/2015/06/tim-hunt-on-women-scien...

It's almost as if there is something that happens once you have a major, incontestible success, that you come to believe that your victory had little to do with luck and more to do with destiny or some inherent quality that you possess, and therefore the one masterpiece is a shadow of what is to come.

That foolish idea has led to many great follies.

Whoaaaaaaa. Whoa. Easy there.

I don't want to get off topic here, but talking about Kanye West as "arguably the most popular hip hop artist of all time" should also come with that argument attached to justify such a grandiose statement. I mean, I need to see some Claire Danes w/red yarn vibes to even begin to understand that position.

You can talk of Kanye and Swift in the same sentence (never had a struggle meal, I see your nick Taylor ;) ), but Kanye vs. Nas? Jay? J. Cole? Sheeet, even Em? I don't even know if there are metrics that could make that statement valid unless you restrict it to some weird "early 'aughts" sub-generation.

I challenge thee to numbers, graphs and beyond all - cultural import! <gauntlet slap>

> arguably, the most popular rapper/hip hop artist of all time

is he ranked that somewhere?

if so, i'm definitely getting old and out of touch with pop culture, and i'm from the Chicago area so grew up with everything available on the radio.

seriously? you don't need to be "young" to know this. unless by old you mean 60+. then perhaps i can understand it

https://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/the-greatest-rappers...

ranked number 10.

But the interesting thing is that you can see how the rankings favor more recent people, with 80s and 90s artists also up there and with far longer careers, but eclipsed by the more recent people.

> Then he became, arguably, the most popular rapper/hip hop artist of all time

I don’t think he’s even recognized as being in the top 3. There are so many much better than him, such as Eminem, Tupac, Snoop Dogg.

This is a great point. People become calcified and stuck in their ways as a survival mechanism! Times change and circumstances do too thus the axioms floating around in our heads deviate from "reality" like a lifeboat floating away while we pretend everything is normal. This is not only a lesson for the extreme rich - but everyone.

He's been delusionally egotistical for nearly two decades. I think he's always been a self centered asshole, the schtick was just more palatable when he was only talking about the trivialities of the music industry.

You are right. And that cycle of being told he was crazy but having massive success, was repeated TWICE in music and fashion.

So it makes sense his ego would be making it hard to see the world as it is, EVEN IF he didn't have any mental illness at all.

It’s interesting that you feel entitled to judge the mental health of a Black man who is probably at least two to three orders of magnitude more financially successful than you are.

At least try considering the possibility that his lived experience is valid.

Makes sense .. it's tragic.

He has also become quite tight with Candace Owens recently. She has been publicly supporting his persecution complex and appeared with him in the White Lives Matter t-shirt incident at the Paris Fashion Week event. I will give you two guesses who the CEO of Parler is married to...

Candace Owens - Wilks Bros funded figure head tasked with helping socially engineer a culture that removes taxes on the rich and feed contempt for real democracy.

This is shameful. You couldn't ask for a clearer example of taking advantage of a vulnerable person.

I don't know, for-profit prisons are definitely in the running.

Agit-Prop runs on "useful idiots". High profile idiots are especially useful.

> She has been publicly supporting his persecution complex

Ok.

> A Twitter rep told The Post on Sunday afternoon that West’s account “has been locked due to a violation of Twitter’s policies.”

> JP Morgan Chase may have notified West of its decision to end its banking relationship with him

> In a statement to CNN Business on Saturday, a Meta spokesperson said content from West’s account was deleted for violating the company’s policies and a restriction was placed on his account.

Doesn't sound like it is a complex if Twitter, Chase, and Meta/FB have all taken actions against him recently.

Dude's been blasting antisemitism on social media, in violation of long-standing, well-understood policies. Shutting down his accounts is the opposite of persecution.

> Dude's been blasting antisemitism on social media, in violation of long-standing, well-understood policies.

Can you give specific examples? I just looked this up because I was interested. This very long winded Vice article only seems to point out a few "antisemitic" statements he makes[0]. Here's the first two:

> Ye used a strange metaphor when talking about Black people judging one another, telling Carlson, “Think about us judging each other on how white we could talk would be like, you know, a Jewish person judging another Jewish person on how good they danced or something.”

I've never heard of people hating on Jews because they can't dance. If you watch the clip it sounds like Kanye is just trying to come up with an example, and it's clear he's not "blasting antisemitism" here.

> Ye added, “I prefer my kids knew Hanukkah than Kwanzaa. At least it will come with some financial engineering.” (The belief that Jews control the financial system is one of the oldest and most deeply-rooted antisemitic claims...

Ah yes, the classic joke that Jews are rich. This has been a joke since forever, and maybe it's a bad thing. But Netflix is still playing Seinfeld reruns, and there's way more than one joke in there about rich Jews. There's even an entire episode poking fun at people taking offense to Jewish jokes[1]. And Twitter, Meta, etc aren't blocking Netflix. If joking that Jews are rich is antisemitism that's punishable by banishment from social media, these sites are not enforcing their standards fairly.

I don't really care about Kanye West, but I'm so sick of people claiming everybody is racist, bigoted, and homophobic just because they disagree with something. Show me where Kanye is advocating for the annihilation of the Jews before you go citing baseless claims. And if there is some clear antisemitic statements that I missed coming from Kanye, then I apologize in advance. But right now, it seems like this is just another "this person disagrees with me so let me find some vague statement they said and claim its racist/homophobic/bigoted speech".

[0]: https://www.vice.com/en/article/3ad77y/kanye-west-tucker-car...

[1]: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0697814/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl

First off, his name is Ye, and I actually like his music (though, let's be honest, Donda was never gonna live up to the hype). This isn't about me not liking the guy.

> Show me where Kanye is advocating for the annihilation of the Jews before you go citing baseless claims.

Now, I didn't say he's been advocating for the annihilation of Jewish people, I said "blasting antisemitism." Antisemitism exists on a spectrum, and advocating for the annihilation of Jewish people is one point very far along that spectrum. If that's your actual threshold, you're definitely going to miss a lot of dogwhistles. But he's gotten pretty alarmingly close to exactly that:

> I'm a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I'm going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.

In case you're not familiar, defcon 3 is an elevated state of military readiness -- that the US hasn't seen since 9/11.

and these Parler people are scamming him - that's an interesting point I hadn't thought of. My first thought on hearing this news was so what? I don't care about Parler or Kanye West, but if Parler is taking advantage of Kanye's mental decline then that's next-level awful. Like I said, I'm no fan of Kanye, but that's horrible to take advantage of people like that.

I really wish people understood this more. Anecdotally, I'll never forget the time I was around him and some of his people. This when he was just coming up as a rapper but well known to be a producer. Just a little club appearance, and there was some odd technical issue.

I've never seen a human being who more obviously "sought the approval of others." He has this weird negative charisma; like there are some people who light up the room by being in it. It's not that he darkens the room -- but it's that he needs the light from others. It just felt like he needed everyone to really like him, and I could so easily see how someone could take advantage of that.

No wonder he's tried running for president. Seems to be a trend amongst narcissists.

Glib, but I've heard it said that narcissism is a prerequisite for the job. What rational human actually believes that they are qualified to be the most powerful person on Earth?

That said, most presidents have had qualifications other than narcissism.

I think everywhere requires "capacity" to enter a contract, and Delaware does have this on the books:

> 6 DE Code § 2705 (2019): Any person who has attained 18 years of age shall have full capacity to contract; provided such person has not been declared legally incompetent to contract for reasons other than age. Any person who has attained the age of 18 years shall become fully responsible for that person’s own contracts.

So I'd presume it would come down to what Delaware's Court of Chancery expects for someone to be "declared legally incompetent to contract." I'd imagine that's not something done lightly.

(IANAL)

That's like, if you're committed to an institution, or have a conservator placed over you.

I understand this sentiment, and my only concern is Kanye's acquisition legitimizing anti-semitism and pushing vulnerable fans into radicalization via that platform.

Is Elon Musk being scammed by Twitter?

Same situation.

Can't a rich dude buy a company without goofy rumors being spread (scammed into buying Parler)?

Having a celebrity owner increases the value.

Kayne isn't being scammed by Parler. He's being scammed by Candace Owens, whose husband owns Parler.

I don't think Kanye West saying that he suffers from bipolar disorder is a rumor.

Not that it makes it better, but Elon also said he suffered from bipolar disorder.

He's also claimed that he has Asperger's, without any evidence.

People with bipolar disorder aren't capable of making rational decisions?

And Elon is just a completely normal guy?

> People with bipolar disorder aren't capable of making rational decisions?

In the midst of an uncontrolled manic episode? Often they are not.

Twitter wasn't a platform created specifically to grift idiots, and it has actual reach.

>Is Elon Musk being scammed by Twitter?

This is no where near the same situation. When Elon originally put is offer to buy Twitter, Twitter didn't even want to sell. Then the market crashed and all the sudden Elon's own offer was almost double of the "fair market price" for Twitter.

Elon would be insane if he made the same offer today.

> Is Elon Musk being scammed by Twitter?

Twitter clearly took full advantage of his irrational hard on to get a signed deal. Not “being scammed” in that Twitter very nuch did not seek out the deal, but they certainly fully leveraged his willingness to toss out preconditions any sane purchaser would demand.

> Having a celebrity owner increases the value.

As a mascot, maybe, unless they are polarizing and their area of negative appeal overlaps with the product’s market and their positve appeal doesn’t; but owners are also decision makers, and celebrity’s are going to be all over the map in that role.

Twitter didn't want to sell to him in the first place. Musk's buyout offer took place in the context of a months-long drama about Musk being on the board. It's hard to look at the Musk/Twitter situation and say that it was driven forward by anyone other than Musk.

(I have no particular reason to believe Musk is in anything less than full control of his faculties.)

> This is really a story about a celebrity's mental illness and public breakdown.

I find this take interesting -- Kanye is insanely successful in multiple categories. He is very eccentric and always has been.

> Kanye is now a Black Hebrew Israelite

That said, calling him mentally ill or having a breakdown is a bit... odd. There are tens of thousands of "Black Hebrews", there are MANY more Scientologists. Is Tom Cruise mentally ill? Maybe, but people can have different beliefs than me and I wouldn't call them mentally ill.

Regarding Pete Davidson...

> “The 78 media outlets that called me an abuser when I was tryna get that heroin addict away from my kids that was tattooing my kids’ names on him, Skete, Pete Davidson…” said West. Davidson has spoken about his struggles with drugs and borderline personality disorder in the past.

https://news.yahoo.com/kanye-west-hits-pete-davidson-0413485...

I think a lot of the tabloid press is trying to make Kanye sound crazier than he is. That's how they sell stuff. Don't get me wrong, he's a bit off and he'll say things in a hyperbolic way (which is accurate.. but the connected dots don't always make sense).

Anyway, my point is I think dismissing someone as "mentally ill" for having different beliefs or opinions is probably not the best. It's a fair opinion, but I wouldn't assess it that way. He's acting rationally for his belief set.

> That said, calling him mentally ill or having a breakdown is a bit... odd.

Kanye himself has said, in the past, that he has bipolar disorder and has had manic episodes. His family has corroborated that, and his wife was open about taking responsibilities during the bad days.

Agree. Having far out views, even a lot of them, doesn’t make you crazy. I’m especially hesitant to judge sanity by conformity with popular political opinions. I get the sense that many are reveling in the opportunity to call a political opponent crazy with the safety of numbers.

Believing in a lot of conspiracy theories, in isolation, also doesn’t make someone “crazy”.

I don’t know the man, neither does anyone here so far.

My interest is in seeing more social media migrate to open, federated protocols.

I think you aren't being hard enough on Kanye. I just signed up for Parler (https://parler.com/breckyunits) and there are barely any ads on that site—he clearly doesn't know what he's doing.

> there are barely any ads on that site—he clearly doesn't know what he's doing.

There are no ads on HackerNews. What’s the point ?

People keep saying he's sick or he is wrong, yet his popularity keeps growing. Same for net worth. His tweets are getting 3-5x the engagement compared to a year ago. Maybe it's all part of the act.

People love this shit. We live in a fallen world.

Does engagement mean he is truly popular or that people are tuning into the spectacle? I think it would be true for most celebrities sliding into mental decline that their more deranged tweets would get a lot more eyes on them.

His tweets _were_ getting engagement. They locked his account[1].

1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2022/10/09/tw...

And now he is going to own a social media site so his account can't be locked.

Looks like that strategy worked out great for the other person who did that. What was his name again and what was that awful platform?

>What was his name again and what was that awful platform?

it'd be great if his name really was that blanked from the public mind, but I don't think that's quite the case with that specific example, yet.

I guess free speech is alive and well.

until cloudflare finds "threats to human lives" on parler and drops them

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-53501482

Celebrity or not, his actions seem similar to the mentioned illness.

This is gross slander.

This is a black man who is a unicorn in two industries. One of the most successful black people of all time. Who is fighting to establish black ownership in those industries.

Here’s his latest full interview where he goes into detail on what he’s been saying. I highly encourage you to watch at least the first 20 minutes:

https://odysee.com/@ArchAngel:e/Ye-on-The-Media-The-Kardashi...

“I respect what the Jewish people have done and how they brought their people together” he isn’t just spewing anti semitism he’s making a principled stand for his people owning more of the industries they run and airing specific problems. Feel free to engage with them.

(YouTube is censoring it because I guess you can critique whites and other ethnic groups all you want, but not Jews). I’m not endorsing anything here, but it’s clear he’s far within the realm of sanity. Accusations against someone’s sanity are of the ultimate nature, it’s a shame you lob them so.

But in it he actually clearly addresses everything you mention: Pete, Gap, Corey, and more. All of your points he has logical explanations for and I highly doubt you’re familiar with then since it seems you only follow Instagram posts, which is ludicrous.

In it I hear someone who is incredibly well controlled, who is speaking clearly and logically, and who has legitimate greviances borne out of experience. In fact I was surprised, as he’s always been a bit of a spaz in interviews (nothing too unusual, just within range ADHD, stress, narcissism would be my guess), so I was expecting worse. But if anything he seems more rational and grounded than ever.

Frank Zappa had plenty of legal issues with people of that background in the recording industry and we never heard anything more untoward from him than a certain unfortunately titled song Google likes to censor out of albums. No “death con 3” , etc.

So did Michael Jackson, and he talked about it. What does it matter if some other person did or didn’t talk about their issues - it’s irrelevant.

Do you know what he meant by death con 3?

Because he explains it himself in the video and it’s not untoward like you’re implying.

Again, maybe listen to the guy for 20m.

But but if we actually listened to what people saying then how would we achieve mass-hysterical outrage 24/7?

Hah, this is spot on. It's like groundhog day every week and interesting to watch in real time. I've been mostly tuned out for years now. People say to me all the time, "Have you heard of <insert outrage for the week here>?!" I usually reply with a "No" which results in a regurgitative and passionate explanation.

I just don't understand the phenomenon of people moving from one day/week to the next, with a social media influencer or MSM feeding them the next thing to care about. I would be more dismissive of it, but when it starts spilling over into real life; workplaces, road rage, etc. - it is detrimental to society. At what point do people see this for what it is and wake up?

It's more of a story of a famous artist who thinks for himself and has been marginalized for years as a result.

Every time he says something that deviates from the accepted narrative, he is attacked and dismissed as "crazy", "insane", "sick". Many non-normative geniuses throughout history have been treated in this manner.

Before anyone strawmans this, he does occasionally say things that should be condemned, particularly over the past week. Understandably people are focused on those remarks, but two things can be true at the same time.

1. He has been systematically marginalized and labeled as "crazy" every time he presents an alternative viewpoint. This has been going on for years.

2. He overcorrects when placed in a box. The more people try to control him, the more he tries to break out of that box by being purposefully provocative.

Again: not only is he diagnosed, he's open about about it. He literally attributes his success to his mental illness. His "thinking for himself" includes the a paranoid delusion about literal fake children corrupting his children. You're not doing him any favors by dignifying this stuff.

The irony here is I'm not condemning West. I'm recognizing the terrible situation he's in. It's your analysis that's uncharitable to him, not mine. I think he's a victim in this story.

He is open about having been diagnosed, not about having a "public breakdown", being "increasingly unhinged" or "quite evidently sick". Those are your inventions. Though they might well be true I think one should be careful diagnosing people at a distance (and without being a mental health professional) especially when it is used as a justification for taking away someone's agency (which I acknowledge you haven't done, but others in this thread/saga are doing).

You're right. Maybe there is a conspiracy to plant child actors at his house to sexualize his children.

Are you doubling down on the following or just trying to change the direction of the conversation?

> He is open about having been diagnosed, not about having a "public breakdown", being "increasingly unhinged" or "quite evidently sick". Those are your inventions.

You don't think there could be actors in the Kardashian house, where they shoot sexualized reality tv?

Correct. The responses around this are absolutely pathetic, and many of them believe that he is unable to think for himself because he is buying Parler. So what if he is buying it. I'd say good for him, he can rebrand it if he wants to.

Did the self-proclaimed HN doctors question his decision to collaborate with Adidas, Nike, etc by becoming a fashion designer with his Yezzy label which made him a billionaire? They didn't care in the first place; but because of Parler now they care?

> 1. He has been systematically marginalized and labeled as "crazy" every time he presents an alternative viewpoint. This has been going on for years.

> 2. He overcorrects when placed in a box. The more people try to control him, the more he tries to break out of that box by being purposefully provocative.

Well the same people who are calling him "crazy", "insane", "sick" are the same who believe everything that is said by the media. You go against the media narrative and they will punish you. Criticising and exposing some of the media's lies and the cancelling will happen and Ye knows that.

This also explains the unexplained downvotes because it is all true.

Thanks for pointing out the obvious. Amazing how many people miss this.

So apparently its evident to a lot of people on hacker news that kanye has a mental illness and is making bad decisions because of it.

If this is the case why hasnt someone tried to take power of attorney or something similar here?

> power of attorney

My grandma is beginning to look like she has dementia. But we, as a family, aren't at a point where we're thinking of taking away her agency. She's a proud woman and always has been.

In many cases, its probably better for the person for them to keep their agency. If they're only going to lose money, its really not that big of a deal. We're more concerned about what if she has a fall by herself or other such issue. But those things won't be solved by revoking her agency.

But just because someone is mentally ill (dementia, bipolar, or even schizophrenic) doesn't mean they deserve to lose their agency and get power of attorney invoked over them.

Has anyone close to you been in a mentally ill situation? Have you ever tried to tell someone you love, someone you trusted, someone you used to look up to that their mental capabilities have declined and that you no longer trust them to watch over themselves? And if so, do you think taking away their ability to use their bank account is the solution to that problem?

> If they're only going to lose money, its really not that big of a deal.

This depends on what will happen after they run out of money.

Someone very close to me has an untreated dual diagnosis (mentally ill + substance abuse disorder). She is otherwise young and intelligent, and with treatment she could at least theoretically have a full life. However she refuses all attempts at help, has been unemployed for over a year, is paranoid and isolated and alone from and abusive to friends and family, is burning through her savings, and will soon get to the point where she will have to foreclose on her house.

At that point she will literally be an unemployed, homeless, mentally ill drug addict.

This is a major problem in our individualistic society with no easy answer. As my coach says, people don’t change when they see the light, only when they feel the heat. She may need to crash and burn, and she may pick herself back up. But the odds on that happening for someone in her position are not good.

And meanwhile we all have to watch someone we love slowly descend into ruin.

My mother is in the early/mid stages of dementia, and she recently granted my father and I power of attorney. It doesn't have to be a "taking away" if they can be convinced that it's in their best interested. Admittedly ymmv, it helps that my mother is a retired psychologist. Also it's hardly a "solution"; it's merely a mitigation. In the months before we did it my mother had been scammed out of thousands of dollars multiple times. There are so many scammers out there targeting the elderly/mentally ill, it's only matter of when not if.

I agree.

I think in your case, having someone cooperate into giving power of attorney is the best case. But in this case, my grandmother is still too proud to willingly give power of attorney to any of her children.

If she willingly gives it, I think we'll take her up on the offer. But she doesn't think she's been scammed yet. We likely have to wait until after she's realized how she's been taken advantage of before she's in the position to willingly give us power of attorney.

Forcibly taking it before that realization would be counterproductive.

> Has anyone close to you been in a mentally ill situation? Have you ever tried to tell someone you love, someone you trusted, someone you used to look up to that their mental capabilities have declined and that you no longer trust them to watch over themselves?

I have, but it doesn't really look like that. It's a gradual assumption of responsibilities by the caregivers that roughly corresponds to the person's decline.

> do you think taking away their ability to use their bank account is the solution to that problem?

It's a solution, yes, when they could dramatically harm their situation/themselves doing things they no longer have the capacity to understand.

It's not just evident to a lot of people; he has claimed it himself, and it's basically confirmed. Here's the relevant part of his Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanye_West#Mental_health

There's a lot of stuff there, among other things:

> West said that he often has suicidal ideation. In a 2019 interview with David Letterman, West stated that he has bipolar disorder.

Brittney Spears, who hasn't made any public racists remarks (at least that I know) lost control

And in that case, it seemed like her holding company was abusing her.

So invoking power-of-attorney over someone isn't always the solution to their mental health. Its an extreme move, and I'm really not sure if its designed to be used in the typical mental-health case.

Its not like the mentally ill are suddenly incapable of performing useful work, or unable to watch over themselves. They just have... delusions, bad memory, swings of mood, terrible sleeping habits, etc. etc. They need help, not someone walking in and stealing their money / taking their house / losing all sense of agency all together.

Mental health is... difficult, but livable. Extreme actions like invoking power-of-attorney probably makes things worse in more situations IMO.

> invoking power-of-attorney

You may be thinking of Legal Guardianship. Power of attorney just means someone is authorized to make the same legal decisions as the subject of the power of attorney and can be overridden by the subject.

Brittany Spears was subject to and abused by Guardianship.

It was a lot harder to make those public remarks when Brittney was at her lowest publicly than it is for Kanye right now.

I'm not saying Brittney would have, just saying that it's easier to have a very public manic episode where your every thought is aired than it was 15 years ago.

> why hasnt someone tried to take power of attorney or something similar here?

There is, at least in principle (and certainly for people who can afford lawyers, as he certainly can) a very high bar for this. As there should be.

Because doing such a thing to someone as young and quite honestly as sane as him is absurd, regardless of what twitter people thing. The man is completely capable of making his own decisions and is not a real threat to anyone, at least not enough of a threat to pass the bar for having his agency as an individual taken away. The whole situation with britney spears was a tragedy and we need to stop thinking that these measures are a realistic way to treat things except for the most egregious cases. Having a mental illness and making bad decisions because of it is not one of those cases, else you can bet the political opposition of whatever party/whistleblowers/etc will start magically having mental illnesses and making bad decisions because of it as well.

Because it’s just people arguing on conjecture that folks they disagree with are mentally ill. He is quite obviously sane if you hear him speak.

Did you not watch the Netflix documentary? The last episodes contained many non-obviously-sane conversations. Especially the one where he was talking to bankers at one of their vacation homes.

I’ve seen plenty of weird conversations in the workforce like leaders living in an alternate reality than direct reports to hawk their views, yet never felt motivated to call them mentally ill. I don’t judge how people feel they need to speak to relate to anybody, especially under the influence of alcohol as Kanye was in that segment.

This is simply the latest in a long line of erratic behavior, which eld to a pretty public divorce. The man has no friends or family left, only yes-men.

Because of Britney Spears this has become a lot harder to do in the past year or two.

For good reason. Invoking power of attorney solves no fundamental problems and just creates a ton of other problems.

It should only be done in the most extreme of cases (ie: someone turns into a literal vegetable on life support). If someone still has a degree of agency and capabilities... even if they're delusional and/or mentally ill, they still deserve to live their life. IE: Control their own bank accounts and whatnot.

he is a victim of his own choices... I don't want to sound callous, but to be honest, we all face a much more harsh and unforgiving future than him if we made the same mistakes. He has squandered the good faith he built over many years by making bad decisions. Somehow he generated wealth out of it all, but continued to make bad decisions in hopes of hanging on to his dramatic public personality/popularity. It's not for me to judge of course, but it's a vital lesson to us all in the age of Internet fame, integrity and reputation matter... The more we forgive and cast a blind eye to people that "sell out" based those principles, the more we end up forgetting exactly why morality, good conduct, and positive reputations matter in life.

> he is a victim of his own choices...

Would you say the same about a schizophrenic who refuses to stay on his meds and ends up ranting at people while living under a bridge?

People with bipolar disorder sometimes won't take their meds for a variety reasons, one being they seek the energy of manic episodes (one in my acquaintance had only had one major manic episode in her entire life but she put up with depression for years in hope of having another one).

Kanye West has stated in interviews that he's a.) bipolar and b.) doesn't take his meds because they interfere with his creative process. This man is not well.

> Would you say the same about a schizophrenic who refuses to stay on his meds and ends up ranting at people while living under a bridge?

No, because Kanye isn’t living under a bridge. He’s a billionaire.

> but about Pete Davidson

His wife's new boyfriend got their kids' initials tattooed on his neck. That's deranged and suggesting that an angry response is evidence of mental illness is way into "positing unnecessary entities" territory.

It's linked ('unaired segments of the interview') in the submitted article: https://www.vice.com/en/article/3ad77y/kanye-west-tucker-car...

Bizarre. In a way, good on them for editing the weirdest stuff out... But really probably shouldn't have used any of it when someone's so clearly in such a bad state?

I mean it really is just driving clicks/views/profit from someone's poor health, in a nasty sort of way (i.e. not to say news or obituaries etc. are bad) isn't it?

They edited out all of the crazy stuff he said and then Tucker Carlson literally said "See, he's not crazy!"

It's Fox News. I don't think they have any ethical care whatsoever.

Oh, I'm sort of aware of that reputation (of Fox News), but I just read 'Carlson', not a name I know.

There's some interesting footage of Tucker Carlson exposing the way Fox operates, from a decade before he became the main guy doing it for them. Very weird to watch:

https://youtu.be/RNineSEoxjQ

Why Tucker Carlson Pretends to Hate Elites

this vice guy is known for manipulation in his videos. I guess choose your bias type of battle

Tucker Carlson. He is pretty much the face of Fox News and conservative media in general right now.

He's a guy who Murdoch pays to say offensive things to drive engagement on Fox News :)

A celebrity says some things that make sense, and some things that don't, and it's nasty profiteering to report on the former? That really seems a bit extreme to me.

I didn't watch it or anything, so I'm definitely biased by only having read an article about 'even more unhinged bits leaked' as it were, but wasn't it all a bit sensational? Depends what you call 'makes sense' I suppose, I think one perhaps needs a higher bar when it's in the context of such a conversation, where other things are clearly paranoia; if he's clearly not 'himself', why should someone else get to judge which bits 'make sense' 'enough'?

I watched it, and it was an engaging mix of lucidity, nonsense, insight, and delusion. Intended to be a 30 minute interview, Kanye had much on his mind, and they went for two hours. He wasn't clearly not himself; he's always like this during his public, manic phases. (He goes dark during his depressive phases.)

I think our society has gotten so used to pop stars who are safe, sanitized, vapid graduates of Disney kids, and "transgressive" high artists bravely fighting the against dead horses slain generations ago, that we've lost the capacity to handle artists who can be disturbing and awkward at times, and creatively redeeming at others, but can't easily be categorized as perfectly good or purely evil.

His name is now legally Ye. Would you deadname Chelsea Manning in the same way?

Those 2 things are not the same thing. Someone who changes their gender to what they feel they should be, including a new gender name is very much different then a person changing their name to a mononym.

Why do you think that?

What’s the difference?

What if it's just a narcissist? What if it's a combination of both? He's made blantent antisemitic remarks and yet his popularity among the right grows

> He's made blatant antisemitic remarks and yet his popularity among the right grows.

You say this as if the latter isn't a direct result of the former.

Are you insinuating that "the right" is anti-semitic? That's quite a reach.

Im not insinuating it, I’m saying it. It’s clear as day to anyone who’s been paying attention, one reason being the connection you yourself pointed out. How else can you explain antisemitic comments leading to higher popularity amongst the right, other than the right generally agreeing with or at least being sympathetic to antisemitic views?

He's diagnosed bipolar, so mental illness is definitely in the mix.

It might not contribute at all. My evidence being the countless people who are bipolar but don't make antisemitic remarks and the countless people who aren't bipolar and do.

Good thing we have Kanye’s physician in the comments to make that determination.

Source: https://people.com/music/kanye-west-opens-up-about-bipolar-d...

He's stated it publicly, it's not like this is rumor or conjecture.

I'm not claiming he doesn't have bipolar.

I'm pointing out that his behavior could be the result of it, because he's a narcissist, or some combination of the two

>nd these Parler people are scamming him.

I read that unlike Elon he didn't sign a binding deal to buy for a set price. Just an agreement to consider a purchase. So if he's "sick", apparently not as much as other people.

Sound very much like the guy who started Zappos - clearly there was evidence he was on a downward spiral but people and so-called friends around him used it scam him.

Call me cynical, but I think the likes of Kanye, the Kardashians, Trump, even Elon, etc. are much more calculated than they are deranged. They know how to work the media and manipulate the public better than anyone else. We're living in a world now where journalists are paid by click counts more than quality of content. In the same vein, Kanye and the likes know that the more absurdist and unconventional their actions, the more publicity they get.

This isn't an either/or: Kanye West (or anybody else) can be simultaneously shrewd, calculating, and mentally unwell. Nobody has claimed that Kanye is stupid or otherwise compensating, only that he has a publicly attested history of mental health problems.

And when you align with the right you can just claim persecution, that you are always the victim, if called out for your behavior

Maybe the current media environment selects individuals that just happen to do well in such an environment. People that crave attention and are just naturally gifted at attracting it. Basically "effective narcissists".

I think this is it. The environment enables the behaviour and the CAUSE of said behaviour can be multiple things separately or at once. The right kind of deranged combined with the right kind of stupid? Maybe that works. Completely manipulative and not deranged at all? Maybe that works too.

Why not both? I agree with you that all of those people know how to play the media to their benefit, but Kanye is also clearly bipolar and currently in one of his episodes, and Trump also clearly is the clinical definition of narcissistic personality disorder. The Kardashians and Elon have their flaws too, but I don’t think they rise to the level of clinical issues in the way that Kanye and Trump do.

It's got to be both.

Nobody in their sane mind would say some of the stuff that Kanye said/tweeted, but as well there's very few people who have the ability to profit off making insane statements to the extent that people like Kanye or Trump can. It's almost like a perpetual vicious cycle of profitable victimhood.

I was never a big fan of the guy's work but he was an incredible producer back in the late 90s early 2000s. I think him experiencing the death of his mother was the start of a very serious downward cycle (mentally, at least) that he's yet to recover from.

Exactly. They know what they are doing. And calling out the crazy inevitably repeats whatever they were saying, giving it even more publicity and them attention.

“No dude! They are totally insane people! We’re the smart ones here” /s

Do you think there would be same level of uproar if he decided to donate x millions to blm all of a sudden?

Well, around 2 years ago, he made a $2 million direct donation to support the families of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor[0].

0. https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/04/entertainment/kanye-west-two-...

I don’t think George Floyd’s family is too happy about that atm

They should express their disgust by refunding the money.

I bet Tucker Carlson would do a 180 pretty quick.

Could be true.. but doesn't matter as long as they get to liquidate their product for a few hundred millions.

To be clear, he's saying that it felt like everyone already had their message about Uvalde coordinated before the Uvalde event had fully come out in the news to the point where even The Gap, a store as removed as possible from being a news organization, had a message prepared. That feels different than "people at the Gap knew about Uvalde". Is that still an insane thing to say?

First, he said that it "felt like the people at the Gap knew about the school shooting that Matthew McConaughey was talking about before it even happened", comparing it to the movie _The Truman Show_. In response to Carlson's request for clarification he does say "I'm not saying that they did" but he clearly doesn't rule it out, either.

Second, it's not clear what statement by The Gap he's talking about, but my guess is that this is related to the delayed launch of his product line:

https://www.billboard.com/culture/lifestyle/kanye-west-gap-p...

The "coordinated message" here appears to be "it is bad that children were killed".

So the most upvoted comment claims West said "the "people at the Gap" knew about Uvalde". But he actually said "it felt like" that was the case, while adding that "I'm not saying that they did"? I mean, maybe we should just stick to what he actually said. I wonder how accurate the other claims about his claims are.

They knew there was going to be a mass-casualty school shooting ahead of time because there's a mass-casualty school shooting every few months in this country

It's a (sad) reality that if you're doing any kind of public relations you need to plan for the very real possibility that your giant brand launch is going to coincide with a national tragedy.

Maybe, or maybe he will do whatever it takes to get attention. Likely it's both.

Serious question: is it a scam if they're both delusional, as it were?

Twitter seems to induce madness in some celebrities. Elon Musk has been going off the rails as well.

> This is really a story about a celebrity's mental illness and public breakdown.

Devil's advocate: there's no way this isn't the case for Kanye, right? Why is this mental illness sparking up later in his life? Why was he able to achieve everything he's achieved 1996 -> 2012 (Roc-A-Fella -> The College Dropout -> My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy era) without these "mental illness" bouts?

I have bipolar disorder which is characterized by extreme highs and extreme lows. Ye is manic right now in my estimation. Bipolars like me and Ye have lives of periods of success and periods of failure. You can read about bipolar if you'd like to learn more.

My estimation is that he's schizophrenic (in addition to being bipolar -- they do often go hand in hand). I've seen not one but two people get dragged into the hell of that disease, and both began with buying into antisemitic conspiracy theories.

https://www.thecut.com/2022/02/kanye-west-bipolar-disorder.h... : "He has famously referred to bipolar disorder as his “superpower,”"

This is key to understanding bipolar: it has an "upswing" phase in which someone has more energy and less inhibition. Increased self-belief as well. It can, if you're lucky, be just the right thing to catapult someone into incredible creative works.

The risk is that risk-taking may not pay off, and the inhibitions may have been there for good reason. Not to mention that there's also a downswing phase which looks like depression and comes with elevated suicide risk.

I used to know a lady with Bipolar. She thought the highs were totally worth it, and she was self-aware enough when she was swinging into a low period, and she'd just isolate herself until she came out of it. She didn't like her medication because it dulled the highs.

After a few major life disasters (including getting married, and then having it annulled), she eventually figured out that the highs were fun but dangerous. I haven't talked to her in years, but she was reliably taking her meds to keep her even keel.

My friend was pretty self-aware though. Someone less so may not be able to see that their illness is the true cause of their life disasters.

Hopefully some day we can figure out a solution that can help brunt the lows without completely brunting the highs. Although people do dumb stuff on the high swing too.

Both phases come with a lack of self-awareness and sometimes anosognosia as symptoms

He's diagnosed with bipolar back in 2016 and talks about refusing medication because it messes with his ability to create/be creative.

It's possible that he's exhibited symptoms for far longer but it was brushed aside under the guise of kooky genius. I mean, the Taylor Swift thing was, what, 2009?

I'm bipolar and while I do get excited with bursts of energy I've never made antisemitic or political remarks because of it

Nor did I say bipolar caused either of those things.

The "George Bush doesn’t care about black people" incident was in 2005. Not saying that was a manic episode, but it certainly could have been.

It seemed pretty fair at the time, like I remember being confused by why it caused such a media furor. You could disagree, of course, but you could also see given the circumstances why someone would say it.

I'd definitely say it was fair at the time as that was around Hurricane Katrina and the vast majority of the most affected people at the time were low-income black people. IIRC some parts of the 9th Ward are still yet to recover from Katrina.....and that was 17 years ago.

> Why is this mental illness sparking up later in his life?

Anyone who has dealt with/supported folks suffering from mental illness (and I definitely qualify, there), will tell you that mental illness gets worse, as you get older.

A young man that compulsively washes his hands, may well end his life, flying around the world in a sterile airplane, keeping his piss in canopic jars.

You're acting like he hasn't had public outbursts before...

Ya know.

"George Bush doesn't care about Black People".

"Taylor, I'ma let you finish..."

MBDTF came out in 2010. That was around the beginning of social media entering the mainstream (Kanye joined Twitter in July 2010).

So up until MBDTF, he didn't have a device in his pocket that allowed him to broadcast his unfiltered thoughts to millions of people. Up until that point, his public image was likely carefully managed by his label and management. All of his interviews were probably overseen by them. They likely only allowed interviews where he was asked pre-approved questions and gave canned answers. If he went too far off script, his label likely stepped in.

It's clear now that he has a lot more freedom with handling his own image. He's been signed to his own label since 2016 which probably afforded him a lot more power over his career. He had a few moments prior to 2016 but he didn't really go off the deep until 2017.

TLDR: what you saw as stable behavior prior to 2017 or so was probably the result of a curated image created by his label and management.

One of the most common pop analyses of Kanye West is that the death of his mother in 2007 affected him deeply, and that he (essentially) goes on a mental health bender every year around the time she passed. I don't know if that's true or not, but it's not the most implausible explanation and does comport with his most recent behavior (since the anniversary of her death is a few weeks away).

That's not how mental illness works. I am not diagnosing Kanye, but look up the progression of bipolar disorder. It is truly terrifying and heartbreaking.

You don't have to diagnose West. He's been diagnosed. He's open about it.

Thank you.

Whatever is going on in this individual case, Bipolar disorder is terrible. It can look like someone is "fine" for a long time, but then they aren't fine and people look for what changed, and what changed is progression of the disease.

It's really hard to talk about without adding stigmatization.

The story told on the Dissect podcast[1] about Kanye and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy really paints a picture of a person who is not very well.

[1]: https://anchor.fm/dissect/episodes/S2E1--Kanye-West-The-Elep...

Listen to his interviews yourself. Any medium, including podcasts, are packaging a narrative for you to hear. For better or worse. Personally and I’m black I listened to his latest interview and his points are pretty strong, it becomes obvious how he is being painted in a false light after hearing the interviews for yourself then hearing other people use clips to say he’s mentally ill and crazy.

This wouldn't surprise me. I haven't listened to the interviews myself, but a lot of people here seem to base their claims on having read secondary sources, not primary sources. In other words, their view of reality is based on how a journalist decided to summarize a conversation that is often multiple hours long. I'm not sure this constitutes a strong enough chain of evidence to diagnose someone with a mental illness.

Would those be the points where he rehashes the same antisemitic tropes which have circulated for hundreds of years and every once in a while leads to the massacres of innocent people? Because if he doesn’t get an out due to mental illness he is just another little attention whore neonazi.

Could you suggest a recent interview as an example? I’d like to judge myself.

I’m of the opinion he’s both someone with good intentions with good points but who makes those points sideways. But also that he’s mentally I’ll so he’s losing the ability to communicate clearly. I also think Candace Owens is an untrustworthy person with only self serving intentions.

Not the person you asked, but here’s an interview that released yesterday.

https://youtu.be/-ZmbP5vIbyk

Thanks. I was looking forward to watching that. The comments thread was mostly positive.

It’s gone now. Memory holed.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps... is somehow still working for me, but it may be region-specific

There’s a mirror now https://youtu.be/HbeYKOqzBVk

Something worth pointing out: Candace Owens' husband owns Parler.

Both bipolar and schizophrenia can manifest late. They're often latent and triggered by unusual stress.

It's very possible for bipolar disorder to manifest late / have a late onset in life

All hip hop artists (and most artists) are manic. A little bit of mania helps you make creative connections and clever rhymes. Too much mania turns you into Don Quixote.

FYI (for the down-voters): https://www.verywellmind.com/clang-associations-380072 https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/clanging-schizophr...

Bit of an exaggeration. Plenty of rappers who are depressive. Isn’t that the whole premise of mumble rap?

Manic depression, otherwise known as bipolar disorder

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/transition.115.23#metad... https://sci-hub.se/10.2979/transition.115.23

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