Last night, after Warehouse 13, I ran through the channels and as I hit Comedy Central I saw the ending of the South Park 'Kanye West/gay fish' episode. I chose to wait and see what was on next, and lo and behold they ran the episode again, followed by another repeat of the same.

What better way to comment on this jerk's behavior than to do a mini-marathon of the South Park episode that portrays Kanye for exactly the kind of ignorant, loudmouth thug he demonstrated the other night at the awards show.




BTW, do you like fishsticks?

It's not as funny when the joke is written down.

Although Kanye knocking off George Lopez's head with a baseball bat, and the ensuing 'fountain of blood' that came from the stump made me laugh so hard, I cried....

This is probably "real life" worthy. This week was pretty nuts to be honest with Michael Jordan and Serena Williams both showing their true selves to the public (both always seemed like great people but now we've all gotten to see what pompous assholes they really are (were) and now this. Even Barack threw the "he's a jackass" out there which he never would have said about Joe Wilson.

MTV is certainly going to capitalize on his outburst, they'll have tons of publicity (hence showing the show 4x last night on Comedy Central) and for the next few years everyone will tune in to the awards hoping he goes off on someone again (of course he'll be invited back). We can only hope more incidents like these continues to erode on the hero worship of these stars who don't deserve it and maybe put a greater focus on John and Kate and their army of children ... or, you know, people worth the attention.

An aside, it sure is interesting that Kanye wouldn't ever go to a BET Award show (despite winning many) yet has never won a MTV award and is there every year.

Wishful thinking. Various individuals in the NBA have been showing their ass for as long as I can remember, but people still hero-worship those guys. Even if Kanye fell completely out of favor, people shallow enough to worship someone like Kanye West will worship whoever they're told next.

What happened with Jordan?

Google or Youtube search for his Hall of Fame Acceptance Speech.

Wishful thinking. Various individuals in the NBA have been showing their ass for as long as I can remember, but people still hero-worship those guys. Even if Kanye fell completely out of favor, people shallow enough to worship someone like Kanye West will worship whoever they're told next.

Ya. These people have attacked fans, cuss out the crowd pretty regularly and folks line up to suck them off figuratively and literally.

being douchebags makes them more marketable. Shit liek this gets people talking about them. like we are now.

Celebrity makes people feel entitled. We create most of em.

Wish we valued intelligence as much as we do an asshole catching a ball.

It's amazing how there are people who still don't realize that the VMA incident was completely staged.

I found out about it by seeing 2 massive ads to "SEE KANYE INTERUPT TALYOR WEST!!" on different websites on the same night that it happened.

Good old KSK (http://kissingsuzykolber.uproxx.com/2009/09/sean-taylor-memorial-meast-of-the-week-%E2%80%93-week-1.html) sums it up well:

The VMA awards have been held every year for over two decades now, and each year it becomes less and less relevant, a stunning achievement for something that was never all that relevant to begin with. It’s always fun to watch MTV hand out awards celebrating the art form of the music video when the network itself never airs any of them. If you’re watching the show, this is probably the first time you’ve actually been introduced to these goofy three-minute clips (none of which this year featured an emo band jumping around on treadmills, much to your chagrin). It would be like if Comedy Central handed out awards each year for carpentry, or if the porn industry handed out awards for achievements in the field of neurosurgery, or if CBS handed out awards for watchable television shows. It makes no sense.

This why, of course, MTV goes out of its way each year to manufacture a supposedly “controversial” moment at the VMA’s to get you to talk about them. Oh, did you not know that little Kanye outburst was planned well in advance? Well, it was. MTV producers went to Kanye and said, “Hey, Kanye, can you do that thing where you’re an arrogant prick? Thanks!” Then they went to Taylor Swift and Beyonce and said, “Hey, how would you two broads like to look classy and sympathetic?” And then Kanye went and acted like an arrogant prick. PRESTO.

That’s how MTV works now. They learned their lesson from that Bruno-Eminem stunt this summer you didn’t buy for a second. No, this was a far more canny staging. But that doesn’t change the fact that it was almost certainly fake. Because you weren’t going to talk the next morning about Cobra Starship winning some gay award for some gay video. No, MTV has to do something that makes a show they know is inherently uninteresting interesting. OMG! BRITNEY AND MADONNA KISSED! THAT LOOKED SO SPONTANEOUS!

Disc, you know the VMA is taped, then played a day later? Or do you mean the ads were up on the Internet the night it was taped?

And it must be working, we are talking about it 4 days after it aired...

I know most things in TV are staged, I've staged my fair share of things over the past 5 years, but watching the director queues and the missed sound queue you could tell his outburst wasn't in rehersal. And to be honest, his publicists are working around the clock to fix his image - a very expensive undertaking. I don't think it was staged, it wouldn't be worth it to him.

Yeah, i forgot it was taped Sixee.

Kelraz, of course it wasn't in rehersal, then it would have looked fake as hell like their 'stunt' last year did. And Kanye has never ever cared about good or bad publicity, just publicity. Him acting like a massive jackass is nothing new.

If I'm wrong and he did come up with this on his own, I have to applaud him and I certainly wouldn't be surprised. He truly is the finest troll of this generation of this decade.

Knock-knock.

Who's there?

Taylor Swift.

Taylor Sw-

YO, I'MMA LET YOU FINISH, BUT BEYONCE HAD ONE OF THE BEST KNOCK-KNOCK JOKES OF ALL TIME.


(shamelessly stolen from a commenter on Fark, who no doubt shamelessly stole it from someone else...)

DiscW, its certainly possible. When I learned that cooking shows take 3 hours to make a "30 Minute Meal" I was shocked, that half the people on Reality TV and 95% of Jerry Springer's guests are actors I was a little surprised, and I was deeply saddened that nature shows keep that amazing wildlife in cages until 30 seconds before rolling - not exactly crocodile hunting but more like crocodile releasing and recapturing. Though I'd think what is more likely would be that someone put the idea in his head to do something like that moreso than it being explicitely planned in advance.

Like I said in the other thread this is his 3rd time doing this. It is not exactly unusual.

All it would really take is for management to approach West, you wouldn't even need to tell the girls. Swift's reaction looked real enough, although I don't know her enough to judge her reactions. I would bet the floor director knew what was coming, if it was staged, but really, it wouldn't take much to pull it off. Or to have it happen for real. Ah crap, we can't actually tell without waterboarding MTV executives.

The VMAs have become the place for this sort of thing, at any rate, which makes it less remarkable. It's like allowing US Representatives to boo and cheer during speeches, and then being shocked (simple shocked!) when someone yells out, "You lie!" Doesn't something happen pretty much yearly? Remember Assman? Heck, I didn't even know the awards had happened until I heard about what happened.

What's more interesting is that as budgets increase and special effects develop, we're closer and closer to the point where you have no idea if what you saw is real or not anymore. Research demonstrating our gullibility in believing anything on video aside, staged events occur often enough to raise doubt in anything on TV.

Maybe they'll have Jerry Springer host the VMAs next year. Then the action will be, who will fight whom onstage, and what 'wardobe malfunctions' will occur....

Well the Springer story is different. They don't pay any of their guests, it just started that early on actors started creating personas and lied to get onto the show to use it on their "hey this is me acting" reels. Now its assumed that all of the guests are lying actors, but a few real people may actually slip through now and again.

Springer does pay random "guests", or at least they did. I know an idiot that took $400 to play the crazy, jealous ex-girlfriend years ago (as foil against complete strangers she'd never met, in case that isn't clear). She had just got out of the army, and they were looking for girls that looked legitimately "tough" and able to put up a good fight.

Hrm. Didn't know that, but I believe you. One of the camera ops I work with used to shoot Jerry Springer, and said they aren't paid because that would go against SAG union rules. They must call that a stipend or something to get around that. Like, for House Hunters people get a $500 check to be on the show to cover their expenses.

They may not do it anymore either. This was ~2002. Maybe they paid some to get the crazy started, and now moron trailer trash want to be on enough to do it for a free trip.

It doesn't take a degree in psychology to be able to select people who will behave that way on TV either. Not paying them doesn't make anything less staged.

Of course, how far do you take that? Is the news staged, since they find people to say what they want to hear, how they want to hear it?

Of course, how far do you take that? Is the news staged, since they find people to say what they want to hear, how they want to hear it?

It might as well be. It's no longer about reporting the facts.

Of course, how far do you take that? Is the news staged, since they find people to say what they want to hear, how they want to hear it?Biased in that respect, absolutely. The idea of journalistic integrity assumes the individual doing the reporting is making an honest effort to be unbiased, but as we've seen over the last two administrations there's a lot of value in getting your news from multiple sources.

I've been onsite for a couple of news shoots, they don't typically interview every single person, they absolutely pick and choose based on the needs of the broadcast. In that sense, a critical examination of media requires a viewer to think beyond what is presented and examine the underlying facts. The average interview is little more than anecdotal evidence at best, especially when plucking people off the street.