Anthony Fantano's "Unreviewable" Review of Kanye's "Vultures 1"

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Part of a series on Anthony Fantano. [View Related Entries]

Overview

Anthony Fantano's "Unreviewable" Review of Kanye's "Vultures 1" refers to discourse created by YouTuber and music reviewer Anthony Fantano's video about Ty Dolla $ign and Kanye West's 2024 album Vultures 1 in which Fantano refused to review the album, labeling the video "unreviewable 1." Fantano's reasoning for not reviewing the album was mostly based on Ye's anti-Semitism controversy. On Twitter / X and Reddit, among other sites, users criticized Fantano's video. Many of the memes threatened Fantano with death threats or made jokes about him being bald and divorced. Fantano's opponents online (who were also Ye's fans) then garnered their own backlash. Many viewed Ye's fans as immature and abrasive to criticism.

Background

Starting on February 8th, 2024, Anthony Fantano started to tweet about Kanye West's then-new album Vultures 1, evident in a quote he posted to X^[1] on February 8th, reading, "kanye’s cult is the most sensitive, tender, and whiny bunch of babies on the internet. literally afraid of an opinion." (shown below, left). Fantano's tweets^[2] about Vultures 1 continued into February 2024 (examples shown below, right).

On February 12th, 2024, Fantano posted a video to his YouTube^[3] channel theneedledrop titled "unreviewable 1" in which he discussed why he disliked Vultures 1 and stated that it was "completely unreviewable trash." Overall, Fantano criticized Kanye West for his anti-Semitism as well as his lyrics and production on the album which Fantano believed were poor. Fantano also criticized Kanye West's fans who remained his fans after the anti-Semitism controversies. In less than a day, the video received over 759,200 views (shown below).

Later on February 12th, 2024, Fantano posted a "full reaction" to his secondary YouTube^[4] channel TNDstreams that was recorded from his then-recent livestream, gaining over 146,700 views in less than a day (shown below).

Online Reaction

Criticism

Many users levied criticism on X on February 12th, 2024. Many tweets criticizing Fantano's review also referenced Fantano being bald or referenced Fantano and his ex-wife divorcing years prior. For instance, on February 12th, X^[7] user @outmycircle tweeted a screenshot of his own reply that called Fantano "baldy," receiving over 8,200 likes in less than a day (shown below, left).

Others on X criticized Fantano without referencing his appearance or marital status, like X^[8] user @Mid20Rag3r on February 12th, 2024, who criticized Fantano for virtue signaling, gaining over 9,200 likes in less than a day (shown below, right).

Similar posts surfaced on Reddit, specifically within Kanye West subreddits like /r/Kanye. For instance, on February 12th, 2024, Redditor krey100 posted Fantano's tweets to /r/Kanye^[9] captioned, "Fantano post-divorce mental breakdown on Twitter !!" receiving over 2,600 upvotes in a day (shown below, left).

Later on February 12th, 2024, Redditor TheEternalGazed shared a similar X screenshot to /r/Hiphopcirclejerk^[10] that showed replies to Fantano about his divorce, receiving over 2,600 votes in a day (shown below, right).

Death Threats

On February 12th, 2024, users started to post memes that joked about Fantano's death referencing his video on Vultures 1. For instance, on February 12th, before Fantano posted his review, X^[5] user @swgswgskool tweeted, "fantano shot dead at 38 with a 50 cal," gaining over 6,300 likes in a day (shown below, left).

Later on February 12th, 2024, X^[6] user @notchr1stopher posted a similar tweet that captioned a video of a man shooting a gun with, "anthony fantano meet and greet," gaining over 8,400 likes in less than a day (shown below, right).

Support

Support for Fantano and criticism of the people angered by Fantano's review surfaced during the same timeframe. For instance, on February 12th, 2024, X^[11] user @DisastroMan tweeted, "Just watched my first Fantano review in like 5 years and I’m not gonna lie he spat here, feel free to unfollow byeee," gaining over 2,900 likes in less than a day (shown below, left).

Also on February 12th, 2024, X^[12] user @HipHopNumbers posted a tweet in which they agreed with Fantano's video, gaining over 7,200 likes in less than a day (shown below, right).

Others posted memes that criticized the death threat posts, like X^[13] user @quebecween on February 13th, 2024, who quoted @notchr1stopher's tweet,^[6] writing, "can you imagine being some guy with music opinions and 6k people agree they wanna shoot you," earning over 12,000 likes in less than a day (shown below).

Similar criticism of the anti-Fantano reactions on Twitter / X were shared on Reddit, like a comment shared by Redditor^[14] razzberry20 on the /r/Hiphopcirclejerk^[10] post that stated, "Music discourse on twitter has never been worse man , I’m not saying a agree with fantano but you can just tell all these large HHT accounts are run by literal children," earning over 1,600 upvotes in less than a day.

Another Redditor^[15] (kimariadil) then compared the admins to male, white teenagers with Zoomer Perms, earning over 630 upvotes in less than a day (shown below).