A subreddit for 'based' and diehard Kanye West fans quickly grew to more than a thousand followers before being banned from Reddit
- A Reddit page for "based" Ye supporters gained more than a thousand members quickly and then was banned.
- It was taken down for "repeatedly violating Reddit's Moderator Code of Conduct," the page says.
Diehard supporters of Kanye West, who recently changed his legal name to Ye, created a Reddit fan page for 'based' Ye fans that quickly amassed over a thousand followers and then was promptly banned.
The subreddit, r/KanyeBased, was created in early November, according to Web Archive screenshots, but was banned on Tuesday afternoon "for repeatedly violating Reddit's Moderator Code of Conduct," the page says when anyone tries to access it.
West-themed Reddit pages have had a tumultuous time over the last month and a half as West sparked condemnation for an endless string of controversies, including falsely claiming George Floyd died of fentanyl and vowing to go "death con 3" on Jewish people, among other things.
Earlier this month, after West, praised Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in an interview with the right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, one loyal Ye subreddit announced that it was shutting down, while the biggest one on the website (with more than 723,000 subscribers) temporarily converted to a Holocaust education center and Taylor Swift appreciation page.
The r/KanyeBased page was one of the top ten fastest-growing subreddits of the last month before it was banned on Tuesday, according to the data analytics website Subreddit Stats, and peaked at over 1,200 subscribers.
The subreddit's bio described itself as a place where "free thought" was "encouraged" and described fans there as "based," a multilayered term and recurring meme phrase that grew in popularity because of the rapper Lil B, and is often used to describe a cool person. The right has also co-opted the word, using it both ironically and genuinely to cheer on far-right influencers.
On the day of Ye's interview with Jones, one user wrote a thread of the rapper's most "memorable quotes" from their talk, which included multiple antisemitic sentiments, according to a Web Archive screenshot of the thread.
It's unclear what specific posts sparked the subreddit's ban, and Reddit did not respond to Insider's request for comment.
After the r/KanyeBased page was banned, u/city_fox, a moderator of another Ye Reddit page — r/GoodAssSub, which has denounced Ye's antisemitic rhetoric — made a post mocking the "Based" offshoot.
The moderator wrote in the comments that "KanyeBased" was created by someone who was previously banned from r/GoodAssSub "for posting extremely antisemitic topics."
"It got banned because it was most likely continuing on with its antisemitic garbage," the moderator said.
Most of the major Ye Reddit pages and online discussion forums have repeatedly condemned Ye's hateful rhetoric and made efforts to remove harmful posts from the spaces.
Still, there are numerous channels on other platforms like Instagram dedicated to rallying around Ye and showing support for him as everyone else scatters.