Maybe we should all just lay off the Kardashians. I know it sounds stupid. That particular family appears to be a great lightning rod for whatever malice people have towards the superficial, stupid, and privileged. However, I wonder what it is exactly that makes everyone so mad. If you really cornered someone who was mad at the very existence of the Kardashians in our popular culture I assume you would hear a lot of the very same things. Why are they famous? Why do I have to hear about them? They have so much and have done so little to get it. All of these appear to be salient points that most people who are detractors of their many shows could agree on, but I still wonder why everyone is so mad.
The Kardashian Empire, to the best of my knowledge, began because Kim Kardashian filmed her sexual encounter with Ray J, singer Brandy’s brother. The tape was released, she was hot, he was a minor celebrity, and she was from a family with some fame. Her father, Robert Kardashian, was OJ Simpson’s friend. He was seen quite a bit during the OJ Simpson trial. Her mother is now married to former Olympian Bruce Jenner who has morphed his appearance into a peculiar mask with plastic surgery. So there you go. There are a lot of intriguing elements to the story, first and foremost, sex appeal. My guess is that none of the Kardashian fame would be possible if Kim was a six. It’s even possible that none of the fame would be possible if Kim just had a normal sized ass. The novelty of her butt appears to be a sizeable portion of her appeal. After sex appeal it’s really just down to name recognition. We as a people are vaguely aware of the characters involved in this story. Basically, the same circumstances that led to a movie about the board game Battleship and a reboot of Charlie’s Angels brought us the prominence of the Kardashians.
Are they bad people? To the best of my knowledge the worst thing that the family has done is exploit themselves. They are willing to trade privacy, dignity, and modesty for fame and fortune. Does that make someone a bad person? Personally, don’t really think so. If you condemn the Kardashians then by proxy you would have to condemn every stripper, porn star, reality star, and parent of a child actor. To me, that just seems like to wide a net of judgment to cast for people who essentially only hurt themselves. Among the people that I just listed the only one who I would begin to call a bad person is the parent of a child actor, but you don’t hear the same anger directed towards Dakota Fanning’s parents. With that said, Kris Kardashian, the mother, does seem a tad on the despicable side, but I really can’t say that I have any anger towards her and her family.
So, why are people so mad? If they are only hurting themselves, why is there so much anger directed at them? Their show is on a network dedicated to the type of celebrity driven vacuous nonsense that the Kardashians represent. They aren’t taking time away from better things. If anything they are taking time away from an in depth look into the life of Carney Wilson or repeats of the soup. My thought is that at least they are fun to look at. I think that a lot of what angers people is the fact that there are a lot of people who love them. They are wildly popular. There are a great many people who do want to be like them, act like them, and dress like them. However, my guess is that the people who love them would never be well liked by the people who hate them so what’s the problem? Liking the Kardashians is shorthand by which a person can be avoided. No longer do you have to have a relationship with someone to determine their ilk, now you can just ask them their opinion of Kim and you have a pretty good idea who you’re dealing with. That makes me happy, but I appear to be in the minority.
All in all I think it comes down to people being jealous. I think that in a lot of ways people rarely progress past high school. Kim is the beautiful rich girl who was never going to date you or be your friend. You wanted nothing more than for her to be discovered as a fraud and for you to be popular in her stead. People will always be jealous of the beautiful, dumb, and successful because it is a caste that we feel we cannot achieve. I say, sit back, relax, enjoy what they look like or change the channel, but don’t get me started on Ellen.
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