Update 7:17am CT, April 16: West returned to Twitter on Sunday and resumed tweeting. He’s been an active user, too, tweeting 14 times in a day. He now only follows wife Kim Kardashian. He seems more loose and playful. He’s posted common social media jokes like “caption this” around an old photo, merch ideas, tattoo ideas, and specs for his fashion line.
He posted a sweet behind-the-scenes photo with beleaguered former brother-in-law Lamar Odom, writing “my favorite moment of walking into MSG to play Saint Pablo, I used to go to the hospital and play Lamar the album when he was learning to walk and talk again Then we walked into the arena together.”
And he wasn’t kidding about that philosophy thing.
“[O]ften people working with the existing consciousness are jealous of those who are more in touch and they become hard-core capitalist in hopes of creating the illusion that the value of money is worth more than the value of time and friends,” he wrote.
On Twitter at least, it’s Yeezy season.
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Kanye West briefly reactivated his Twitter account Friday night to delete all of his tweets—and then he quietly deactivated again.
The rapper didn’t announce he’d be doing any of this, but eagle-eyed fans noticed the changes and captured screenshots as it was happening:
Kanye West is back on twitter @kanyewest pic.twitter.com/CyPs6iYPya
— YEEZY MAFIA (@theyeezymafia) April 14, 2018
He removed all his tweets, starting off fresh 👀 https://t.co/SfA9dX0I0A
— YEEZY MAFIA (@theyeezymafia) April 14, 2018
West deactivated his account last May and hasn’t been heard from since on Twitter. It’s unclear what—if anything—the purge means, but it came just hours after West revealed that he’s in the process of writing a philosophy book. In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter Friday, West said that the working title is Break the Simulation, and he’s specifically interested in how we relate to time.
“I’ve got this philosophy—or let’s say it’s just a concept because sometimes philosophy sounds too heavy-handed,” he said. “I’ve got a concept about photographs, and I’m on the fence about photographs—about human beings being obsessed with photographs—because it takes you out of the now and transports you into the past or transports you into the future. It can be used to document, but a lot of times it overtakes [people]. People dwell too much in the memories.”
While tweets aren’t exactly photographs, it might be possible that West is no longer excited about having a living public archive of his iconic shorthand.