DEKONSTRUCTING THE KARDASHIANS

A media-driven appreciation of one of pop culture’s most-watched families.

Corey, a psychotherapist, was spontaneously introduced to a Season 6 episode of the TV reality series Keeping Up With the Kardashians in 2018, and in that viewing’s wake, admitted to feeling an “uncanny sensation” that drew her in as a casual fan, then, almost hypnotically, into an obsession that has endured for nearly a decade. The author skillfully condenses her years of observation and evaluation as a Kardashian analyst into this obvious labor of love, one that has garnered her a successful personal Substack, a recap magazine column, and a legion of Kardashian-crazed TikTok and Instagram followers. Paired with a personal fascination with the Kardashian family’s collective talent for narrative mastery, a postmodern sense of reality, and catchy episodic arcs, Corey cleverly and effectively fuses celebrity scrutiny and deft analysis with the famous family’s personalities and creates a whirlwind of themes, abstract ideas, and some very solid truths about their roles in modern society and their impact on feminism. Interwoven into the analysis are more easily digested details, including Kim Kardashian’s iconic Halloween costumes and her video games, the family’s sartorial and corporeal trends, their entrepreneurial ventures, eccentric behaviors, and rise to influential fame, along with a parade of narrative divergences featuring Kanye West, O.J. Simpson, and Paris Hilton. The first of the book’s two sections incorporates referential material in addressing how and why public attention spans and tastes have evolved over the past several decades and uses the Kardashians as a prime example of a responsible change agent. The second section features a biographical chronology that proceeds through major milestones in the Kardashians’ lives as collective influencers. In examining the show’s catalog of highly produced episodes—“edited to achieve a near-perfect narrative structure”—Corey digs deeper into the meaning and the message of the “pixel-perfect” family’s popularity, intelligently assessing how their tabloid-worthy, sensational fireworks keep the fires of celebrity culture and viewers’ addiction to reality television consistently stoked.  

An exhaustive and entertaining look into the Kardashian media machine.