Go to any store that sells gossip magazines. Flip through the channels of your television. Visit a website with entertainment news. Anywhere you look, the nauseating headlines following the Kardashian family are there to greet you.
Though the beginning of America’s love affair with the ultra-rich TV personality family is hard to pinpoint, they are here and they have bolted their Louboutin designer shoes to our living room floor.
Why have we as intelligent people allowed such a dramatic and attention-obsessed family to take center stage as our entertainment? We like to believe we’re better than all of the celebrities we watch and discuss, but to say that we use their ridiculous behavior and problems as an escape is only half true. Look closer at the headlines. Sit closer to the TV screen.
The chasing of wealth, the cars, the houses, the sex, the love and the divorce: the Kardashian family circus is the closing act for the traditional American dream.
We salivated as the world-renowned family embodied our desire for quickly gained wealth, clothing we will never afford and vacations we will never have with such attention to detail you could almost call them impressionists. For eight seasons and 106 episodes on Entertainment Television’s hit series, they have made insane amounts of money by simply allowing us to watch their every day lives. And it turns out, there are very good reasons for keeping up with the Kardashians.
As young adults growing up we are exposed to the “every day” life of celebrities such as the Kardashians through all publishable forms of media. We are shown an idea that people can be famous for simply being famous. An example of an untouchable class that has everything we want and then some is given to us every night at dinner.
On the same note, although they have everything we could possibly want, they get divorced. They have their garages filled with our dream cars, and they still go to bed angry at one another.
The lesson of “money does not equal happiness” is not a new one, but one that we see acted out. Supermarket tabloids part the curtains to the grand arena and encourage us to watch this week’s main event: Bruce and Kris Jenner set fire to a 22-year marriage commitment. Watch from the cheap seats in your rented apartment as the team of highly trained professional lawyers mediate the former lovers and discuss who walks away with the better vacation property.
The paint on the idealistic white picket fence is chipping. Whether or not they know it, the Kardashians are helping shape a new image of success to the upcoming generation. What good is a million dollar home if you are the only one in it? Will the promised bonus be worth the late nights away from your family?
As a generation heavily dependent on visual reminders, we need to make it a point to look towards the Kardashians as a sort of public service announcement to remind us, as so eloquently put by the late rapper Christopher Wallace, that “mo’ money, mo’ problems.”