I Got Called a Gay Fish for Defending Kanye West

People explained they weren't homophobic by calling me stupid and gay.

by Kyle Kramer

June 16, 2014, 5:15pm

Photo by Michael James Murray

The other day, I wrote a blog post about a weird thing happening at Bonnaroo: People were really into this South Park joke about Kanye West being a gay fish from 2009, and they were making signs about it. Like most normal people who are capable of processing multiple pieces of comedy in a five year span, I thought this was a pretty dumb fixation, and I said so, pointing out that people seem oddly furious about a few specific parts of Kanye's history and oddly resistant to the idea that his music might be political. I also pointed out that maybe Kanye knows what he's doing when he uses Auto-Tune and that, hey, maybe also yelling about how gay something was could come across as homophobic, no matter the original context.

I got a strong response! I was happy so many people were reading my blog post, and I looked forward to their comments. I wanted to see what kind of meaningful debate I might provoke by pointing out that quoting South Park episodes five years after the fact is lazy. Here are the thoughtful responses I received about how homophobia isn't real:

Oh. I've been unmasked. Well, surely there were some more reasonable critiques of my arguments, right?

Okay, slow down. If your turning point against Kanye was that he started talking about racism (by the way, he's been doing this since the beginning, but sure, I'll assume you know what you're talking about), like it's really that troubling for you to hear that black people are still discriminated against in America, do you think maybe, just maybe, you might be a little teensy bit racist yourself? You sort of just implied that Kanye is racist because he's not a slave…

Ah yes, I'll never forget hip-hop's origins as a wholesome genre for white people before its purity was ruined by black rappers. Also, considering you only listen to white rappers, I assume you don't realize the irony of focusing on said Five Percent.

Kyle is sad.

This is definitely a blog. I still eat fish dicks, as discussed above. Anyway, first of all, the song is called "Clique." Second of all, let me clear something up that literally hundreds of commenters couldn't wrap their heads around: I said that Kanye makes music "about the idea of dismantling structural racism." Clearly he hasn't succeeded at much actual dismantling because you people are too busy breathlessly defending your hilarious South Park joke to realize that maybe when Kanye raps something like "blame it on the pigment/we living No Limit" on "Clique" he's literally using wordplay and word association (btw, the preferred literary terms are pun and connotation, respectively) to talk about the way that rappers' wealth is perceived in a racialized way by society at large. Thinking that a rapper has to be someone draped in gold chains (or, worse, has to be someone not draped in gold chains for their message to matter) is a form of structural racism, and, yes, Kanye consistently discusses that idea. Anyway, let's see if anyone else had some good stuff to say:

Looking forward to reading this.

Yeah, repeating this joke definitely has nothing to do with homophobia.

Thank you for this email. Until now, I did not realize that Kanye West had ever given any interviews, but now I've realized that he says lots of funny shit.

Thank goodness you know because I have no idea what I'm up too.

As many people noted, I do not have a sense of humor. I do not understand jokes. But wait for this twist! I definitely laughed at the word diarrhea.

Okay, here's the thing: Kanye isn't using Auto-Tune to be a good singer. If he were, you wouldn't be able to hear it. He's using it in an exaggerated way (if you want to get technical, he's making the pitch adjustment happen more rapidly) because it makes his voice sound robotic, which changes the way his lyrics are perceived. This is similar to the way someone might use a guitar pedal to add reverb or distortion to their guitar to change the way the song sounds. Kanye West's technical ability to rap does not rely in any way in him using Auto-Tune. Big difference!

Shouts out to Reddit. You guys are cool and smart.

If only. Am I supposed to feel hurt by this? I'll still add it to the homophobic response tally, though.

You sound hilarious and like you're a lot of fun to hang out with.

OMG NEWSFLASH! A shill for the urban music culture is in our midst! He loves every rapper! You're living proof that all types of people who comment on blog posts are idiots that fortunately remain at the bottom of the cultural food chain.