Right as we rang in 2015, Kanye West released “Only One,” a keyboard ballad about his wife, Kim Kardashian, and daughter, North West, cowritten with Sir Paul McCartney. And, in an outpouring of confusion we’ve come to expect in moments like these (see also: Arcade Fire, “Bonnie Bear,” and OutKast), the phrase “Who is Paul McCartney?” spread across Twitter.
But did anyone asking the question really mean it?
Major media outlets seemed to think so and were ringing their hands accordingly, but embedded observers recognized many of these tweets as winking one-liners intended to enrage old fogies. Soon enough, the backlash to the backlash had reached peak reflexivity. (On top of which, like, who actually cares?)
Adults making fun of millenials for not knowing who Paul McCartney is need to tell me right now the sax player in The Glen Miller Orchestra.
— Mark Agee (@MarkAgee) January 2, 2015
https://twitter.com/celebrityhottub/status/551208803463884800
Please bear with me for a moment, I'm just prepping an article where I post a bunch of tweets knowing who Paul McCartney is
— koyaanisqatsi heckler (@Arr) January 4, 2015
Teens don't know who Paul McCartney is. They don't know who you are, either. Also they'll outlive you.
— Sean Thomason (@TheThomason) January 4, 2015
https://twitter.com/totallymorgan/status/551596091737899008
https://twitter.com/totallymorgan/status/551859548349558785
https://twitter.com/erockappel/status/551648922549379072
https://twitter.com/mikesacco/status/551669329570197506
Who is this Paul McCartney character on the new Kanye West record? Please retweet this derisively 7000 times.
— pointy (@chipspopandabar) January 4, 2015
This is at least the third "Who is Paul McCartney" Twitter outrage. Nirvana reunion, Grammys performance. Probably more, I'm sure.
— Just Dan now (@usedtobedan) January 5, 2015
Paul McCartney is a musical demigod IMO but the world isn't doomed if a teen on Twitter doesn't know who he is. You can still get Starbucks
— leigh (@roaringblood) January 5, 2015
Kanye teamed up with WHO? the only hit Paul McCartney's had in the last twenty years is hitting the hay. And early at that, because he's old
— Cakemittens (@cakemittens) January 3, 2015
I'm not mad at the kids who don't know who Sir Paul McCartney is, but I would love to force their parents to make eye contact with me.
— Hailey Boyle (@HaileyButter) January 5, 2015
whether or not those people were joking about "who is paul mccartney?" i'm glad we can at least all agree that the beatles are terrible
— Matt Novak (@paleofuture) January 2, 2015
https://twitter.com/radioovermoscow/status/551888881012842496
If you want the honest answer, though, you’ve got it, thanks to a curiously similar shitshow over the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012:
"Who is Paul McCartney"? why, only the guy who wrote "Temporary Secretary"! http://t.co/mXAJVPek
— 💿 Boyd Genius (@diss1) February 13, 2012
Glad we could clear all that up. And the next time you want to suggest that civilization is dying because a handful of 12-year-olds don’t yet know about a musician who made his greatest contributions to the medium half a century ago, do us all a favor: don’t.
Photo by Eduardo Pelosi/Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0)