He used to be virtually silent on social media, but Kanye West has taken an apparent liking to Twitter.
After misinterpreting a Tweet as a personal attack from hip-hop artist Wiz Khalifa, West went on an infamous rant on January 27, 2016 that oddly dissed, and complimented Khalifa as a style icon with the viral hashtag, #WizWearsCoolPants.
West’s Tweets have been deleted since then, but his Tweets read:
“I went to look at your twitter and you were wearing cool pants”
“I screen grabbed those pants and sent them to my style team #Wizwearscoolpants”
29,000 Twitter users mentioned the hashtag: including popular DJ Dillon Francis, who had the most retweets (1,700). Had West not deleted his Tweets, it’s probable that his would have been the most retweeted.
— Dillon Francis (@DILLONFRANCIS) January 27, 2016
There were over 31,000 mentions of #WizWearsCoolPants, with the activity peaking around 2 p.m. PST–about two hours after the hashtag was introduced to the Twitter-sphere.
It was heavily used in the United States, and made up about 70 percent of the conversations. The map below suggests that it still spread to different corners of the world: including Europe, Australia and Nigeria.
Looking at the word cloud and buzz graph, West’s use of the phrase “screen grabbed” (his own way of saying “screen shotted”) contributed to the conversation. The words” team” and “bet” were also part of the word cloud, suggesting how people were taking sides in the argument.
Understandably, the word “beef” also connects West and Khalifa in the buzz graph below, describing the grudges from both artists.
There’s no arguing that West is one entertaining Twitter user. His creation of the hashtag #WizWearsCoolPants was hilarious, jarring and confusing all at the same time. If he wanted the nation to know just how much he admired Khalifa’s style, West absolutely succeeded.
Arlety Gonzalez, Aysha Seedat, Jane Hong, Julianne Cummings
I saw this happen live, and it was pretty entertaining and funny. Seeing all the engagement that followed this incident firsthand was cool, but seeing all these results you guys had in your post really put it in perspective.