Last night, I spoke before a group of gay journalism students at Columbia and was surprised to find that one of their top concerns was that Kim Kardashian brings down our culture!
I was amazed that serious Ivy League students even devote brain cells to thinking about the Kardashian clan.
But I was also taken aback that they didn’t realize that 15-minute “famous for the sake of being famous” stars are nothing new and nothing all that dangerous.
There have always been socialites, party people, Zsa Zsa Gabors, camera grabbers, Warhol Superstars, and “It girls” who seize the spotlight without destroying the world.
They have always been fun guilty pleasures, cartoon characters to dish and dis while tracking their every move and dissecting their every offense by the proverbial watercooler.
And they don’t end up decimating mankind, it turns out.
Michael Musto: Kim Kardashian Does Not Destroy the Country
As a lover of all things bad TV, I have been on the receiving end of lots of hand-wringing “Reality TV is ruining America!” comments from people. Many of said hand-wringers claim they only read Russian novels in the original and don’t own a television, so I guess they must have heard about the Kardashians via osmosis or something. Here’s the takeaway: there have always been stupid people. There have always been spectacles. But they were around before we had cameras to document them, so you can just go clutch your pearls somewhere else.
