Award acceptance speeches are like torture. Admit it. There’s a small part of you that screams “Queue The Band!” every time a famous rich person steps up to the podium to thank their producer, mom and religious overlord. The difference between thinking about it and actually doing something about it came to a world wide audience in November of 2009 at the pop-culture infested MTV Music Video Awards.

As I’m sure many of you are already aware of, Kanye West decided to showcase himself and completely ignore the fact that the evening exists to celebrate all musical artists. As Taylor Swift walked up to the main stage to accept her award for Best Female Video, she was rudely interrupted by Kanye West as he jumped up on stage and stepped in front of Swift to speak into the mic.

What followed was one of the most publicized events in awards how history as West went on a ridiculous rant about how Beyonce should have won the award.

Swift, obviously taken back by the events unfolding before her, could barely speak and like a light switch the evening turned from MTV celebrating music videos, to the Kanye West Show. Although nobody should be too surprised at West’s antics given he has pulled similar acts before, it was never on such an international stage and it was never with such disrespect. Fortunately the evening saved by Beyonce herself when she won an award and then called Swift to the stage to give a proper acceptance speech, but the damage had been done.

Since that evening’s events, clips of West’s dubious high jack have been circulating all over television and the web. It made a huge PR splash for not only MTV and the music video industry, but also Kanye himself as he has since become known as the most self-centered musical artist in recent history.