Team Kanye vs. Team Taylor

So last night I was successfully avoiding homework by perusing through Facebook. Suddenly my newsfeed explodes with status updates calling Kanye West some form of derogatory name. So I think to myself, "Hmmm what did Kanye do to make so many people call him so many nasty things?" Immediately I take to the search and instantly discover the source of the outrage: his comments during Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the VMA's. While this incident is really trivial in the scheme of things (well maybe not to Kanye's publicist) and amounts to nothing more than obscure celebrity culture, the impact of social media on this trivial event is important. I could care less about the VMA's, Taylor Swift, or Kanye. I had no plans to watch the VMA's nor did I care who won what awards at the VMA's. My only motivation for searching out the reason for the Kanye-bash was my facebook newsfeed. My peers instantly became a news authority, and following their lead I searched for a topic that held no real interest for me except for the fact that everyone was talking about it. In the mere 24 hours since the VMA's, the web and social media has exploded with anti-Kanye this and that. Celebrities such as Pink are blogging about the incident, facebook users are making bumper stickers, and trashy celebrity magazines and columnists are having a field day. There is no controlling a force like social media, a force that can force someone who has never even heard of Kanye West to google him. Note to self: Never become a celebrity publicist; you will most certainly end up dealing with idiots like Kanye.