Kanye West + The 2009 MTV Video Music Awards + Twitter

Grabbin mics...

I’m sure the Internet (as well as traditional media) is on fire right now in regards to Kanye West‘s unpredicted outburst during the Best Female Video award, knocking sweet little Taylor Swift on her ass and expressing his belief that Beyonce should have won the award (both videos and songs, in my opinion, are lackluster and boring… but that’s just me). Although he apologized on his blog, many people remain unconvinced.

... and getting kicked out. PS - Amber Rose, what the fuck are you wearing?

Note to self: do not drink half of a bottle of Hennessy before you’re about to be on national television.

Like many, I was providing my commentary on Twitter, and suddenly, the realization of what was actually happening hit me like a sack of bricks to the face. During the pre-show, some Internet superhero girl expressed that the #VMA tweet string would be monitored by MTV exclusively, who would then report on-air as to what people were tweeting about. No big deal, right? Is this the new marketing in 2009? Shock television via social media outlets? Personally, I find this fascinating and rather effective.

If you were sitting at home, reading a book, shopping online, whatever and you happened to check your tweets, wouldn’t most people stop whatever they were doing and flip on MTV? Perhaps, during all of this, Kanye is really the puppet here – providing MTV with the kind of controversial traffic it was so used to in the early days. Perhaps the Madonna and Janet Jackson tribute to Michael wasn’t enough to pull those ratings in.

Kanye is no stranger to throwing a fit at MTV award shows – he did so last in 2006 during Europe’s Music awards. Closer to home, Kanye had another crazy outburst after his performance was moved from the main stage to a private suite and also losing five awards that he was nominated for, claiming, “I’m never coming back to MTV, find Britney!”

Video of his backstage meltdown in 2007 is below.