Rap icon Kanye West, also known as Ye, returned to the social media platform X in early 2025, igniting controversy after posting a series of inflammatory messages to his millions of followers. Though the posts were later deleted, the reaction they provoked—and the content itself—continues to draw attention, revealing how even deleted material can remain influential in the digital age.
Among the now-removed posts, West attempted to justify his ramblings. He additionally wrote, “Trumps back in office. Ye’s back a billionaire. The world might just be ok,” and “Damn. Just warming up. I’m rich. I can say whatever the f*ck I want. I do this for the broke me. Shout out to broke me this ones for you.”
The posts initially remained live for several days, during which users expressed concern over the platform’s apparent reluctance to moderate content especially with Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. X later took action after West began posting links to explicit videos—a shift that prompted direct intervention by the platform. However, the damage was already done.
While West’s tweets were scrubbed from his timeline, their impact continues to ripple. Screenshots, reposts, and commentary have ensured that his statements live on, illustrating the difficulty of containing speech once it has been broadcast to a large audience.
One resurfaced post from Feb. 2 has been going around on Reddit. It was captioned, “Bro’s breath was taken by George Floyd Creepypastas.” An accompanying image shows Sneako, a controversial online content creator and recent collaborator of West, holding a copy of George Floyd Creepypastas Volume 1: 50+ Breathtaking Horror Stories by Jordan Cleeman. The book, according to its description, plays on well-known internet horror stories—known as creepypastas—by repurposing original plot elements with narratives revolving around George Floyd, the man whose death in 2020 sparked Black Lives Matter protests.
The inclusion of the book in West’s post was especially jarring. Some considered it a calculated provocation, given the charged symbolism surrounding Floyd’s death and the book’s controversial framing, making use of the word “breath” as a pun. In the past, George Floyd Creepypastas Volume 1, conceivably due to its inflammatory content, surged in apparent influence. As of July 1 2024, it was listed as one of the bestselling paperbacks on the Barnes & Noble website.
It remains unclear whether West personally deleted the image or if X removed it for violating its guidelines. Nevertheless, its resurfacing has revived discussion about the persistence of edgy content online.
User responses were mixed, with some calling the material shocking and others noting the irony. “Imagining telling someone in 2015 that Kanye West will talk about Creepypasta, and then this is the tweet you show them,” a person commented on one of the reposts.
Despite West’s deletion of the tweets, platforms like X emain fertile ground for controversial voices to amplify messages that can provoke long-term consequences. As West’s posts continue to circulate on the internet, the incident has become a case of the enduring power of shocking content, officially online. even when its’s no longer officially online.
