Overview

Kanye West and Kim Kardashian Vogue Cover refers to a controversial cover photo for the April edition of the fashion magazine Vogue featuring the celebrity couple Kanye West and Kim Kardashian.

Background

On March 21st, 2014, Vogue^[1] published an article revealing the cover for their upcoming April magazine, which featured rapper Kanye West embracing his wife Kim Kardashian from behind (shown below).

Notable Developments

Online Reactions

The same day, actress Sarah Michelle posted a tweet that she would be cancelling her subscription to Vogue, garnering upwards of 13,000 favorites and 9,700 retweets in four days.

Also on March 21st, The Muppets Facebook page posted a mock Vogue cover featuring the Muppet characters Kermit and Miss Piggy, gathering more than 23,300 likes and 6,700 shares that week.

Meanwhile, actor James Franco posted a photoshopped version of the cover with him and actor Seth Rogen superimposed over West and Kardashian to his Instagram^[2] feed (shown below). In the first four days, the post received over 233,000 likes. On the following day, Rogen tweeted the same image, gathering more than 37,000 favorites and 36,000 retweets in 72 hours.

Also on March 22nd, Redditor MathildaIsTheBest submitted a post asking why the cover was controversial to the /r/OutOfTheLoop^[8] subreddit, where Redditor mayiadmireyou speculated that it had to do with Kardashian gaining fame through a leaked sex tape and reality show. On March 24th, the Today show aired a segment on the cover, featuring a photoshopped version with hosts Al Roker and Will Geist (shown below).

News Media Coverage

In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the Vogue cover controversy, including The Mirror,^[9] UpRoxx,^[10] The Daily Beast,^[11] ABC News^[12] and The Washington Post.^[13]

Photoshopped iPad Photo

Another photograph in the Vogue spread showed Kardashian taking a selfie with her child while West is shown taking a photo of the pair with an iPad (shown below). On March 24th, the tech news blog Gizmodo^[5] published an article speculating that the photograph had been poorly photoshopped by the magazine, pointing out how Kanye's reflection is absent from the mirror.

The same day, Gawker staff writer Sam Biddle tweeted an edited version of the photo in which West is shown looking at himself on the iPad. In the first 24 hours, the tweet gained over 190 favorites and 170 retweets.

Also on March 24th, copywriter Bobby Finger tweeted a transparent exploitable version of the photo, encouraging others to make their own edited variations. On March 25th, several news sites reported on the photoshopped picture, including UpRoxx,^[4] The Huffington Post^[6] and The Daily Mail.^[7]

Search Interest

External References