Topline
Users filled the popular subreddit devoted to rapper Kanye West with posts dedicated to commemorating the Holocaust shortly after West went on another violently antisemitic rant, showing that even many of West’s most devoted fans have turned their back on him after his latest praise for the Nazi party that oversaw the murder of six million Jews.
Kanye West says he “loves” Hitler.
Key Facts
West said in an interview Thursday he likes Nazis and Adolf Hitler and then tweeted a bizarre image of a swastika within a Star of David, his most vicious bout of antisemitism to-date, which earned West a Twitter ban for inciting violence against Jews.
Numerous Holocaust education posts subsequently soared to the top of the r/Kanye subreddit, with a post calling for the conversion of the forum to a “Holocaust remembrance sub” receiving more than 5,000 upvotes, an infographic on Holocaust awareness receiving 10,000 upvotes, and several other posts dedicated to telling stories of victims ranking among the top posts.
Also flooding the subreddit were posts praising West’s long-time adversary Taylor Swift, with a photo of Swift captioned, “This is now a Taylor Swift Subreddit. We had a good run fellas,” becoming one of the community’s most popular posts ever a day after it was uploaded.
Key Background
West is one of the most popular and most decorated musical artists of all-time, and his subreddit is no different, with 712,000 members, making it the 320th most popular community on Reddit For reference, the subreddits devoted to the rapper Drake and Swift have about 450,000 users combined. No stranger to controversy throughout his career, West began to publicly target Jews in October and has refused to apologize for his offensive comments. West has instead doubled down, associating himself with fringe-right figures like Nick Fuentes and Milo Yiannopoulos, losing all of his major brand deals and much of his fortune in the process.
Surprising Fact
Jews are the target of more than 8% of all hate crimes in the U.S., according to the most recent FBI data, despite accounting for about 2% of the country’s population.
Crucial Quote
“Ye is a vicious antisemite. His comments today on InfoWars are not just vile and offensive: they put Jews in danger,” Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, tweeted Thursday.
Further Reading
Kanye West’s Antisemitic, Troubling Behavior—Here’s Everything He’s Said In Recent Weeks (Forbes)
Elon Musk Suspends Kanye West On Twitter For ‘Incitement To Violence’ After Swastika Post (Forbes)
‘Hitler Was A Demonic Figure’: Biden Weighs In On Kanye Controversy (Forbes)
