Bryony GORDON
If Kim Kardashian didn’t exist, we would have to invent her. In fact, we did invent her. We invented her with every click made on stories about her “gravity-defying curves”, and every viewing of the reality show that has turned her into the kind of person who can afford to drop a million dollars on a trip to a private island in Tahiti during a pandemic.
It is this particular break, to celebrate her 40th birthday last week, that has had the internet frothing at the mouth in recent days. “After 2 weeks of multiple health screens and asking everyone to quarantine,” wrote Kardashian on her social media channels, “I surprised my closest inner circle with a trip to a private island where we could pretend things were normal just for a brief moment in time.”
I’ll just put a sentence here to give you some time to digest that.
Kardashian, who rose to fame after a sex tape she starred in was “leaked”, said that she was “humbled” and “blessed” by the celebrations she was able to throw.
“There is not a single day that I take for granted, especially during these times when we are all reminded of the things that truly matter.” Yes, like being able to come together online to pour scorn on reality TV stars with more money than sense.
This post, accompanied as it was by pictures of Kim and her sisters posing in tiny bikinis next to turquoise clear waters, led to a social media outcry, the likes of which we haven’t seen… well, since the last time the Kardashians broke the internet with one of their mind-boggling displays of extravagance. Many accused the star of being “tone deaf ”, as if she has ever had any other way of hearing.
“Are you that insensitive you don’t realise this is not what the majority of people during the worst Covid spike yet want to hear?” asked
the musician Peter Frampton. “People are going to food banks not private islands.”
Now I don’t know about you, but
if I had become one of the richest women on the planet by doing inappropriate things in public, I would totally whisk my nearest and dearest to a private island during a pandemic, and then post the pictures all over the internet. What would be the point in going otherwise? As many philosophers have asked over the years: if a Kardashian goes on holiday and doesn’t post about it on social media, did it even happen?
Indeed, the most shocking thing about this Marie Antoinette-esque trip is not that the Kardashians went on it, but that anybody is surprised they did. How did we expect Kim to celebrate her 40th? With a trip to a Beverly Hills soup kitchen to volunteer?
Arguably, she has helped us more with this jaunt to Polynesia. Because with each tone-deaf post, she has not just distracted us from endless headlines about herd immunity and lockdowns and vaccines and death. She has also provided us with a convenient way to let off some much-needed steam. Are we really angry about the insensitivity of the Kardashians, or the fact that we live in a world where people secretly enjoy them so much that they are, in some quarters, more famous and
Kim’s 40th birthday has provided us with a convenient way to let off some steam and anger
recognisable than the Pope?
The Kardashians represent the worst of us, but so does our reaction to them. After all, it’s easy to vent against a group of young women who have become billionaires off the back of their bums; harder is the business of questioning what is behind our own fascination with them. Put simply: people get a kick out of judging the Kardashians, and the Kardashians don’t necessarily mind, given that they earn millions and millions of dollars in the process.
I actually found the online anger expressed towards them this week a little unpleasant, especially when it comes from people who are usually found telling others to “be kind”.
It’s not that I feel sorry for Kim et al, more that I can’t help wondering if there might be more deserving targets for our ire right now. Let Kim Kardashian eat her birthday cake. And maybe, just maybe, let’s thank her for briefly distracting us from the real cause of our seemingly impotent rage.