The voracious hell mouth of Twitter opened up on Wednesday and promptly swallowed whole hip hop artist, mogul, and level one RPG character Kanye West, who spent much of the day in an increasingly ill-advised tweetstorm praising and declaring his “dragon energy” brotherhood with President Donald Trump.
While this was all going on, Twitter users noticed that West’s profile had seemingly plummeted to 18 million followers. If true, that would be a perilous drop, because before the string of tweets West had nearly 28 million followers. But according to the Verge, Twitter says this was all due to a technical “inconsistency.”
“We can confirm that Kanye’s follower count is currently at approximately 27M followers,” Twitter told the Verge in a statement. “Any fluctuation that people might be seeing is an inconsistency and should be resolved soon.”
Twitter would only release the same statement on the “inconsistency” in an email to Gizmodo. But minor technical hiccups regarding follower counts and other stats have been reported before on the site, and a search shows that users saw all kinds of different stats on West’s account since he reactivated it on April 13th.
In any case, the original figure should have raised eyebrows. Nine million would be a jaw-dropping single-day drop, especially given that there didn’t seem to be any concerted effort to unfollow him en masse.
Mass unfollowing campaigns do happen! But anecdotally, the typical progress of a high-profile Twitter account tends to be a snowball effect. The site operates on a scale where for every follower a big account might lose for terrible posts, they tend to pick others up—even if those new followers are just following to clown on the user in question. This snowball effect is critical to the site, because the longer one spends on it, the more flattering attention they get from their steadily increasing flow of followers. Usually the only exit from Twitter is waiting until that fetid snowball finally crashes down to the bottom of the slope in the form of a moderator ban or a ragequit (sometimes temporary).
Hence whatever harm to his reputation is ongoing, West is likely only to gain followers unless he once again takes a Twitter hiatus. In fact, earlier in the day he was listed at 27.8 million followers, and as of this evening, he’s seemingly on track for 28 million at 27.9. People may be very angry or disappointed in West, but for now, it looks like Twitter is eagerly gobbling down all the trending #content he’s serving up. You know the drill.
Kanye West fe go siddung!!! Him a look a hype because him nuh inna de spotlight.
hey “Dat Mi Seh” I thought your “grand-dragon” was in there to declare war on the currupted NWO and the ILLUMINATI people who are running the world, so how come now we have the biggest ILLUMINATI lizard praising and worshipping him? just like “auntie-tom” stacy dash, ILLUMINATI turn him into a zombie, i would’nt even imagine or envision what he, his wife, and his in-laws are doing in ILLUMINATI initiation to gain fame and wealth :matabelo
and his dodo brain of a wife is trying to minimize his bizarre behavior. Kanye is unwell and I hope that action is being taken behind the scenes to help him
The man has a right to support whoever he chooses, if you unfollow a person just because you and them have different opinions then you are an idiot.
All Falls Down – by Kanye West
Oh when it all, it all falls down
I’m telling you oh, it all falls down
Oh when it all, it all falls down
I’m telling you oh, it all falls down
Man I promise, she’s so self conscious
She has no idea what she’s doing in college
That major that she majored in don’t make no money
But she won’t drop out, her parents will look at her funny
Now, tell me that ain’t insecure
The concept of school seems so secure
Sophomore three years aint picked a career
She like f**k it, I’ll just stay down here and do hair
Cause that’s enough money to buy her a few pairs of new Airs
Cause her baby daddy don’t really care
She’s so precious with the peer pressure
Couldn’t afford a car so she named her daughter Alexus
She had hair so long that it looked like weave
Then she cut it all off now she look like Eve
And she be dealing with some issues that you can’t believe
Single black female addicted to retail and well
Oh when it all, it all falls down
I’m telling you oh, it all falls down
Man I promise, I’m so self conscious
That’s why you always see me with at least one of my watches
Rollies and Pasha’s done drove me crazy
I can’t even pronounce nothing, pass that versace!
Then I spent 400 bucks on this
Just to be like nigga you ain’t up on this!
And I can’t even go to the grocery store
Without some ones thats clean and a shirt with a team
It seems we living the american dream
But the people highest up got the lowest self esteem
The prettiest people do the ugliest things
For the road to riches and diamond rings
We shine because they hate us, floss cause they degrade us
We trying to buy back our 40 acres
And for that paper, look how low we a’stoop
Even if you in a Benz, you still a nigga in a coop/coupe
Oh when it all, it all falls down
I’m telling you oh, it all falls down
I say f**k the police, that’s how I treat em
We buy our way out of jail, but we can’t buy freedom
We’ll buy a lot of clothes when we don’t really need em
Things we buy to cover up what’s inside
Cause they make us hate ourself and love they wealth
That’s why shortys hollering “where the ballas’ at?”
Drug dealer buy Jordans, crackhead buy crack
And a white man get paid off of all of that
But I ain’t even goin’ act holier than thou
Cause f**k it, I went to Jacob with 25 thou
Before I had a house and I’d do it again
Cause I wanna be on 106 and Park pushing a Benz
I wanna act ballerific like it’s all terrific
I got a couple past due bills, I won’t get specific
I got a problem with spending before I get it
We all self conscious I’m just the first to admit it
Oh when it all, it all falls down
I’m telling you oh, it all falls down
Oh when it all, it all falls down
I’m telling you oh, it all falls down