Kanye West has left the building.
The right wing rapper who this week declared himself an anti-Semite has exited mainstream culture for the world of QAnon and conspiracies. He’s bought Parler, a website for nutjobs who share his crazy beliefs, after being censored and suspended by Twitter and Instagram.
Parler is owned now by Rebekah Mercer of the right wing Mercer family, which has funded a lot of the conspiracy messaging that created January 6th and off the wall politicians like Marjorie Taylor Greene.
More interestingly, Parler is run by a man named George Farmer who is the husband of conspiracy theorist and hatemonger Candace Owens. In recent days West, who calls himself Ye, has been quoting Owens in his anti-Semitic rants. It seems a little like Farmer and Owens have played Kanye, but he gets what he deserves. Despite his claimed $2 billion worth Kanye has lost of his business lately including deals with the Gap, Adidas, and his banking with JP Morgan.
The move puts Kanye on a level with Donald Trump, who has his own right wing app, Truth Social. In the last week, a former employee of Truth Social has made startling claims about the site’s business practices.
For Kanye, the purchase of Parler is notable in that Alex Jones, of “Info Wars,” was just ordered by a jury to pay nearly a billion dollars to the families of Sandy Hook children for claiming their murders never happened. Just as Jones is being adjudicated against for spreading lies, Kanye has been claiming that George Floyd, who died at the hands (and knee) of Minneapolis police, actually died from fentanyl. Floyd’s family is considering filing a lawsuit against West.
The next questions regarding Kanye will involve his music distributor, Universal Music Group, and entertainment attorneys who are representing him in these business deals. Will they all pretend this isn’t happening? Or will they have the guts to cut ties with Kanye for good?
