Shali's Tumbling Thoughts

When I first discovered this whole fiasco on the Twitter streams, I decided to watch the MTV Video Music Awards to learn about what the ruckus was all about. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can see it here: http://www.mtv.com/videos/misc/435995/taylor-swift-wins-best-female-video.jhtml

Anyway, at first I thought, OK this is Kanye being insane again. Then as I continued to watch and do some googling, here’s 6 reasons why I think this whole stunt was staged.

1. The video of the incident could be found all over the web during the live showing of the VMAs, but any other VMA related video was quickly taken down with a disclaimer (i.e. Lady GaGa’s performance) “This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Viacom.”

2. Taylor Swift quickly moved off the scene and was given an amazing concert performance from Subway station to the front of Radio City Music Hall.

3. The way Kanye storms the stage with a microphone appearing magically in his hand is VERY similar to how he stormed the VMA UK stage: http://www.spike.com/video/kanye-wests-mtv/2784958

4. MTV has previously done crazy controversial staged stunts, including when Bruno falls on Eminem in the last award show.

5. Twitter seems to be a HUGE part of the show as they’ve created a whole buzz tracker for the VMAs and various MTV reps have continued to ask people to keep talking about it http://www.mtv.com/ontv/vma/2009/twitter.jhtml

6. Finally, the most obvious reason: when Beyonce wins the Video of the Year award, she gives Taylor a chance to have her moment (she comes from backstage so she knows she is going to have her opportunity), and this also shows that Kanye’s stunt is foreshadowing Beyonce’s win. Then MTV recaps the incident AGAIN after the show ends with both clips: Kanye on stage interrupting Taylor and Beyonce giving Taylor her moment at the end.

Well, whether it was staged or not, I think it worked in MTV’s favor to get the buzz out for the MTV Video Music Awards as Twitter, Youtube, and almost every other form of social media is spreading the news rapidly about this whole incident.