Unless you've lived under a rock in the last decade, you've probably scrolled through, or at least, have heard someone mention Kanye West's Twitter feed. His "egotism" has been one of his staples for his career, but it's hard to not talk about him.
His Twitter feed has recently been riddled with various topics, including asking Mark Zuckerberg to invest in him, a rant about Bob Ezrin and the short-lived Wiz Khalifa and Amber Rose feud. Nevertheless, his Twitter provides an abundance of quotable phrases and memes to last for a few weeks.
People wanted me to tweet again well here's some tweets!!!
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) February 15, 2016
Some folks are thoroughly entertained — this is just Kanye being Kanye, right? Well, some have grown uncomfortable and have become concerned over Kanye West's mental health.
Mental health is one of the more controversial — yet swept under the rug — topics to talk about today. It's a hard thing to talk about, and if you mention a speculation of potentially having something wrong with your mental health, people look at you like you're crazy. Talks of "cures," "medicine" and, the worst, "insane asylums" are often used in these conversations, and it's plain rude to actually speculate whether someone you don't actually know is mentally ill or not. It's none of our business whether Kanye West actually has something going on with his mental health.
It is a "stereotypical Kanye act" when he talks about how great he thinks he is, how his album deserves album of the year, etc... but to label these actions as a "mental illness" creates a stigma that shouldn't exist. Someone can be an egotistical asshole without the label of an illness, and assuming that he has one because of his recent tweets is plain irrational.
But this is exactly what happened on "The Late Late Show with James Corden." While having Dr. Phil as a guest, he asked the "professional" just what he "thinks is wrong" with Kanye. Dr. Phil's response is "does it really take a professional?"
While it does get the show a controversial topic for its audience to talk about, questioning someone's behavior and mental state on a late night comedy show is pretty dark. But Dr. Phil rebukes the idea of something being wrong with his mental health. Instead, he thinks West is using his recent tweets as an intentional ploy to get publicity. This theory is working, and while you can argue that the professional doesn't give a "professional opinion" on Corden's question, the question still lingers in the air — after all, once it's out in the media, it's going to be a well-talked about topic.
The public may think that Kanye West is full of himself — he has claimed that his album deserves album of the year, among other things that he's said about himself — and perhaps loud or egomaniacal, but you can't deny that he's getting exactly what he wants: a non-stop discussion around himself and his work ever since his album dropped. Kanye West is an extremely successful 38-year-old man who is in full control over his album and his Twitter account, so chalking his recent tweets and behavior up to him being "crazy" is just not right. Besides, everyone being an armchair psychologist isn't going to work or help anything. If anything, you're just going to add "crazy" to the list of words that describe Kanye West.
And think about it: how would you like for that word to be one of the first ones people think about when they hear your name?
Wouldn't you rather hear "great" or "brilliant" alongside your name, too? We all have a little bit of Kanye's personality in us. So if he's crazy... then we're all crazy, too.
