“You know, sometimes I can’t believe Kanye West is a real breathing human person,” my friend said indignantly, as she read an article about his latest antics on the internet. “No human can actually be that ridiculous.” I looked over in mild panic, agreeing nervously, and then hastily closed a tab on my laptop that read, ‘The Kanye West Self Confidence Generator.’ Recently, Kanye West has become a huge presence in my life. He’s all over my social media. Often, late at night when I’m supposed to be working, I furtively look up Kanye’s Twitter feed and read through it so that I may find the strength to get through the night. He’s been busy lately. From having a twitter meltdown every two days, to his on-and-off feud with Taylor Swift, to pleading with Mark Zuckerberg for a billion dollars to fund his clothing line, everything Kanye does is original and (arguably) inspirational. When I sit down and think about it, I don’t understand my obsession with Kanye West - as a human being, separate from what I feel about his music. He has openly done terrible things. From ruining teenaged Taylor Swift’s first ever Grammy win, to declaring then-president of the US, George Bush, a racist on national television, he has stumbled and crashed his way through public life, and is one of the most controversial rappers on the scene today. So really, the question is why? Why do I scour the archives of trashy online magazine pages looking for articles on something Kanye did in 2009, and why do I read through his Twitter account every chance I get? Why has his personal life become so interesting to me that I now have screenshots of my favorite Kanye quotes? As a body of accomplishments, Kanye West cuts a pretty impressive figure. His Wikipedia page summarizes it best:“West is one of thebest-selling artists of all time, having sold more than 32 million albums and 100 million digital downloads worldwide. He has won a total of 21 Grammy Awards, making him one of themost awarded artists of all time and the most Grammy-awarded artist of his age. Three of his albums rank on Rolling Stone's 2012 "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list; two of his albums feature at first and eighth, respectively, inPitchfork Media's The 100 Best Albums of 2010–2014. He has also been included in a number ofForbes annual lists.Time named him one of the100 most influential people in the world in 2005 and 2015.”If you know nothing about his abrasive personality, or the unbelievable things he has done in public, or his online rants, he’s simply a rapper who made it out of an ordinary life and achieved extraordinary success with his edgy, experimental, critically acclaimed music. You’re impressed, you shrug and you move on. It isn’t until you stumble across BuzzFeed’s fifth article about the Shocking and Mind-Blowing thing that Kanye West did at the latest Grammys that you start to discover a whole other side to this being called Kanye West. He is not merely the successful hit-spewing experimental artist with international acclaim, he is also a Twitter presence with a personality so colorful it hurts. You get sucked into the vortex of discovering who he really is, and it intrigues you. A month later, you realise you can never stop. After many days of speculation, I have come to the conclusion that the reason for my obsession has more to do with me than Kanye himself. Kanye loves himself more than I ever thought I could love anybody. Like a moth drawn to light, I am drawn to Kanye’s unfailing and eternal love for himself. There is a hint of the wishful in my constant return to Kanye’s endless ego. Every time I read something one of his self declarations, a tiny part of me wishes I could do what he does: Stand up in the middle of a crowded room, announce to everyone that I am in fact God’s vessel, and then go home and reiterate it by posting it on Twitter. Kanye is a lot of things, both good and bad, but for me he is an ideal of sorts. An ideal of how much I can love and respect myself. A simple comparison in the amount of credit he gives himself, and the amount of slack I refuse to cut myself has made me realise how much more I could be doing, how much more I could love myself. His appeal is that he has something I want for myself. I am drawn to him for the same reason that I am drawn to articles like,”22 Joys of Being a College Student”- these are all things I still desire. That, or I am a mindless consumer of pop culture, with a secret fetish for rappers with ego issues. We’ll never know. This article was written by Shreya Shreeraman. Please send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: U2Soul via Flickr