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Good counter-counter narrative Narrative: Kardashians are vapid, rentier symptoms of all that’s wrong Counter-narrative: They’re actually admirable geniuses; Kim with her billion-user app, Kylie Jenner with her billion-dollar cosmetics biz Counter-counter-narrative: See below
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Replying to @RivalVoices and @vgr
What makes them fascinating? Every generation sends a hero up the pop charts. Since we are the cursed descendants of po-mo and punk, we loathe real heroes. But the memetic substrate of a highly wired society demands & craves something to fill the void. Thus fame for fame's sake.
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I think truth is somewhere between CN and CCN. They are admirable geniuses at a purely tactical level in the game of parlaying simulation-wealth into real wealth, kinda like Trump or crypto-lucky. They’re also signs of uncritical gamesmanship in a toxic late-capitalist endgame.
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Overall I agree with here and lean towards his CCN. They’re brown, female, LA versions of SV techbro scenester crowd. Their obvious competence at playing the signal —> wealth game well, with the good cards they’ve been dealt, should not obscure the crappiness of the game
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counter-counter-counter narrative: Kim Kardashian is using her fame to promote criminal justice reform and is unusually effective at it compared to most "celebrity-activists". She's earned my respect for that.
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Fair enough. She gets credit for that. Whether it is enough to offset the complicity of the clan in terrible games through their other activities is a question mark.
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Only completely uncritical worship of Mammon can find anything remotely culturally redeemable about the Kardashians. (The exception is Kanye, who arguably has musical talent — but he is also an avatar of the uncritical worship of Mammon.)
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