Kardashian Kulture by Ellis Cashmore

Author:Ellis Cashmore [Cashmore, Ellis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Popular Culture, Gender Studies, Media Studies, Sociology, General
ISBN: 9781787437067
Google: XrCoDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
Published: 2019-08-30T05:11:16+00:00

‘The Kardashians are an inescapable cultural and commercial force,’ observed Harriet Ryan and Adam Tschorn, of the Los Angeles Times, in 2010. Keeping Up With the Kardashians had just completed its fourth season on E! providing the cable network with its most viewed program ever. Kim’s website was the most visited in history. ‘And Madison Avenue calls on the [Kardashian] family to sell mainstream America, from diet pill and orange juice to NASCAR and fast food,’ wrote Ryan and Tschorn, before musing: ‘Their popularity comes despite the fact that the sisters lack the talents that traditionally lead to superstardom and, some believe, partly because of it.’

‘Once Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan ruled the scene,’ wrote Christine Kearney, of the Ottawa Citizen, in 2010. ‘But these days, [Kim] Kardashian gets the wall-to-wall coverage … has built herself into a brand.’ Lohan was the child model and actor, who made a best-selling album, played Elizabeth Taylor in a TV movie and became a darling of the tabloids when she discovered and acquired a taste for drugs and alcohol. Scrapes with the law, a prison sentence and a rumored lesbian relationship kept her in focus, even while her official professional career decayed. Lohan held contracts to endorse handbags, self-tanning spray and leggings, but a 90-day sentence in rehab after lying to the police about driving during a car crash convinced some brands that she no longer possessed the right kind of influence. (Lohan had a highly publicized – and therefore, highly valuable – feud with Hilton.)

By 2010, Kim Kardashian, then 30, could lay claim to being the most influential woman in the world. Influential, that is, in shaping and steering consumer choices. Influencers can make things happen; they can change the order of the marketplace. No one supposes they are superior beings, their erudition, discernment and capability for appreciating style making them perfect tastemakers whom we should imitate respectfully. They just capture attention and incline us toward buying some products rather than others. And Kardashian did it with more authority than anybody, arguably, in history.

Kardashian’s frontal assault on the public senses and her stealthier advance on their bank accounts continued in 2011: she got married on TV. And to a sports star. Brits do this kind of thing rather well, of course. Royal weddings typically spellbind TV-viewing populations from around the world (it was reported that 2 billion watched some part of the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton in 2011). E! had previously screened Kim’s sister Khloé’s wedding in 2009. So weddings were a new pipeline. Kim’s wedding to Kris Humphries, a professional basketball player, was turned into hard cash by Kim’s mother Kris Jenner, who, with a touch worthy of King Midas, negotiated deals for every aspect of the event, from the wedding gown by Vera Wang, to the crystal-embellished black-and-white engraved gatefold invitations by Lehr & Black, the custom invitation specialists.

About $500,000 will buy a full-page advertisement in a magazine like Brides, which has a circulation of 200,000 to 300,000.

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