I never would have thought that my attempt at resuming normal posting would circle around something so idiotic and mundane as Kanye West’s little outburst at the VMA’s last night but I caught the reruns after Twitter was all aflutter about it and everyone is still chatting about it today.  And since what I want to say doesn’t really fit into a 140 word tweet, I’m going to put it here.  After all, that’s what this space is ultimately for.

Here’s the lowdown: Taylor Swift wins Best Female Video, her first VMA.  As she’s up accepting the award, Kanye bounds onto stage, grabs the mic and starts yelling about how Beyonce’s video was the best and Beyonce deserves to win and poor Taylor just kind of stands there looking dumbfounded and never gets to finish her speech.  (Links to the video below – attempts at embedding it)

Kanye Jacks Taylor Swift\’s Acceptance Speech

I’m going to say it here then I’ll be done with it.

I think Kanye’s consistent behavoir is a manifestation of the term “the pussyfication of America”.

Kelly Clarkson (I know, I’m quoting fabulous sources here!) made a comment asking Kanye if he was “hugged enough as a child” on her blog.  I personally think he was hugged too much.  I think Kanye might have rarely been scolded, rarely told he was wrong.  He probably was consistently told how wonderful he was, how great he was, how extremely talented he was, how everyone else in the world who hated on him was jealous.

In this day in age, children have it easy.  Everyone gets a trophy, regardless of whether they win or lose.  Everyone makes the team.  Parents enroll their boys in football then scream and yell at the coaches because somebody hit their kid too hard.  Boys get into a fight at school and it turns into a major legal issue, with parents suing each other and restraining orders and meanwhile, the boys have already forgotten what they were fighting about and just want to go back to playing Transformers or whatever it is that the kids play these days.

You can’t spank your child anymore.  Kids get to graduation from Kindergarten to first grade, or from 5th grade to 6th, or from 8th to high school.   Everything is a milestone, an accomplishment to be celebrated.  Everything deserves a prize, a trophy.  Kids seem to think they should get recognition for just living a normal life and being a normal person.

You can’t even teach your kids to fight anymore.  Seriously, my little brother got teased relentlessly.  He’s a high school freshman, 6’3″, about 250lbs (that’s a rough guess), muscular and he plays football.  In middle school, he TOWERED over the other kids.  Like, he could stomp them into the ground.  But they went at him.  All of the time.  And we couldn’t teach him to defend himself without fear of other parents screaming because god forbid, boys got into a fight and have a few bruises and stuff.

(I’m not advocating violence in anyway and certainly, in that situation, since my brother was bigger, it was probably best for him to restrain from beating their ass since he could do a lot more damage.  But the overall example is that kid’s these days, we don’t teach them to defend themselves.  We teach them to cry and tattle and get the police involved and all sorts of things like that.  Does violence beget violence? Maybe, maybe not.  But violence certainly does not beget that my child would just sit there and take it from someone so he could run home crying later.)

The bottom line is: Kanye is the perfect example of what our children are going to turn into if we keep massaging them and stroking their egos and making everyone “equal”.  It’s not a gender thing, it’s not a race thing, it’s not even about who deserved what.  It’s the lack of class and respect he showed to that poor girl who was reveling in what was probably one of the coolest moments of her life.  It was the sense of entitlement that drove him to think that getting up on that stage and overshadowing her and basically saying ‘You suck! Beyonce is cooler!’ was ok.

There’s a difference between confidence and narcissim.  One has toppled civilizations, won pivotal battles and built great leaders.  The other has (mythically and metaphorically) led people to their own demise.

It’s pretty evident which trait he possesses.

Note: This is a general rant brought on by an invidual’s behavoir.  It has nothing to do with their talent or their quality of work.  It doesn’t matter if you love all three of them, hate them or think what he said was true.  It’s about the actions that he took.

Second Note: I find all three of their bodies of work okay and somewhat catchy.  But seriously, neither the “You Belong With Me” or the “Single Ladies” video are remotely awesome enough to be fighting about.   Because seriously, it feels like both of them do the same type of video over and over again.

Final Note: mad props go to Beyonce for the graciousness and class she showed by allowing Taylor to come up on stage and finish her speech.  I gravitate between loving her and hating on her, but it was nothing love last night (aside from the fact that she looked amazing during her performance – man, she has legs for days!)