At last night’s MTV Vidoe Music Awards, Kanye West appeared to spoil Taylor Swift’s big win, snatching the microphone in the middle of her acceptance speech.
At the MTV Awards, Kanye West said to Taylor Swift as he grabbed the mic:
"Taylor, I’m really happy for you. I’ll let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time! One of the best videos of all time!"
The New York Times published this photo of a stunned Taylor Swift and angry Kanye West.
The video below shows a shocked Taylor Swift as Kanye West interrupts her, then leaves her to be drowned out as she tries to give her acceptance speech.
But the smoothness of the video transition to a smiling Beyonce, and MTV’s swift action to remove all clips from YouTube–forcing them to come to MTV’s own website–suggests the whole thing may have been orchestrated.
The New York Times’ Brian Stelter documented what he called Viacom’s "game of media whack-a-mole" in trying to suppress illegal YouTube clips as they appeared.
"Media companies would prefer that people watch the clips on TV or on their own Web sites," added Stelter, embedding the same clip seen below–the only one legally mandated to show the incident.
Stelter doesn’t go so far to suggest that West’s outburst might have been a hoax, but Viacom’s MTV certainly reaped the benefits of forcing millions to their website for the clip, which currently has over 1,000 comments on MTV.com.
All Things Digital’s Peter Kafka wonders on Twitter how many more views YouTube would have garnered, and notes that the MTV clip claims over one million views.
Viacom’s move is at odds with internet culture, but reflects the entrenched mentality of an embattled media industry struggling against a market that wants what it wants, when it wants, where it wants– MTV or no.
Video of MTV Awards Kanye West:
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