Let's Stop Trying To Make Feuds Happen

Because it wouldn't be the VMAs without Kanye West calling someone out during a speech, Yeezy name-dropped Justin Timberlake during his rambling, 13-minute acceptance speech for the Video Vanguard Award on Sunday night. In addition to admitting that he "rolled up" something before the show and announcing that he's running for president in 2020, Kanye West called out Justin Timberlake for crying after he lost the Album of the Year Grammy in 2013. Even though numerous media outlets interpreted this as a diss, Timberlake himself ultimately supported West's comments. PSA: It's time that we stop trying to make feuds happen.

At the VMAs on Sunday night, West said of Timberlake:

The contradiction is: I do fight for artists, but in that fight I somehow was disrespectful to artists. I didn't know how to say the right thing, the perfect thing. I just... I sat at the Grammys and saw Justin Timberlake and Cee-Lo lose. Gnarls Barkley and the Future Sex album... Justin, I ain't trying to put you on blast but I saw that man in tears, bro. And I was thinking like, he deserves to win album of the year.

So, yes, West made mention of the fact that Timberlake was crying (and it is important to note that the two have exchanged some barbs in public before), but there was no actual shade thrown. In fact, West was actually supportive of his supposed rival, plainly saying that he thought Timberlake should've won. For his part, Timberlake initially tweeted that West was "cute," quickly clarifying that it was a "joke" after it was interpreted as a diss. And then later, when the singer watched West's entire speech, he called the rapper out — in support of his sentiment:

Feuds were a hot topic surrounding the 2015 MTV Movie Awards, but not every little tiff/disagreement/argument needs to be labeled as such. Just because the always controversial West name-dropped Timberlake in his acceptance speech doesn't mean that there's any actual beef between them, especially considering they just proved that there isn't.

It's tempting to call the Nicki Minaj/Miley Cyrus drama a "feud," but hopefully that, too, will go the way of the Nicki Minaj/Taylor Swift situation. In fact, the Minaj/Swift situation (in which the rapper made legit points about women of color in the music industry, which Swift interpreted as shade directed towards her) was actually a misunderstanding that put some serious and important issues about race in the spotlight. Plus, it gave the world a surprisingly emotional Swift/Minaj performance of "Bad Blood" at the VMAs. It may have started out as a feud, but it turned into something much more poignant, significant, and actually beneficial to society.

In that same vein, however, it's time people stop mislabeling and exaggerating low-minimum drama (like West's mere mention of Timberlake) as a "feud." I get the urge to overdramatize, but sometimes, not to get all Freudian here, but a cigar is just a cigar. And Kanye West just name-dropping Justin Timberlake is sometimes just Kanye West name-dropping Justin Timberlake. And that's perfectly OK.