Kim Kardashian: American Woman
Kardashian, 34, is poised as she takes a seat at a conference table, greeting, “My team who is putting together our new website experience — I don’t know if I want to call it a website, to disrespect it.” Whalerock Industries develops Web-based, magazine-like, subscription-centered media on the Oprah model. It streams from her glam room and real-time chats with fans, giving makeup tutorials and showcasing her favorite clothes. It’s a digitally constructed Kardashian world, on top of the rest of the world, which Kardashian has already made bend to her will. Narcissism isn’t Kardashian’s thing, per se; it’s solipsism, or a mode of living in which the world outside the self doesn’t really, materially exist — that’s the key here. In the past, she’s put it this way: Her life is “like living on The Truman Show.”
Now the group turns to a pack of “Kim-ojis” submitted by a graphic designer. “I wanted to do really fun, different emojis that you don’t see on your phone,” says Kardashian, then asks the group, “Is this designer Kanye-approved?”
Wielding a pen, she mulls over a long list of possible emojis, a mix of objects that she’s come into contact with as well as people she knows, striking those that don’t meet her approval. “A Speedo doesn’t mean anything to me, same with disco-ball earrings,” she says. She pauses at emojis of the other Kardashian women, raising the pen a little before swiping again: “I don’t want any family members in it,” she says. “They’ll all want a piece.” She keeps going. “But I love a waist trainer, and a Kylie lip. A fur-kini is kind of cute, and a patent pink dress.” She smiles. “Oh, a pregnant belly. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.”
Kardashian may not come off as book smart, but she is extremely savvy and possesses a high EQ, both of which are much more valuable in this day and age. The TV self and Kardashian’s real self are “pretty much the same,” she says, when asked to define the difference. “When I’m filming, when I’m in my most comfortable state, at my home, with my family — I can’t get any more comfortable than that. . . . But there’s so much more to me than that, and I believe that I am so much smarter than I’m portrayed.”
Who could have foreseen that in 2015 the Kardashians would be the most interesting story in America? But in terms of cultural fault lines, sometimes it seems like Kim Kardashian’s creamy thighs bestride an entire nation. She’s the immigrant daughter done good, the world’s most famous Armenian-American. She’s an interracial pioneer, a Caucasian woman married to a black rapper who pushes the boundaries of race not only in music, but also by demanding a ticket into the predominantly European club of fashion and design. She’s at once a sexual muse sparking creativity in her husband, and also a working mom. She’s outrageously feminine in an era of sex-role instability and gender-queer Miley, and also the stepdaughter of Caitlyn (nee Bruce) Jenner, the most famous transgender woman in the world. (When I share these thoughts with Kardashian, however, she says, “I don’t look at myself like that. But my husband would.”)
Kardashian is also at once extraordinarily human — don’t you want to hear about the way she does her makeup? — and a master of what critic Jerry Saltz has called the “new uncanny,” or art that blurs the line between human and a robot pretending to be a human. In her video game, you not only can change her clothes and hairstyle, but eye color and skin color. And over the course of the several times we meet, her skin shifts from a deep equatorial brown to a laid-out-in-Palm Springs honey to a morning soy creamer, depending on the makeup and tanning spray. “Something about Kim is very appealing to digital natives,” says prominent tech journalist and Re/code editor Kara Swisher. Kardashian also says things like this: “When I go on vacation, I only go to the beach certain times of the day, and lay out by the pool the rest of the time,” because the sun is often too flat, and if someone takes a picture of her, she’ll get caught looking less Kim Kardashian-like than she’d like. “In Miami, I’ll get up at six and swim in the ocean at seven in the morning right before the harsh sun comes up — and the pictures always look amazing.”