Yeah, I’m pissed off at his reaction to Taylor Swift’s VMA award win, but not for the reasons you think. I don’t give a shit about the 19 year old country singing twig who watched Whatever it Takes too many times or her feelings as Kanye told her that she didn’t deserve the Moonman as much as Beyonce, what I do care about is how seriously Kanye is taking the Moonman.

It’s the VMFUCKINAs, and I thought Kanye was too brilliant to care about the honor. In this year when three of the top nominated artists are known for their songs exclaiming disgust for the world they live in that is over-importantcized whether it be bland obvious critiques, clever rants of hilarity, or brilliant subversive meta-analysis of the culture, we are now surrounded by celebrities rejecting their fame and the self-importance that comes with it. Kanye’s decision to take issue with Swift’s win for best female music video of 2008 as voted by boring pop-culture drones was only providing fuel to the fire that this is worthwhile to care about. While his heartfelt apology on Leno may have curbed the fear that Kanye was malicious in his attack, it did not curb my fear that he had fallen into the trap of fame and was starting to think that what he did was culturally significant.

This may come as confusing to those of you who have heard me rant about how art is always the impetus of change in our society, but there is a difference between art and fame-art, or fart. Art is done with an attention to detail that fart is not done with. Art and fart both have to do with image, but art’s image is a conscious choice that is meant to comment on something in society (Lady Gaga and Eminem are the best examples of this). Fart’s image is a delegated role given by society in order to satisfy their own desires while the fartist sits idly by not caring what this means (Lindsey Lohan and late career Madonna are the best examples of this). Kanye never really made the distinction as to what side of the aisle he stood on. I loved his music because I thought his lyrics were tight and raps were typically stories from multiple perspectives which I thought was cool and more open-minded than most rap. Now I just think he’s a tool.

I’m glad I was able to type the word fartist.