So long suckers: Why I give up on Kim Kardashian

FOR what feels like aeons now, I have been feigning interest in Kim Kardashian and her equally uninteresting siblings on the grounds that they are now part of the culture, whatever that happens to mean.

So I tried to keep up, really I did: I diligently watched episodes of their unutterably dull TV show while sticking matchsticks in my eyes to keep myself awake, I bit my tongue when people said that she was a fashion icon and I further bit my tongue and internalised my howling rage when people described her as a feminist.

I paid due attention to what academic types wrote about her, even when it descended into the realms of the patently ridiculous, like the time ‘New York’ magazine reviewed her book of selfies like it was a Van Gogh exhibition.

But no more. I am, at last, giving up my pretence at being even faintly interested in Kim, who yesterday posted a picture of herself on her Instagram account sucking on an ‘appetite suppressant lollipop’ which she described as ‘literally unreal’ before urging her followers – most of whom are young women – to race to try them out. I now feel comfortable in saying what I’ve always felt about Kim: she’s thoroughly bad for women and her wide-eyed vapidity and her naked selfies have contributed more than anyone to a consumer-obsessed, hyper-sexualised society that is driving young women towards epidemic levels of anxiety.

And I finally have an answer for all those heavyweight literary think-piece writers who have spent years searching for the true ‘meaning’ of Kim Kardashian: there isn’t one.