Lessons Kanye West and Ben Affleck taught us on Valentine’s Day

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Lessons Kanye West and Ben Affleck taught us on Valentine’s Day Kanye west Notes on cringe vs. creepy from the fraught world of celebrity romantic gestures On Monday, Kanye West (who now goes by Ye) appeared to present a gift to his ex, Kim Kardashian. His Instagram account posted a photo of a battalion of flowers in a pickup truck emblazoned with the words, “My Vision is Krystal Klear." Some news outlets publicized the gesture as if it were a scene in a romantic comedy: “Newly single Kanye West delivers truckload of roses to Kim Kardashian on Valentine’s Day.” The flower truck seems to have been part of a months-long win-back-Kim campaign — an effort that had already found West rapping at a December concert, “I need you to run right back to me, baby,” and adding, “more specifically, Kimberly.” On Sunday, he’d advised his Instagram followers to “HOLD YOUR SPOUSE CLOSE” and “MAKE SURE THEY KNOW HOW MUCH YOU LOVE AND APPRECIATE THEM.” Did West spend his Valentine’s Day on a cringe romantic gesture? Or did he spend his Valentine’s Day being a creepy ex? A few notes on cringe and creepiness: Cringe is unwanted flowers that say “Be Mine.” Creepy is unwanted flowers that say “You’re mine.” Cringe is when you feel bad for the person who sent the flowers. Creepy is when you feel bad for whoever received them. Gestures that begin as cringe can occasionally become romantic depending on how they are received — a fool spelling out “Marry Me” with 7,000 daisies is a fool only if the answer is “no.” Creepy gestures are unsalvageable. They are wrong from the jump, no matter how many people want to think they’re right. West might have assumed his behavior was the kind of cringe that verges on irresistible. If America has learned anything from the romantic-comedy genre, it’s this: If the object of your affection does not return your affection, the solution is to affectionate more, and bigger. Hold up the boombox in the rain, choreograph a dance on the bleachers, threaten to jump off a Ferris wheel. Wear her down. Humiliate your way back into his heart. Whether he was consciously following the template, West’s actions had a sort of rom-com logic. As Valentine’s Day fades once more into the gray, it’s worth thinking about romantic acts and acceptable behavior. Because for all the persistence-is-a-virtue thinking Hollywood has seeded in moviegoers, the rom-com industry has not churned out quite as many examples of the unromantic comedy: the one in which two adults end a relationship, and instead of one trying to win the other back, they box up each other’s iPhone chargers and agree to be civil at mutual friends’ Super Bowl parties. This seems like the kind of template a lot of people could use as they try to return to healthy baseline after a hard breakup. More specifically, Kimberly has publicly shown no interest in rekindling her relationship with West. She is dating someone else, “Saturday Night Live’s” Pete Davidson. She had not made any statements sharing his desire for reunification; she had merely posted that she was seeking a “healthy and supportive co-parenting relationship.” More specifically, Kimberly texted West, “Why can’t you keep any of our conversations private?” and West texted back, “Cause I got a text from my favorite person in the world. I’m your number one fan,” and then he posted a photograph of that exchange, too. (Kardashian also texted that West was creating a “dangerous and scary environment” — she seemed worried that his public attention could stir up any of his 13 million followers who were invested in seeing West as the romantic hero of this plot. West posted that screen image, too — though that and many other posts later disappeared from his Instagram account.) This was creepy. And in fact, it had been from the jump. Kardashian was not consenting to starring in this particular romantic comedy. She certainly wasn’t consenting to her private text exchanges being used by her ex as evidence of his own devotion. (West seemed to acknowledge his behavior Tuesday in an Instagram post. “I know sharing screen shots was jarring and came off as harassing Kim,” the post read, in part. “I take accountability.”) West and Kardashian are mega-celebrities but they are also people, and parents, and there’s an argument to be made that peering into this dysfunctional one-sided pursuit is tawdry at best and unhealthy at worst. But celebrity relationships have a way of playing out as their own instructional videos, whether they should or not. Influencers influence people. West encouraging his fans to “Make sure your [spouse] knows how much you appreciate them” is sending the message that the way to do this is via truckloads of unwanted flowers and public outbursts of ego and heartache. A better lesson this week comes from an extremely unlikely place: the Valentine’s Day gift Ben Affleck presented to his girlfriend, Jennifer Lopez. He made her a personalized music video in which Lopez’s new song, “On My Way” was paired with photos of the two of them. Inexplicably, Affleck seemed to have only current photos of J. Lo and have only photos of him circa “Good Will Hunting.” (Matt Damon appeared more than seemed strictly necessary for this genre of gift.) But J. Lo liked it. In fact, she liked it so much she publicized it herself. “This seriously melted my heart,” she wrote in her newsletter. It was seriously cringe. But thankfully, it wasn’t any more than that. Source Washington Post