Boot Kanye West From Glastonbury

Kanye West, the latest target of the group Anonymous, has a habit of repeatedly making a spectacle of himself as he provided his unsolicited musical opinion. According to the New York Daily News, Anonymous is tired of Kanye’s exploitation of his wife, Kim Kardashian, his obsession over fashion, and West upstaging other artists, such as Taylor Swift and Beck, to voice his opinion over who should have won a music award. After praising Kanye for his start with his “Jesus Walks” video, Anonymous provides a succinct, yet curt, description of his current career state.

“… in all his recent activity, he has disappointed us all and uses negative publicity continuously to stay relevant on the internet …”

Anonymous also posted a YouTube video unleashing their full wrath against West. (Note: This video is preceded by a content warning as it is NSFW.)

However, Kanye West has raised the ire of a new group of people — the music-buying public. The Glastonbury Music Festival booked Kanye to be a headlining act for this summer’s festival. A petition on Change.org was immediately started where some of Kanye’s own opinions are now being used against him.

“… Kanye has been very outspoken on his views on music… he should listen to his own advice and pass his headline slot on to someone deserving!”

According to CBS News, 90,000 people had signed the petition for Glastonbury to remove West from the festival. (The signature count is currently over 120,000.) Neil Lonsdale, the person who started the petition, found West’s songs to be “lyrically appalling” and echoed the sentiments of Anonymous when he said Kanye did not “represent anything,” much less the spirit of the Glastonbury, in his own opinion.

Emily Eavis, one the festival organizers, along with her father Michael, responded to the petition in a column for the Guardian. Eavis stated that her father and her would not normally respond to these types of petitions.

“… But given the enormous amount of media coverage from all corners of the globe we felt compelled to respond…”

Eavis offered her own scathing critique of some of the people who signed the petition to replace Kanye West, which she described as “the dark underbelly of the web.” She also pointed out that most of the people criticizing Kanye’s involvement were not even ticket holders but that did not stop them from “throwing out threats from behind their screens.”

People should recall the original critique offered by Anonymous where Kanye West is maintaining his relevance through negative publicity as opposed to actual musical talent before purchasing a ticket to the Glastonbury Festival.

[Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images]