I have long felt that in the wasteland that is the current state of American popular culture, the demographic that gets it the worst is little girls. Early teen girlsare constantly bombarded with not just wrong messages, but with Mixed messages, which can be even worse. These messages are unavoidable for little girls, beamed directly into their heads via music, television, commercials, and their peers. Mixed messages about what is expected of them as they head into their teen years, what their values should be, what should be respected, how to be considered respectable. These girls grow up and become a part of the problem, passing along these mixed messages to their younger sisters and eventually their daughters.
There are many perpetrators of these messages. Currently the one that irks me the most is porn star Kim Kardashian. I'm going to call her that whenever I make reference to her. I refuse to buy into the illusion that she is noteworthy for any other reason. She is on television, she is in magazines, she has fans because she videoed herself having sex with a dude, saw it released, and made a bunch of money off of it. Now she's famous because of it. Reports put her family's 2010 earnings at $65 million, between branding(putting their name on random crap like perfume), tv shows, public appearances and twitter advertising. That's right, companies pay Porn Star Kim Kardashian to talk about their products on her twitter feed. According to the Huffington post, she has 6 million twitter followers. Many of these followers are little girls like the ones I made reference to earlier. So what are they learning from the Kardashian family?
So porn star Kim Kardashian gets famous for having sex with a b-list r&b singer. She parlays that into a playboy spread. Lord knows how but, she parlays THAT into a show for not just her, but her entire family, and now there are actually several shows featuring these people. Shows that are basically her and her equally vapid, shallow and pointless family whining about various and sundry false dramas. After thorougly denouncing her pornstar history, she appeared completely naked in V magazine.
Several months ago, the Kardashians lent their name to a pre-paid credit card. The "Kardashian card" was marketed to young people "so they could learn about how to manage their money". Eventually it was revealed that the card saddled users with some decidedly predatory financial burdens including:
- A $99 up front annual fee for using the card
-monthly fee of $7.95 that kicks in after the initial purchase period.
-A $9.95 replacement fee for a lost card
-a $25 express fee to rush a card to you if there's an emergency.
there's more, but I'll spare you. The point is, they were marketing this to KIDS! The Kardashians ended up disassociating themselves with the card, releasing a statement that said in part: “The Kardashians have worked extremely long and hard to create a positive public persona that appeals to everyone, particularly young adults. Unfortunately, the negative spotlight turned on the Kardashians as a result of the Attorney General’s comments and actions threatens everything for which they have worked.”
Some of the hijinks engaged in on this show have included the two youngest Kardashian sisters(9 and 11 at the time) trying their skills on a stripper pole. There was an episode detailing Kim's (supposed) conflict about whether or not to pose for playboy, and an episode in which Kardashian brother Robert experiences a bout of priaprism after he drinks a beverage meant for his stepfather, Bruce Jenner. The Drink had been spiked by the family's matriarch, Kris Jenner, who oversees this tawdry den of materialism and questionable values. So let me get this straight: This is the work they've done to cultivate a positive public persona of themselves for young people? Somebody get me a striped shirt and a yellow flag to throw, because I'm calling bullshit.
Notice the wording. The statement basically says they removed themselves from this card NOT because the card was bad, but because it was bad for their image. I believe that it's only because the predatory nature of the Kardashian card was found out and publicized that they moved away from it. I don't believe for a moment they cared about the possiblity of some consumer getting hosed, because I can't believe that they didn't know about this going in. Quiet as it's kept, these chicks are business owners. That's the one non hate-able thing about them. they've got a relatively successful chain of boutiques. "Business owner" translates into "knows how to read small print". They knew everything about that card before they signed on and they signed on anyway, until it became an inconvenience to their q rating. Translation: They don't care about you. They don't care about your kids. They do care about your money. they care about helping to convince you that being like them means being happy, because the more people who believe that, the richer they get.
It would seem to me that the over arching message of the Kardashian "Phenomenon" is that the best way to have a life worth living is to be born rich, spend your father's hard earned money, whore yourself out at any opportunity to anyone. And in doing so, they help to corrupt our kids.
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