Kanye West performing live during better days. (Creative Commons licensed)

Kanye West is a jerk.  If people weren't convinced of that before, they probably are now. After his actions at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday, Kanye has now completed his transformation from one of music's most popular artists to America's most hated performer.

But the immediate and voluminous amount of Kanye hatred that has streamed into the pop culture diaspora in the wake of the VMAs may say more about the state of fandom than it does about Kanye and his sloppy attempts to stay in the spot light, no matter who is on stage.

As everyone who hasn't been living under a rock for the past 24 hours knows, Kanye interrupted Taylor Swift's acceptance speech for
Best Female Video by grabbing the microphone out of her hand and saying that his friend Beyonce should have won the
award.  Poor
Swift looked as if West had taken her dog out of her hands, showed her
the dog, and ripped it's head off. 

People were stunned by Kanye's
actions, but they shouldn't have been.

This isn't Kanye's first
indiscretion at an award show.  In fact, he's made a scene like this three times before:
once at the 2004 American Music Awards (where he told reporters that he
was the best new artist, not Gretchen Wilson), then again at the 2006 European VMAs
(after he lost to Justice vs Simian, he said that he should have won
because his video featured Pam Anderson) and lastly the 2007 VMAs
(when he didn't win an award despite garnering five nominations, he reportedly
said, "That's two years in a row, man ... I'm trying hard, man, I have
the number one record, man.").  With that kind of record, MTV shouldn't have
been surprised by his latest actions. Maybe what's most shocking is that they didn't have an ankle bracelet on him tracking his movements at all times.

Reactions were immediate, and were decidely
anti-Kanye.  Many celebrities, probably afraid to attack him face to
face (except Pink, who allegedly had to be restrained by security),
took to Twitter venting about music's latest villain.  Artists ranging
from Katy Perry to Joel Madden had something to say.  In
fact, Kanye and Team Taylor were the top trends on Twitter last night. The one positive thing that can be said of Kanye's actions is that they put the VMAs on the map again.

What
does that say about us? I guess we love to hate the bad guy.  And there isn't anyone around who can play the role of antagonist quite like Kanye West. He is pompous, he calls himself a genius, and he writes on his blog in all caps.  After the
infamous 'Fishsticks' episode on 'South Park' that lambasted his outsized self-regard, one would have thought
that Kanye had learned his lesson. 

However, he did not.  And can we really blame him for being eccentric? Sometimes he acts like a fool, but so have many other musical geniuses, from Beethoven and Mozart to Zappa and even, dare I say, Michael Jackson. His action was tacky and rude, but not exactly as shocking as people would have it.

Maybe it's the ease with which people can post their immediate, uncensored reactions to public spaces like Facebook and Twitter that fueled the rage against Kanye. Maybe it's also the fact that people are too
politically correct these days that Kanye West is starting to become
better known for his antics than his music. Because, like the guy or not, he is insanely talented. So if he is shunned forever because of this, forget Taylor Swift's hurt pride, that would be the saddest
thing of all.