Taylor Swift Is More Influential Than Kanye West, Despite What He Says

Taylor Swift fans were just starting to forgive Kanye West after his shocking behavior at the Video Music Awards back in 2009 when he interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech to claim that Beyonce should have won the award rather than Taylor Swift.

But Beyoncé had one of the best music videos of ALL TIME….. pic.twitter.com/tEjhWvdsco

— AB (@ABDaleyy) August 31, 2015

Kanye’s now-infamous words have been repeated and mocked umpteen times since the event took place, and it took many Taylor Swift fans years to forgive Kanye for ruining Taylor Swift’s moment (and for putting Beyoncé in an extremely awkward position at the same time).

“I’ma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time!”

And just when Taylor Swift and her fans were truly putting the past behind them, Kanye West has come out with fresh jibes and attacks on Taylor Swift.

In particular, as Forbes reports, Kanye recently claimed that he is 50 percent more influential than “any other human being, dead or alive,” and he included Pablo Picasso, Stanley Kubrick, and even Paul the Apostle as examples.

But what Kanye didn’t take into consideration is that influence is a metric that can be measured, and Nielsen Talent Analytics has done just that. According to a recent poll, less than 25 percent of adults in the United States consider Kanye to be influential, compared to a 55 percent positive reply when asked about Taylor Swift’s influence.

These figures came as a result of weekly surveys that Nielsen was already conducting, whereby they question approximately 1,000 consumers in the United States on a weekly basis and ask their opinion on 50 entertainers. The data is usually used to create Nielsen’s “N-Score,” a metric that measures various entertainers’ endorsement potential.

As it turns out, Kanye West in his latest song “Famous” suggested that it was his comments at the 2009 VMA’s that rocketed Taylor Swift into superstardom. On the face of it, he may have a point, as Taylor Swift’s earnings in 2009 were $18 million, which then jumped to $45 million in earnings in 2010, and have proceeded to increase yearly ever since.

“For all my Southside n***as who will know me best / I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why, I made that b***h famous / God damn / I made that b***h famous.”

But whether Kanye West is the reason for Taylor Swift’s rise to superstardom, or whether his comments were merely a blip on the radar in what was already going to be a meteoric rise for Taylor Swift, remains to be seen. After all, Taylor Swift was already receiving an award at the VMAs before Kanye interrupted her, so she was already doing quite nicely without his “help.”

Here is a list of #TaylorSwift‘s accomplishments BEFORE #KanyeWest “made her famous” https://t.co/PjUav23VQZ pic.twitter.com/aS85JSzqcp

— Perez Hilton (@PerezHilton) February 12, 2016

Pérez Hilton made a list of Taylor Swift’s accomplishments prior to Kanye’s now-infamous comments at the VMAs, which include having 15 songs charting in the Billboard Hot 100; one American Music Award, three Teen Choice Awards, five CMT Music Awards, and one Grammy nomination for Best New Artist, for which Amy Winehouse was ultimately awarded the prize.

It seemed to many people who watched the Grammy Awards last week that Taylor Swift took a huge dig at Kanye during her acceptance speech for her Album of the Year, especially when she advised young women to watch out for people who attempt to “take credit for your accomplishments for your fame,” advising young women to “just focus on the work and don’t let those people sidetrack you.”

But in a bizarre coincidence, Forbes reports that Ken Ehrlich, Grammys producer, claims that Taylor Swift had not heard Kanye’s “Famous” song prior to making her acceptance speech. Were these comments truly a coincidence, or is Taylor Swift now backpedalling after calling out Kanye in such a public way? And in any event, Ehrlich’s statement could merely be a play on words: just because Taylor Swift may not have heard the song in its entirety doesn’t mean that she hadn’t been informed about its misogynistic lyrics.

[Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images]