"People always say that you can't please everybody. I think that's a cop-out. Why not attempt it? 'Cause think of all the people you will please if you try"
About this Quote
Kanye’s line is ambition disguised as pep talk, and it lands because it weaponizes a familiar cliché. “You can’t please everybody” is usually deployed as permission to stop caring, a self-help exhale that quietly lowers the bar. Kanye flips it into an accusation: if you’re repeating that phrase, you might be protecting your comfort more than your vision. Calling it “a cop-out” isn’t subtle; it’s a public shaming of mediocrity, the kind that fits an artist whose brand has always been maximalism.
The subtext is classic Kanye: the impossible isn’t a reason to retreat, it’s a reason to scale up. “Why not attempt it?” reads like the internal monologue of someone who treats criticism as fuel and constraints as stage props. There’s also an implicit bet on audacity as a social technology. Aim for everyone, and even if you miss, you still rack up converts. That last clause - “think of all the people you will please if you try” - is a marketer’s logic wrapped in motivational language: not perfection, but reach.
Context matters because this isn’t coming from a quiet craftsman. It’s coming from a pop figure who built his career by insisting his taste could become the culture’s taste, whether the culture asked or not. The line captures the seductive edge of that posture: a refusal to accept limits can be visionary, but it can also rationalize bulldozing dissent. Pleasing everybody becomes less a promise of empathy than a demand for dominance.
The subtext is classic Kanye: the impossible isn’t a reason to retreat, it’s a reason to scale up. “Why not attempt it?” reads like the internal monologue of someone who treats criticism as fuel and constraints as stage props. There’s also an implicit bet on audacity as a social technology. Aim for everyone, and even if you miss, you still rack up converts. That last clause - “think of all the people you will please if you try” - is a marketer’s logic wrapped in motivational language: not perfection, but reach.
Context matters because this isn’t coming from a quiet craftsman. It’s coming from a pop figure who built his career by insisting his taste could become the culture’s taste, whether the culture asked or not. The line captures the seductive edge of that posture: a refusal to accept limits can be visionary, but it can also rationalize bulldozing dissent. Pleasing everybody becomes less a promise of empathy than a demand for dominance.
Quote Details
| Topic | Motivational |
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