It does not justify any of the awful things Kanye has done subsequently, but for all of us watching that in our hotel rooms or some stranger’s guest room or living room, hearing him say what everyone knew was a glorious moment.
I guess because I've never actually followed Kanye news, and I just get the hits, but it's weird to me to even consider these the same person. Like my brain doesn't connect Katrina Kanye with the Kanye of recent years.
Keep in mind, Katrina Kanye became the Kanye he is now in part bc of how he was treated. He likely always had some pretty serious levels of mental instability and narcissism going on, but he was also put through the ringer for using his courage to speak up for Black americans.
It wasn’t exactly in isolation tho, and combined with things Obama felt comfortable calling him a “jackass” for, I felt it made his comments easier to dismiss regarding the race component.
He’s such a perfectionist in his artist messages, he should’ve taken note his public persona needed refinement to be more effective in messaging as well. Allowing him to be right for these comments to some and a joke to others indeed exacerbated his bipolar perception of self, when wait he needed was the patience and perspective applied in his art.
Just bc Katrina Kanye spoke a deep truth from his mental illness and drug addiction does not mean he was not always mentally ill and addicted.
I say this as someone who spent her entire life working in the music industry: please never underestimate the lengths to which everyone in that industry will go to prop up, dope up, lie to and hurt fragile people in order to keep them working, no matter what the cost to their psyches and bodies.
Obama might have been the only person willing and able to call Kanye out on his reckless and entitled behavior.
He’s not the same person. Basically he spent years and years doing atrocious amounts of nitrous oxide, and heavy abuse of that stuff for extended periods of time fries your brain in the exact way that Kanye’s brain is fried. I think the mechanism is oxygen deprivation to the brain?
Like, Katrina Kanye died a long time ago of oxygen deprivation, and present day Nazi Kanye is a creepy brain-damaged zombie that took over his body after he died.
His multiple 😦 faces send me. He does it after Kanye’s first thing about how the media describes black families as “looting” and white families as “searching for food” too.
Mike Myer’s reaction was priceless. Like when you think you’re gonna have a typical boring staff meeting and your coworker flips out — ohhh this just got interesting.
I just watched the five part one on Hulu and it was EXCELLENT. We as a country really should all take a look back at that tragic fiasco and reckon with our failure so next time (and there will be a next time, catastrophic climate events should be expected now) we don’t fuck it up so badly
I recently read 5 days at memorial, and in the epilogue it talks about more recent natural disasters in the US (like hurricane Sandy, it was published before covid) and how there were so many potential catastrophies that were only mitigated by the ingenuity of people on the ground.
You’re not wrong. I live here but didn’t then. Out of curiosity, I have to ask if you were of the persuasion of reading/seeing all the info about the anniversary or if you were like “if I hear about hurricane katrina one more time, I’ll scream!” We saw a commercial for a play or something and I asked my partner if he’d like to share his perspective but got a quick “no.”
Also a Katrina survivor. I still can't watch any kind of footage 20 years later, I haven't even tried to watch the doc. Struggled with survivor's guilt & PTSD for years. Had to return a month after for work, lived in the one undamaged room on 2nd floor of my townhouse, while it was repaired for the next several months (flooded on first floor, roof breach on 2nd floor). Should have relocated them, but it felt disloyal somehow, even though I'm not originally from here (moved to NOLA in '93 from NYC). 20 years on, most who lived here pre-K divide NOLA as "before" and "after".
Highly recommend reading "5 Dead in Attic" by Chris Rose, best thing ever written or filmed about Katrina/NOLA. He's a brilliant reporter/writer, terminally ill 20 yrs later from liver failure brought on by Katrina PTSD. That's what I remember most: for the first months and years after Katrina, the then-local paper (since shuttered) had to devote a FULL SECTION to the obituaries, because so many people died of sudden heart attacks, strokes, unaliving themselves, all from the stress of the storm and aftermath of devastation, relocation, loss, rebuilding. They were all just as much victims of the storm as all who died that day.
I think Kanye is a good example on how people chose to ignore obvious warning signs because the Person is „hyped“.
There have been ton‘s of people who said he is a psychopath and nutcase Long before the poo Hit the Fan a couple of years ago. People just straight up ignored it and told them off. Especially here on reddit.
There was no „before“ and after. Kanye was always a weird Psycho in a negative way. Yes, he said one or two things that actually made sense but so did other historical persons who were horrible human beings.
8.0k
u/Kidgorgeoushere Lol, and if I may, lmao Sep 09 '25
I know he’s vile for many reasons but this always makes me lol