An old-school Kanye West Twitter rampage! It's been forever since he's done one of those! A couple of years ago, Kanye's Twitter was a fascinating and quotable portal into the celebrity-genius brain, to the point where my colleague Jonah Weiner built an entire magazine-style profile for Slate entirely out of Twitter quotes. Lately, though, Kanye's been using that Twitter for nothing but garden-variety promotion. Or he was, anyway, until last night. The thing that set him off once again: A skit on Jimmy Kimmel Live, obviously.
All this week, BBC Radio 1 has been airing pieces of a rare hour-long interview between Kanye and Zane Lowe, and it's been full of classical Kanye bluster. (Most notoriously, he called himself the "#1 rock star on the planet.") Earlier this week, Jimmy Kimmel spoofed that interview with a few cutting jokes (mostly about the practicality of leather jogging pants) and a skit, in which two child actors recite quotes from the interview. Observe:
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Kanye spent a while last night going off on Kimmel on Twitter. The complete text:
JIMMY KIMMEL IS OUT OF LINE TO TRY AND SPOOF IN ANY WAY THE FIRST PIECE OF HONEST MEDIA IN YEARS
JIMMY KIMMEL, I DON'T TAKE IT AS A JOKE…. YOU DON'T HAVE SCUM BAGS HOPPING OVER FENCES TRYING TO TAKE PICTURES OF YOUR DAUGHTER
JIMMY KIMMEL PUT YOURSELF IN MY SHOES ... OH NO THAT MEANS YOU WOULD HAVE GOTTEN TOO MUCH GOOD PUSSY IN YOUR LIFE...
YOU CAN'T PUT YOURSELF IN MY SHOES. YOUR FACE LOOKS CRAZY... IS THAT FUNNY?... OR IF I HAD A KID SAY IT WOULD IT BE FUNNY???
SHOULD I DO A SPOOF ABOUT YOUR FACE OR YOU FUCKING BEN AFFLECK... #NODISRESPECTTOBENAFFLECK #ALLDISRESPECTTOJIMMYKIMMEL!!!!
I LIKE YOU, YOU KNOW ME, I WENT TO YOUR FAMILY'S WEDDING
WHO YOU MADE IT CLEAR TO ME WASN'T YOUR FAMILY WHEN I WAS ON THEN PHONE WITH YOU 5 MINUTES AGO, YOU MANIPULATIVE MEDIA MUTHERFUCKER.
SARAH SILVERMAN IS A THOUSAND TIMES FUNNIER THAN YOU AND THE WHOLE WORLD KNOWS IT!!!
He also posted that picture above, as well as a picture of Spongebob Squarepants' face, alleging that Kimmel looks like Spongebob. I mean, he really brought out the big guns.
Kimmel, of course, responded immediately. In his monologue last night, Kimmel alleged that Kanye had called him to demand an apology. He also read a bunch of those Tweets on the air and responded to each of them. Here's that video:
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There's no way this story is over of course, and we'll hear plenty more about it. But let me just say this: If your response to this feud is to pick a side, or to feel anything less than pure delight, you are doing it wrong.
UPDATE: Kanye has since tweeted an article from Slate titled, "Kanye West Was Right: Jimmy Kimmel's Sketch Was Ignorant And Stupid" arguing exactly that. He then shared a series of quotes from fashion designer Jibril Durimel...
COMMENT FROM JIBRIL DURIMEL: "I'm really Against what Jimmy K. did with that parody."
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) September 27, 2013
"Like Kanye said - Finally someone speaks some inspirational and real words that haven't been exposed in a while and JK comes out with this"
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) September 27, 2013
"It's simple, mediocre dreamers think this is humorous but all Kanye is pretty much saying in the interview is to dream to be the best."
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) September 27, 2013
"A god". But then he's made out to be ridiculous for wanting to be at an even higher level of self confidence."
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) September 27, 2013
"Exactly what he meant by "SELF HATE!" I don't want to dick ride KANYE just saying that if more people actually listened"
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) September 27, 2013
"they'd grow wiser after listening to the interview."
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) September 27, 2013
"Jimmy K. is the EVIL guy trying to keep people in a box and not want more out of themselves. He does this by making fun of real dreamers."
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) September 27, 2013
"THE NEW ROCKSTARS! ;) No but really please think about what i'm saying."
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) September 27, 2013
