The moon is entering its first quarter, which doesn’t mean much to a lot of people, but probably accounts for how much of a mess Twitter was last night.
Just hours after MTV’s unveiling of the 2015 VMA nominations, fans and artists alike felt some type of way about them, and no one was holding back. It started with Nicki Minaj.
She tweeted out the following, expressing the same feeling of disappointment many of us felt after seeing that “Anaconda” wasn’t nominated for Video of the Year (and “Feeling Myself” featuring Queen Bey wasn’t nominated at all), while making an excellent point about the music industry at large:
If your video celebrates women with very slim bodies, you will be nominated for vid of the year
— NICKI MINAJ (@NICKIMINAJ) July 21, 2015
Taylor Swift inexplicably emerged from the center of the universe to respond to Nicki with this:
@NICKIMINAJ I've done nothing but love & support you. It's unlike you to pit women against each other. Maybe one of the men took your slot..
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) July 21, 2015
TSwift then invited Nicki up on stage with her when if she wins. She must have taken a cue from upstanding and gracious human being Beyonce, who let Taylor finish her speech at the VMAs six years ago.
@NICKIMINAJ If I win, please come up with me!! You're invited to any stage I'm ever on.
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) July 21, 2015
Aaron Paul tried to reconcile things between Taylor and Nicki by offering to feed them, but the one who really stirred the pot was Ryan Seacrest. Of all people. He has since updated the headline to his article chronicling the Nicki-Taylor exchange after Nicki made it clear that she wasn’t having none of that cattiness. Nicki then went on to make this glorious point about how Taylor took her music off of Spotify and was applauded, but the Tidal investors received a ton of backlash from the platform’s launch. In the end, the majority of people missed the point Nicki was ultimately trying to make about the VMA nominations, which was this:
If I was a different "kind" of artist, Anaconda would be nominated for best choreo and vid of the year as well.
— NICKI MINAJ (@NICKIMINAJ) July 21, 2015
When the "other" girls drop a video that breaks records and impacts culture they get that nomination.
— NICKI MINAJ (@NICKIMINAJ) July 21, 2015
Meanwhile, Kim Kardashian was still awake on the other side of the world posting pictures of herself, oblivious to what was going on in “the music world.”
Perez Hilton tried to capitalize off of the situation by shading Beyonce’s “7/11” (despite having previously praised it).
I'm thankful @NICKIMINAJ is inadvertently drawing attention to the fact that @Beyonce's Video Of The Year nominated "7/11" is pretty AWFUL!!
— Perez Hilton (@PerezHilton) July 22, 2015
Actually, he shaded Beyonce in general. Because nothing good happens late at night.
Also, if Beyonce could stop taking publishing credit from songs she didn't really write, that'd be solid! Rihanna don't pull that shit!
— Perez Hilton (@PerezHilton) July 22, 2015
The Beyhive came in on cue, and you can imagine the backlash Perez received. He’s probably under the covers with his laptop at the edge of his bed waiting for the dust to settle.
Around this time, Meek Mill’s thumbs started to get antsy. He posted this, just one in a series of tweets calling out Drake, rappers who don’t write their own raps, Hot 97, and Safaree Samuels. Because twerking.
Stop comparing drake to me too…. He don't write his own raps! That's why he ain't tweet my album because we found out!
— Meek Mill (@MeekMill) July 22, 2015
Rick Ross came through for a hot minute like 👀, later deleting this gem. Tell us how you really feel, Rick.
So Rick Ross just quickly tweeted & deleted this: pic.twitter.com/AipkreYNC7
— Rap Favorites (@RapFavorites) July 22, 2015
Twitter had degraded so much by then, Bruno Mars decided he wanted it with Ed Sheeran (jokingly, of course).
Yo I want in on this twitter Beef!! VMAs is the new WWF!! @edsheeran Fuck You!
— Bruno Mars (@BrunoMars) July 22, 2015
@BrunoMars any way we do dis you gon' come up short
— Ed Sheeran (@edsheeran) July 22, 2015
I’d like to point out that during all of this, Chris Brown was stuck in the Philippines doing flips.
Azealia Banks still felt slighted.
All my videos deserve VMas and my album deserves a Grammy but I'll never get one because America doesn't like opinionated black women.
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) July 21, 2015
Rihanna was promoting her new fragrance, which I am dying to try out.
Ladies!!! It's about that time!!! Brand new fragrance coming…. "RiRi" #ThisisRiRi pic.twitter.com/MBDteDQSTM
— Rihanna (@rihanna) July 22, 2015
And now, Toronto City Councillor Norm Kelly has put down his foot.
You're no longer welcome in Toronto, @MeekMill.
— Norm Kelly (@norm) July 22, 2015
All in all, a grand slam on Twitter. The VMAs are off to a great start. I’ll be posted up on a couch with popcorn and a cocktail on August 30. I’m turning my Drizzy notifications all the way on in the meantime.
Rainbow fairy Katy Perry has stepped into the shade room to get this hot mess back on track. Katy tweeted out the following, pointing out some inconsistencies with TSwift’s Twitter response to Nicki, while shedding light on the real winner, here: Rihanna.
Finding it ironic to parade the pit women against other women argument about as one unmeasurably capitalizes on the take down of a woman…
— KATY PERRY (@katyperry) July 22, 2015
The real travesty is where is the shine for #BBHMMVideo when VMA eligibility period was 7/7/14-7/1/15 & that gem dropped 7/1… @MTV
— KATY PERRY (@katyperry) July 22, 2015