Kanye West at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards

It's a story that just couldn't be avoided this morning if you turned on any kind of media whatsoever. From Facebook messages to Twitter outrage, Kanye West's name is all over the place. So what's the big deal going on?

Well, unless you live under a rock somewhere, you probably have heard about his outburst on stage at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards (VMA). Taylor Swift was chosen for Best Female Music Video and just began her acceptance speech when he got on stage, took the microphone from her, and blurted out this little nugget: "Tayler, I'm really happy for you, and I'm gonna let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time!" And once again he left everyone scratching their heads; even Beyonce didn't seem to know what was going on.

This isn't the first time that Kanye's made himself look like a complete imbecil. Let's take the slew of awards shows where he's ranted about his not winning anything. There was the American Music Awards in 2004 where he claimed, "I was the best artist of the year" when Gretchen Wilson won Best New Artist instead of him. Then there's the 2005 Grammy Awards, where he warned there would "be a real problem" if he didn't win anything. The 2007 MTV VMA's were no exception when he walked away with no awards after 5 nominations and went off about his lack of winnings.

Then there is the best of all, in my opinion - the 2005 Hurricane Katrina relief efforts tirade. Although short and sweet, his appearance during the NBC live relief efforts event was incredibly memorable. Standing alongside with Mike Myers, he blurted out, "George Bush doesn't carea bout black people". Which, you know, was probably true, but poor Mike Myeres was left standing there and even the quick-witted comedian had no idea how to follow-up. Then we cut to poor Chris Tucker, who was caught quickly in a hallway trying to pick up the pieces.

So although there are probably alot more examples I can nit-pick at, the real question here is this: Is all this helping Kanye get more famous? Probably. But in a good way? Who knows. They say that when you're in showbiz, no publicity is bad publicity. From all of this chaos, we will remember Kanye's name. I can honestly say that I truly hate this man, yet all morning, I unfortunately had 'Gold Digger' stuck in my head and can't get it out. Whenever he releases his next album, people will inevitably check it out, just to see what kind of nonsense comes out of his mouth next. And in the long run, this does make him infamous. And this will keep him just famous enough that when the next generation of tweens-turned-music-lovers comes along, his name will still be floating out there and they'll check him out.