Has Anyone Seen Kanye West?

This week has been a big one for Kanye West. On Monday, a Los Angeles court formally approved a request for his name to be shortened to just Ye. Apparently it’s because “Ye” is the most commonly used word in the Bible, which seems a bit suspicious to me. I’m no Christian, but you’re telling me it was used more times than “the” or “a”? “It actually means ‘you’ in the Bible,” you might respond. Don’t talk down to me.

The name change came with a weird new haircut posted on Instagram that is intentionally ugly, and therefore interesting, many Kanye fans would have us believe. In any case, the biggest change is that for the last couple of days he has been spotted wearing what Page Six calls a “creepy caucasian mask,” which is accurate because white people are scary. This comes just a day after he was spotted wearing a similar, more green-tinted mask, and a few months after he wore a burglar-chic ski mask while attending the Balenciaga Couture show.

Most recently, he was spotted in the caucasian mask again, this time having lunch with disbarred (cancel culture alert) former MAGA lawyer Michael Cohen and two other people, a PR guy named Ronn Torossian and the Israeli judo star Or Sassoon. What could they possibly be talking about? Probably something very normal.

According to Page Six, Cohen claimed West was wearing the Halloween Kills-inspired disguise because he wanted some privacy after being mobbed by fans moments earlier at the same coffee bar. The only problem is, everyone knows he is the man wearing the creepy caucasain mask. It has been covered in the press, and also these same fans just saw him moments before not wearing the mask. Which begs the question: does West think we are all babies who don’t understand object permanence? You can’t just put on a mask when you want to “hide.” That’s not how anonymity works.

Clearly, West is not in fact trying to hide at all, and I’m currently falling into the trap of paying attention to him. But it’s hard to not wonder — why this mask? It must be so hot and sticky. Were Cohen and friends asking him to repeat himself over and over because his voice was muffled? My guess is they eventually just gave up and nodded along. I’m sure there’s a lesson in there somewhere.