Kanye West is back on Instagram and his activity is leaving the public highly suspicious

Instagram users are left suspicious of Kanye West’s motives after the rapper’s return to the social media platform on the heels of being banned for his antisemitic comments last year. Not only has he gone on a seemingly random — yet very intentional — unfollowing spree, but he’s also deleted a vast majority of his content. 

Indeed, Instagram is now one of the few places where West, who legally changed his name to Ye, is still active. After a series of antisemitic and lavishly insensitive comments both praising Hitler and insulting Jewish people, not to mention posting a photo of a swastika inside a Star of David, Ye was suspended from both Instagram and Twitter. 

What his return means for the public is that all eyes are trained on his online activity, as one truly can never predict what may come out of the former billionaire’s mouth. 

One Reddit user noted that Ye deleted all of his Instagram reels since his return. Understandably, the comment section of this post is filled with ideations about what exactly this might mean. Some predict it’ll involve music, others are convinced it’ll be about the 2024 election. 

Among the supposed thousands of accounts Ye unfollowed is the @kanyedefenseteam account, whose sole purpose is as the name implies – to defend Ye against any and all hate thrown his way, even the kind stemming from his antisemitic opinions. 

That’s not all. Ye also unfollowed Drake and Candace Owens, the latter of which he held in such high regard that she was even considered as his Vice Presidential running mate on his 2024 presidential campaign, according to Newsweek. Ye has made it clear he intends to run for office in 2024, but if that pans out, we’re not likely to see Owens by his side.  

On Reddit, one user pointed out that Ye’s follower count dropped from 7.3k to 6.1k since his return. However, as of this writing, We Got This Covered can confirm that Ye still has 7.3 followers, implying he either followed thousands of new accounts, or the same ones he briefly unfollowed. Except for Drake and Candance Owens, of course. 

Perhaps one of the more baffling and disturbing aspects of this whole scenario is who Ye has chosen to follow on his Instagram. A vast majority of accounts appear to be regular, ordinary people who are neither famous nor have more than a handful of followers themselves. Some don’t even have posts or profile pictures. It begs the question why? Many of these followers, such as @jamesssxu and @t_tonia1 were baffled themselves to discover that Ye was following them. These follows took place over the course of 2021 and 2022, not 2023.

This is not the first time Ye has returned to Instagram after being locked out, and it’s safe to say the public is waiting for him to be locked out once again. Unfortunately for Ye, that usually entails more antisemitic rants. The public may hope he just lies low and fads into memory, but knowing Ye that’s unlikely to happen.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, antisemitic incidents reached an “all-time high” in 2021, and 2022 is on a similar track. This includes assault, harassment, and vandalism. For more information on the dangers of antisemitic rhetoric and what you can do to stop it, see the American Jewish Committee’s Call to Action Against Antisemitism in America.