If you’re talking about PR strategies, “I’m a let you finish”, but Kanye West is the best PR Machine ever! The man unwittingly made a whole bunch of people popular, created opportunities for some crazy Twitter apps, and even boosted Obama’s public image! If that’s not PR, what is?
If you were anywhere near the
Internet in the past few days, you definitely could not have missed Kanye’s outburst at the MTV Video Music Awards, where he interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech after she got the award for best singer. Kanye stormed on stage, grabbed the mic from Taylor, and declared, “Yo Taylor, I’m really happy for you, I’m a let you finish. But Beyonce has one of the best videos of all time !” (Yeah, what was he thinking!!) leaving Ms.Swift with a bewildered expression, and handing VMA its YouTube moment on a platter!
The video got millions of views on YouTube, and also created quite the controversy. And the world would be a boring place if things just stopped at that!
People started digging up other similar stunts that Kanye West has pulled in the past. They even did a study to prove that his comment about George Bush not caring about Blacks was the most controversial! Of course, Twitter went crazy, with a million tweets on the outburst threatening to halt Twitter… again!
As if this hype wasn’t enough, President Obama had to step into the picture. Cut to the scene of an interview with CNBC, and an off-the-record moment when the interviewer asks the President what he thought about Kanye’s outburst. President Obama’s response, “The young lady seems like a perfectly nice person, she’s getting her award, what is he doing up there? He’s a jackass”, put the media on its second wave of frenzy. ABC’s Terry Moran tweeted the comment, but promptly deleted it, and the channel apologized for the slip-up, but the tweet was picked up by hundred of his followers, and then there was no stopping it!
Then, TMZ decided to do its part for the common good, and released the audio of the President’s comment. And this is all happening very quickly, so try to keep up! Anyway, now CNN feels that seeing is indeed believing, and airs the video of President Obama actually making the comment.
Since then, Kanye has apologized on Jay Leno’s talk show, Taylor Swift has spoken about her feelings (she feels better now, thank you!), Russell Brand (equally interesting personality) has come to Kanye’s rescue, Jimmy Carter (!) has spoken out on his opinion of the young man, and one website that lets Kanye insult your own website called Kanyelicio.us and another that lets Kanye ruin your Twitter avatar have launched. 
As said earlier, Obama’s comment has even shone the President in good light, for having made an honest (some say rare!) comment that hasn’t been heavily filtered.
Moral of the story? If you’re in the PR industry, you’re every move is watched. Goodwill takes years to build, but with the rise of social media, it just got harder. And, we all know, Every Opportunity is a PR Opportunity!
Tags: Barack Obama, CNN, Kanye West, micro-blogging, PR_skills, Public Relations, social_networking, Taylor Swift, Twitter, VMA
Looking at the chain reactions, I should say I agree with the title…
@Dosslin, Thank you, glad you agree.
Cool story you got here. I’d like to read a bit more about this topic.
Nice story as for me. It would be great to read a bit more about this matter.
Fantastic site, I really like your writing style. Very distinctive and to the point. On a lot of blogs people just drone on and on, but not you - very nice. What did you think of Taylor’s appearance on SNL? I liked it and thought she was hilarious. And I thought she was awesome on the AMA’s! I don’t have time to read it all right now, I found this site when looking for something else on bing, but I’ve bookmarked your homepage and will visit again soon to see the latest. Keep up the excellent work! Beyonce and Jay-Z are such a inspiration to me. I really respect both of them for keeping it together through it all. And I also really like listening to Taylor Swift, I don’t care what anyone else says about her, I like her music. Please visit http://www.Beyonceitis.com! Peace!
Wonderful insight