5 Reasons Why the Kanye, Taylor Swift Incident Was Faked

MTV knows viral marketing. In fact, some would say that nobody in traditional media does it better than MTV these days.

That’s just one of the many theories floating around the blogosphere this Friday afternoon supporting the idea that the whole Kanye West / Taylor Swift incident at the VMA’s was faked.

I admit, that thought crossed my mind a few minutes after I saw it happen, and now upon further reflection it seems more and more likely.

Why? Here are 5 reasons.

1. MTV Knows Viral Marketing

Two words…”Bruno / Eminem”.  The Bruno / Eminem incident at the MTV Movie Awards was one of the most talked-about “bloopers” of the year.  Only later did someone leak that the whole thing was staged.  MTV would love to repeat that kind of viral success.

2. MTV Showed the Incident During VMA Replays

This is almost a smoking gun all by itself.  When MTV rebroadcast the Video Music Awards telecast, instead of cutting out the offending incident, as is common practice when something unexpected happens on live TV, they left it in.  Why?  Maybe they already knew that the event was going viral on the internet so they decided to leave it in, but that seems unlikely.

3. Viacom Squashed All YouTube Replays of the Incident

MTV and Viacom were lightning quick to delete all YouTube replays of the Kanye West incident, forcing all views and embeds to take place on MTV’s own website.

The New York Times’ Brian Stelter writes:

But MTV’s parent company Viacom — which is embroiled in a long-running $1 billion lawsuit with YouTube — engaged in a game of media whack-a-mole, flagging illicit copies of the videos almost as soon as they appeared.

In fact, just one version of the incident that landed on YouTube managed to get 500,000 views within 20 minutes, before it was flagged by Viacom. MTV must have seen astronomical traffic levels on its website.

4. No Security?

It really doesn’t matter who you are, there is no way MTV would let anyone walk onto a stage before a live television audience without knowing what was about to happen. Kanye West wouldn’t even have made it up the first step if MTV hadn’t been in on the “gag”.

5. The Red Dresses

This has to be the smoking gun.  Isn’t it a little too convenient that Taylor Swift happened to change into a red dress that exactly matched that of Beyonce?  Earlier in the night, when the Kanye West incident took place, Swift was wearing a white dress…

…but later, when Beyonce “unexpectedly” called Taylor Swift back onto the stage, she just happened to have on a matching red dress…

We smell a rat.  Sure, you can argue that Kanye got tossed from the building and almost got into a fight with Pink over the incident.  That’s because, unlike the Eminem / Bruno incident, which had to have lots of people in on it in order to pull of the stunt (wires, timing, etc), only a handful of people knew about this incident.

We’re possibly talking about 5 people locked inside a room with black helicopters fling overhead.  OK, maybe not that dramatic, but MTV figured the fewer people to know about this incident, the better.

At the end of the day, this top secret project was a huge success.  Kanye West got tons of press (is there really any such thing as “bad press”), MTV benefited from viral traffic levels to its website, Taylor Swift got lots of attention and even got to give her “thank you” speech, and the real winner here is Beyonce, who go to come off looking like a true hero in front of a world-wide audience.  Heck, MTV even got the President talking about the gaffe.

There’s already a Kanye West Apology Generator and multiple parodies of the incident running wild on the web.

Again, as Stelter puts it…

The story arc couldn’t have been written more perfectly. The conflict teed off the show, created tension for two hours, then concluded when Beyonce invited Taylor Swift back on stage for a proper acceptance speech. Staged or not, there must be a good bit of back-patting at MTV’s headquarters today.

MTV will never let word leak out that this incident was staged, but you can bet your last penny that its marketing department is getting a BIG raise.

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