Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, is continuing to circle the drain, as his “campaign” to run for president hits embarrassing low after embarrassing low.
The once-beloved rapper, who previously could guest on practically any high-profile television or radio show he wanted, has now been sequestered to less traditional platforms and is finding he’s not welcome there either.
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Ye—in the middle of a dramatic months-long downward spiral centered on virile antisemitism—has lost massive deals with Adidas and Gap and has been virtually ostracised by mainstream society. In their place, bigoted social media personalities have been attaching themselves to the embattled musician in a blatant attempt to use the floundering star to raise their profiles or further their political projects.
Among those surrounding Ye include white nationalist Nicholas Fuentes, Ali Alexander, an organizer of the January 6 riots who recently claimed he could time travel, and Laura Loomer, a far-right activist known for embarrassing stunts like handcuffing herself to the doors at Twitter.
Ye has been kicked off Twitter, has lost several key players including certain lawyers, and become a persona non grata for his antisemitic rants. So he’s having to participate in alternative media, such as Alex Jones’s Infowars where he expressed full-throated support of Hitler in a recent interview.
On Saturday, Ye took to a private event on the social media chat app Clubhouse. The private event consisted of a Q and A between Ye and hip-hop personality Wack 100, and cost attendees $20 to listen in. During the conversation, Ye was cut off twice by Clubhouse. The first time was when he claimed Jewish people were working to control Black people on behalf of China. After they restarted the conversation the platform pulled the plug again during a long-winded rant about the term antisemitism where he was attacked Jewish Hollywood agent Ari Emanuel, a favorite target of his.
It wasn’t just a chat app that pulled out the rug from under Ye’s feet, but also streamers on Twitch. According to videos and posts from both sides, Ye was planning to guest with popular video game streamer Adin Ross. Ross has over a collective ten million followers on Twitch, Instagram, and Twitter. Hasan Piker, another popular Twitch streamer, also said he would take part.
At the start of December, Fuentes had livestreamed a call with a person he said was Ross in which the two discussed a possible appearance of Ye on the streamer’s channel. Ross, who is Jewish, said that he was planning on sticking up for his people. After this became public several Jewish and anti-racism groups, speaking to NBC, urged the influencers to rethink their decision to host the rapper and his hangers-on. This weekend, Ross announced he decided to pull out of the stream.
“I can’t have my platform be used to spread hate,” Ross said in a stream addressing the canceled appearance. “I can’t have my platform be used to insult people and hurt people so I decided not to do the stream.”
“I see people putting Ls in my chat and calling me a pussy,” he added. “Yes I know this would be my biggest stream ever but sometimes it’s not worth it.”
Unsurprisingly Fuentes and others surrounding Ye blamed the cancellation on a Jewish conspiracy. The messaging, however, wasn’t consistent. Ali Alexander, who is working on Ye’s so-called presidential campaign, went on a popular far-right stream to try and spin the story. Alexander said, disputing Ross and Fuentes, that Ye canceled the interview because he wanted to meditate and pray, he then accused the streamer of “bearing false witness” and working with Satan.
This wasn’t the only improbable claim made by the “campaign.” The group also said Ye was planning on traveling to Russia to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate then-imprisoned WNBA star Britney Griner release. They floated the idea that Griner was released to undermine their campaign. The proof they released to back up this claim was a simple page with text saying Ye would travel to Russia to speak to Putin, at the bottom Ye put his signature. Nowhere on the document indicates involvement from Putin or the Kremlin or even proper travel plans
