Taylor Swift may have taken home four awards at last night’s Country Music Awards, but Kanye West is still getting press for his stunt at the Video Music Awards. Not only has he become a meme rivaling ‘rickrolling’ and ‘lolcats’, but he remains in the public eye even though he hasn’t done anything since his ‘embarrassing’ interruption of young Taylor during her acceptance speech. So the CMAs became another place where Kanye West’s name is mentioned every five seconds. Is he a lunatic? Definitely. But he’s a lunatic we’re all still talking about on the internet, on Saturday Night Live, and now even at the Country Music Awards, a place that we never thought he’d be mentioned.
Never has insanity and drunkenness been so successful. Not since Hunter S. Thompson, anyway (and he had to do it in a pre-meme era).
Taylor Swift: Too Young To Know She's Giving A Jackass More Attention
The Awards started out as they all do: with a red carpet display of fashion and opulence. Taylor Swift rocked a gorgeous Reem Acra gown with gold and diamond earrings. Carrie Underwood was decked out in silver with a diamond-encrusted bracelet and simple diamond studs. But it was all about diamond rings, and mostly ostentatious ones. Of course, country music has never been known for its adherence to fashion norms, so it wasn’t surprising to see an array of big hair and gigantic, over-the-top diamond jewelry. Aside from wedding rings, the women of country music—including Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Kellie Pickler, and Reba McIntyre (among others)—were showing off huge, borderline-gaudy diamonds.
Despite Taylor Swift winning Best Video of the Year, Album of the Year, Female Vocalist of the Year, and the MacDaddy Award for Entertainer of the Year, what was everyone talking about?
That’s right. Kanye West.
Co-hosts Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley opened the show with their song “Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be Kanye”. Later in the show, after Underwood told Paisley that his video was one of her favorites, diminutive 88-year-old Grand Ole Opry star—and 2009 Country Music Hall of Fame Inductee—Little Jimmy Dickens shuffled onto stage. Taking the microphone away from Paisley, Dickens said in his shaky voice that he ‘would let him finish’, and went on to say, “Now Brad Paisley, I know you had a nice video and all, but Taylor Swift made the best video of all time. Of all time!” Then he looked at Swift, who was giggling in the audience, and said, “You go, girl!”
Not only is giving attention to West exactly what he wants, but to humiliate a country music legend who is too old to understand that saying “you go, girl” is really something only said by gay men to each other, about 5 years ago, well, that’s just wrong.
And then, as Swift was accepting her award for Female Vocalist of the Year, she thanked the audience “for not running up on stage”. Okay, it was funny in her Saturday Night Live “Monologue Song”, in which she also skewered Joe Jonas for cheating on her, then dumping her over the phone and for addressing the rumors of her relationship with Taylor Lautner, but now you’re she’s just adding fuel to the fire that Kanye West is warming his giant ego by.
We could be talking about country music at the Country Music Awards, but all we’re talking about is an insane, megalomaniacal hip hop artist with a drinking problem.
And that’s just fine with him.