At this year’s Super Bowl, Kanye West (AKA Ye) paid for a much-coveted advertising spot, only to air an iPhone shot video where he claimed he’d spent the commercial’s budget on some new teeth. But lying in the dentist’s chair, he still found time to instruct his fans to: “Go to yeezy.com.”

As of today, though, yeezy.com returns nothing but an error message. Why? It could be something to do with the fact that Yeezy’s only product was a $20 white t-shirt with a literal swastika on the front.

In case you’ve been off X (good for you) the decision to hawk Nazi merch follows a streak of controversial posts by the rapper, many of them antisemitic and misogynistic. Some lowlights include: “I’m a Nazi”, “I have dominion over my wife”, and “I love Hitler [...] Now what bitches.” 

His X account also appears to have been deactivated since the Super Bowl event, following a message in which he announced his departure: “I'm logging out of Twitter. I appreciate Elon for allowing me to vent. It has been very cathartic to use the world as a sounding board. It was like an Ayahuasca trip. Love all of you who gave me your energy and attention. To we connect again. [sic] Good afternoon and good night.”

After a few days of offensive ranting, the swastika doesn’t come as too much of a surprise, but that doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous. While Ye has used the idea of a “social experiment” for plausible deniability, his posts about loving Hitler and swastika shirts come at a time of inflamed far-right rhetoric and very real right-wing policy changes. And who can forget the similarly potent symbol that Elon threw up at Trump’s victory rally last month?

The Yeezy website was eventually blocked by Shopify. “All merchants are responsible for following the rules of our platform,” a spokesperson for the company told CBC News today (February 11). “This merchant did not engage in authentic commerce practices and violated our terms so we removed them from Shopify.”

Yesterday, the Anti-Defamation League also condemned Ye’s behaviour on X. “As if we needed further proof of Kanye’s antisemitism, he chose to put a single item for sale on his website – a t-shirt emblazoned with a swastika,” the organisation wrote. “The swastika is the symbol adopted by Hitler as the primary emblem of the Nazis. It galvanized his followers in the 20th century and continues to threaten and instll fear in those targeted by antisemitism and white supremacy.” It also pointed out that the t-shirt was labelled “HH-01”, referencing a commonly used code for the phrase “Heil Hitler”.