Kanye West’s Taylor Swift-Boating Affair: The 5 Best Reactions

As we all know by now, Kanye West rushed the stage on Taylor Swift last night while she was accepting her VMA. Besides being one of the best VMA moments in recent history, the fallout from this thing has been, in a word, amazing. It's one of my favorite pop culture shitshows of all time. Sure, Yeezy already apologized after Swift's mom apparently took him to task, but that was nothing compared to what the internet had to say. Let's go over the five best reactions.

5. Stephanie Pratt Doesn’t See Color, or Any Other Distinguishing Features. Sister of The Hills “star” Spencer Pratt, Stephanie, used Twitter—now Hollywood’s favorite toy—to express her disbelief at the incident unfolding in front of her:

Mind you, this person has an audience. Incredible. She later got into a war of words with Perez Hilton, who called her “wasted” and noted that she had a lot of work done. Pratt responded in a most civil manner: “Ok @perezhilton u piece of dog shit get a life and get off ur computer u FUCKING LOSER. I would rather rather die than be you. Fuck off,” she kindly noted.

4. Lil’ Mama Gets Caught Up in the Excitement. What’chu know ‘bout Lil’ Mama? Not enough, clearly. As pointed out on Rap Radar, Jay-Z did once rhyme: ”show me what you got, Lil’ Mama.” And indeed, the Lil’ Mama showed Jay-Z exactly what she’s got when Mama jumped on stage for the end of the Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ performance of “Empire State of Mind,” jumping into the B-Boy pose at the end, comically in place. She must’ve caught onto some of the excitement that Kanye generated. She since apologized:

“I did not mean any disrespect towards Jay-Z or Alicia Keys,” the statement reads. “I admire them and look up to them as role models. ‘Empire State of Mind’ had my emotions running high. In that moment I came up onstage to celebrate my two icons singing about NY.”

I mean, of all people, though, Lil’ Mama had to rush the stage? Makes me pine for the days of Nathanial Hornblower.

3. Hitler Is Not Satisfied with Kanye’s Response. The “Downfall Meme”—in which people substitute their own subtitles in for a scene from the Austrian Hitler biopic Downfall, where Hitler screams at his generals—is tired, and old, and has been done time and time again. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth a good laugh when someone got it ready to go today:

2. The “Kanye Was Right” Contingent. Some people think Kanye should just be left alone, that he didn’t deserve all the trouble people are giving him, that the VMAs are a ridiculous joke and that, really, this is all silly pomp and circumstance. The funny thing about this isn’t that there’s a contrarian opinion, it’s that there are now two camps on this issue: Pro-Taylor, and Pro-Kanye. Naturally, people are freaking out about anything naysaying Swift. Taylor Swift-Boat is now inspiring healthcare-reform-insanity levels of debate. Does that make buying a Miley Cyrus record the public option?

1. Congressman Joe Wilson (R) also hates Taylor Swift. And speaking of health care, the best video mashup of all of this is a beautiful 20-second clip that captures the spirit of debate in this country right now. It’s about bum-rushing; it’s not about dissent, it’s about calling attention to yourself; it’s about the inability to contain oneself at a time when decorum might otherwise prevail. No, but really, it’s just about good YouTube mashups.

To be fair, the best clip was actually when an embarrassed Beyoncé tactfully handed the mic over to Taylor Swift after Beyoncé won Video of the Year, for Swift to finish her speech. Swift comes out from backstage, they’re both matching in red, she passes the torch—a soul singer to a country singer, a vet to a rookie, and now, a pop star to pop star—filling any gap the two had between them. Both were part of an embarrassing moment, both handled it the best they could, and something wonderful came out of the common ground they negotiated because of it. I got teary. You’re allowed to, too.