Let’s talk about Kanye West.
The year is 2009 at the MTV Video Music Awards.
Taylor Swift wins an award over Beyonce, and you might remember what happened next.
"I'm gonna let you finish but Beyonce had one of the best music videos of ALL time!"
Kanye goes on to apologize, and then un-apologize, and it all gets very confusing.
Fast forward to 2016, and Kanye’s track “Famous” features this line:
"I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex //
Why?
I made that b***h famous // I made that b***h famous"
The internet got mad.
Taylor Swift got mad.
And then audio comes out that Taylor Swift knew about, and even encouraged, the song
from the start.
Wait- what??
Well, this seemingly insignificant example perfectly explains our current cultural and
political predicament.
And it all has to do with a concept from professional wrestling called Kayfabe.
Believe it or not, if we pay attention to these guys; we’ll be able to better understand
what’s going on with these guys.
If we’re right - it might be the case that Wrestling truly can explain everything.
Welcome to the Wide World of Kayfabe.
But, before we get into it. I want to give a shout out to our sponsor over at Wix.
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More on that at the end of the video but for now back to the show.
So, What is Kayfabe?
It’s a term used to describe the way in which professional wrestling consists of staged
events and pre-determined narratives that are treated as true.
So even though everyone knows that wrestling is scripted, they still treat it like a real
athletic competition.
And even when wrestlers are off the clock and out of the ring they never acknowledge
this, as this would constitute the unholy sin known as breaking Kayfabe.
You never break kayfabe.
To put this commitment to Kayfabe in perspective - this would basically be like if Matt Damon
refused to accept his drink at starbucks unless the barista called out the name Jason Bourne.
Now, wrestling fans aren’t idiots, they of course know that the fights are scripted
and that the wrestlers are characters.
But it’s not the truth of the events that matter, it’s the story.
It’s not true because it’s real, it’s true because it’s entertaining.
"It's still real to me dammit!"
Kayfabe doesn’t just apply to any reality show that may or may not be true,
“You’re Fired!”
As this would make ninety percent of modern entertainment Kayfabe.
Instead, Kayfabe refers to entertainment in which staged events are presented as real
by those producing them and are perceived as real by those consuming them.
It’s like Santa Claus: Everyone knows he’s fake, but because we are all in on it,
"It doesn't matter!"
And this time we agree with you Dwayne.
And in case any kiddos are watching this, don’t be upset.
While Santa Claus is a lie, so is God, so remove the shackles from your tiny souls and
dare to live a life beyond good and evil.
But much like John Cena, Kayfabe didn’t stick to just wrestling for long.
And in a manner reminiscent of Dwayne Johnson himself, Kayfabe has now infected the entire
entertainment industry, and as we’ll soon see, our lives.
And while professional wrestling is unsurprisingly full of Floridians another famous Floridian
has used Kayfabe in a seemingly unlikely medium, rap music.
Rick Ross, who is basically the Santa Claus of Miami,
has built a career on the narrative
that he is a legendary boss in the drug game,
comparing himself to infamous kingpins in countless songs.
However, pictures leaked which revealed that the boss with a belly full of rosé spent
his younger years as a corrections officer.
So rather than ducking the law, Rick Ross was enforcing it.
Many assumed this would be the end of his career, "How do you think about Bossip giving
you the name Officer Ricky?
I just want to hear it form you."
"Baby I'm worth too much money to even be sidetracked on this carpet, know what I mean?"
But it had very little effect.
Ross responded with a vagueness that would make a French new wave fan proud,
"it's about who Rose is.
It's about me when anywhere I go I step in the room I put it down. People know it's authentic right here.
They know it's real ... so let's get this money let's make this music," and his career has only
grown since.
Kayfabe can help us understand this, as the fans prefer the narrative of Ross as a Miami
drug kingpin over the truth of his career in law enforcement.
And why would Ross care what’s true and what’s not as long as he’s selling records?
We can see another use of Kayfabe in the work of YouTube’s most infamous brothers, the Pauls.
In a move that would likely confuse Rick Ross, the two brothers often engaged in a back and
forth beefrap battle via YouTube videos.
Along with making Aaron Carter look hardcore by comparison, this battle can be best analyzed
"Please Aaron, are you for real? 1-on-1 with Shaquille O'Neal?"
"Yeah, 34 center from the LA Lakers..."
This battle can be best analyzed as a
clever use of Kayfabe to game the YouTube algorithm to get the brothers more clicks,
and more dollars.
And just in case Rick Ross is watching this - Rick, we will gladly send you a free Wisecrack
hoodie if you post your own rap video that shuts the Pauls up once and for all.
And if Ross did this, it would make him a shooter, which is the Kayfabe term for someone
who makes the violence in wrestling real.
Before we go on it’s worth noting how Kayfabe is also distinct from satire.
While for both the performer and the audience are in on the joke, satire is used precisely
to point us towards the absurdity of the actual truth, rather than create a new one.
For example, Stephen Colbert engaged in satire on The Colbert Report.
"I don't even see race, not even my own.
People tell me I'm white and I believe them because I just devoted 6 minutes to explaining
how I'm not a racist."
As his character was used to exemplify the absurdity of cable news hosts like Bill O’Reilly.
But Infowars host Alex Jones can be better analyzed via Kayfabe, “I’m a pioneer,
I’m an explorer, I’m a human, and I’m coming.”
His insane claims are always presented in the guise of political truth, and the audience
buys into the narrative.
The Colbert and O’Reilly example can help us understand another set of terms used by
Kayfabe: Faces and Heels.
Faces refers to the good guys in Wrestling and Heels are the bad guys.
And while we might outwardly root for the faces the heels are the ones who sell the
tickets.
This can help explain the polarization of the media.
Heels are where the money is.
So O’Reilly and co had their heel in Obama
"What President Obama does not understand is that he has lost all credibility in matters of security."
and now the liberal media has found their
ultimate heel in Trump.
"What he's saying was not true."
Now you might be thinking that if kayfabe only applies to the media, why should I care?
Well, we think that, "It doesn't matter!" dammit Dwayne, it absolutely does matter,
because the terrifying reality is that Kayfabe is an even better tool for understanding
contemporary politics.
A 2016 New York Times article by Jeremy Gordon was titled, “Is Everything Wrestling?”
Which we might rephrase as, “is our world becoming one elaborate Kayfabe?”
Take Alex Jones.
While he’s known for his subtle political arguments
"Destroy the child. Corrupt them all! This is their plan people these ARE demons!"
and stellar advertising campaigns for legit medical supplements, he recently used Kayfabe
to his defense in a court of law.
"Attorney Randall Wilhite said 'Jones is playing a character on his radio show."
But Jones’ claim doesn’t change the fact that his show is considered a news source
by his millions of viewers.
And yes it can be fun to play with this persona “I’m not a democrat either I’m a nihilist.”
but the pizzagate scandal shows the dark side of Jones’ brand of political Kayfabe.
But Kayfabe isn’t just being used for the type of fringe media being kicked off YouTube,
it’s all over TV news as well.
CNN has acknowledged that their primary aim is not objective news, but rather, entertainment.
According to a New York Times profile of CNN president Jeff Zucker: “As Zucker sees it,
his pro-Trump panelists are not just spokespeople for a worldview; they are ‘characters in
a drama,’ members of CNN’s extended ensemble cast.”
Michelle Wolff recently pointed out how much cable news depends on heels and constructed
narratives.
"Watching the host act like the guest forced his way into the studio is so compelling you almost forget
he was invited on AND paid."
And finally, the biggest example of political Kayfabe might be the 45th president of the
United States, Donald J. Trump.
No stranger to reality tv Trump is the first politician to fully embrace the power of Kayfabe.
Trump has made a number of claims that are clearly untrue, “I know more about ISIS
than the generals do, believe me.”
"This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration PERIOD."
And of course his threats against his old friend Hillary Clinton,
"It's just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge
of the law in our country."
"Because you'd be in jail."
Had as much truth behind them as the beef between Stone Cold and The Rock.
But just like Rick Ross’ criminal past, it’s the narrative that matters, not the facts.
Trump may be especially extreme in his political Kayfabe, but politicians across the spectrum
use it just as much.
While the Democrats have been vocal in their support for fighting against climate change,
the DNC has also recently backtracked on their ban from taking donations from the fossil
fuel lobby.
But of course this won’t stop their narrative of being the party of environmentalism.
So why is Kayfabe having a moment?
The most obvious answer is that it allows people to ground reality in narrative, rather
than empirical truth.
And who wouldn’t want to live in an exciting story full of heroes, villains, and escalating
drama?
As Jeremy Gordon said in the New York Times: “If a story is told well, if its history
seems consistent, then the machinations putting it into place can be temporarily overlooked
or turned into a fun story of their own.
And why not?
In the end, we’re all marks for a world we want to believe in.”
And this brings us to our last Kayfabe vocab term of the day, mark, which is a fan who
is so excited to believe a narrative that they lose sight of its fictional nature and
treat it as real.
For the mark it’s not about what is true, it’s about what they want to be true.
And this might be the danger of Kayfabe, when it turns from a principle of entertainment
into a practical philosophy.
Writer Nick Rogers had this to say in the New York Times: “Kayfabe isn’t merely
a suspension of disbelief, it is philosophy about truth itself.
It rests on the assumption that feelings are inherently more trustworthy than facts.”
Kayfabe’s philosophy replaces reason and objectivity in the favor of emotion and opinion.
And the most dangerous part of this world of kayfabe is that we might not even realize
that we are in fact marks of our own creation.
And before you go, be sure to click these links to check out these videos in which we
take down our competitor website CleverCrevice and their ridiculous host Gerald.
And once you’re there, be sure to check out their response to our response, and of
course you’ll wanna see our response to their response to our response, and after that...