No, the culprit was Kanye West and his record-breaking concert in Istanbul on May 30, 2026.
I know how ridiculous that sounds. A grown woman sitting in Istanbul, having an existential crisis because of Kanye West.
But I did.
For a moment, I was about five minutes away from packing a bag and leaving the city. Not forever, obviously. Maybe just for a few days. Long enough to stop reading comments, stop questioning my life choices, and stop wondering why I was trying so hard to belong to a place that suddenly felt so far away from me.
And then, of course, reality came back in the most Istanbul way possible.
There were my cats.
Cats that needed food.
So I stayed.
But it wasn’t even really about him. At least not only.
For a while, I thought I understood Istanbul better than I probably did. Until suddenly, under a sea of comments about Kanye West, I woke up.
Not because Kanye West is my religion. Because there is a difference between not liking someone and being openly disrespectful.
There is a difference between saying “his music is not for me” and speaking about one of the most influential artists of the last decades like he is a random man who accidentally walked onto a stage.
And there is definitely a difference between criticism and racism.
And…How can you not know Kanye West?
Maybe this is where I start sounding arrogant.
But honestly? I don’t think I am.
The real arrogance belongs to the ones who know absolutely nothing about him, yet somehow have every racist comparison ready to go. The ones who speak with absolute confidence about things they clearly do not understand. The ones who turn ignorance into an opinion and disrespect into entertainment.
To speak about him like he is a no-name with bad fashion taste?
To ask why people would pay money to see a clown perform?
To compare him to stereotypes, make racist remarks, or reduce him to the color of his skin?
That did something to me. It was a heavy dose of racism in a city I always believed to be warm and friendly. Thousands of cruel comments written by regular people—people with photos of their own children in their profile pictures. People who probably teach kindness at home, then log online to write things that should deeply embarrass them.
And there were thousands.
So yes, again: I think it is ridiculous not to know Kanye West.
But what shocked me more was how quickly not knowing turned into mocking. How quickly mocking turned into racism. How comfortable people were being cruel in public.
I was sitting there, scrolling through these comments, and I could feel something in me getting colder.
Not angry in a cute, funny way. Not “haha, Istanbul is so mean” angry.
Actually angry.
Some people should really put the ’gram away. Ideally forever.
But in the end, maybe it is up to you which mood you let win.
120,000 people showed up with good music taste, respect for the moment, and enough energy to remind me that the comment section was never the whole city.
Maybe it was just the ugliest room in the house.
Maybe the loudest Istanbul is not always the realest one.
Maybe social media simply makes the ugliest voices sound bigger than they are.
Maybe I cannot change everything, and maybe I should not point my finger at an entire city.
Maybe I should relax.
Listen to “Paranoid.”
Drink more tea.
And remember that Istanbul is rarely one thing.
Sometimes it makes you want to leave.
Sometimes it reminds you why you stayed.
Elanur Dinc is the founder of Istanbul Muse, former agency owner and writer, originally raised in Germany and living in Istanbul for over six years. What started as a temporary move for a project slowly turned into a deep emotional connection with the city. Somewhere between chaos, stray cats and emotional overstimulation, she accidentally became a little bit of an Istanbul muse herself. She came to Istanbul for work — and stayed for the cats. Through personal essays and urban observations, she writes about the beauty, contradictions and emotional intensity of everyday life in Istanbul.
