Kanye West Fans Debate What To Do With All That Yeezy Merch
Kanye West’s path to merch dominance started with his Yeezus tour: Back in 2013, he traveled to city after city with truckloads of covetable, resellable concert tees and more. Some showed off benign logos. Others, like items bearing the Confederate flag, embodied the audacity for which he’s always been both adored and abhorred. More album and tour merch followed through the years, as did West’s Yeezy brand—another opportunity for fans to explicitly buy into a man who courts controversy. T-shirts adorned with a symbol of the Antebellum South’s racist history presented an ethical bind, but his fans could convince themselves they’d reappropriated the symbol and wore their Yeezus tour merch with pride. Still, none of West’s previous actions have elicited as much furor as his recent support of Donald Trump, his assertion that four centuries of slavery sounded like a choice—by the enslaved, or his cozying up to right-wing charlatans. At this point, it’s worth serious consideration that West might unveil red-pill-inspired attire in the future. And his recent behavior has created a quandary for even his biggest fans: What’s to be done with their assorted West-related apparel? Read more at GQ.
