In October, when the seemingly never-ending press tour for Wicked first began, Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo “held space” for America’s unofficial First Family: the Kardashians. The sisters, their kids, and matriarch Kris Jenner posed in matching pajamas for a special screening at Kim Kardashian’s home, which had been transformed into a pink and green wonderland. When the images hit social media, a number of viral posts criticized the event as wasteful and called out the “obscene privilege” of the family getting their own screening before it hit theaters. Some even questioned why Erivo and Grande had agreed to it or insisted that this made them “want to see the movie less.”
But this type of criticism is nothing new for the Kardashians, who, over the past two decades, have become one of the most famous families on the planet — despite seemingly having more haters than fans. But the Wicked screening stood out, not only because the reaction proved that they still have the power to enrage people, but because it was the first time in a while that there was any Kardashian-related backlash in the news — proving that controversy is slowly becoming less central to their brand.
Since the family first started sharing their lives on E!’s Keeping Up With the Kardashians, they have mastered the art of using a constant stream of controversies to remain culturally relevant. Their show thrived on using conflict to fuel the ratings, whether it be between family members or something that had previously played out in the press. But this year, the fifth season of their Hulu show, The Kardashians, passed by without fanfare or, more importantly, headlines. Truthfully, it was almost unnoticed. This might not seem like a big deal for a family of mega-moguls who moved beyond the “reality star” label a long time ago. But the show teetering toward flop territory could also be a symptom of their declining relevance. Is this a sign that we’re finally ready to stop keeping up with the Kardashians? Or do they simply no longer need us to?
It’s impossible to imagine the Kardashians of today without reality TV. KUWTK premiered on E! in 2007, when the reality medium still felt relatively new and was not yet such a dominant part of the cultural ecosystem. This is partly why, when the Kardashians’ star began to rise, the very existence of an entire family who were “famous for being famous” was controversial. They weren’t actors, or athletes, or creators. They were just…a family. Paris Hilton — who previously employed Kim as her assistant, a role where she studied the behind-the-scenes mechanics of tabloid fame — was frequently described this way, but she was at the very least an heiress with a very famous last name. And The Osbournes — the family who reportedly inspired Kris Jenner to savvily pitch her own reality show to TV networks — also had a legitimate claim to fame via their rockstar patriarch, Ozzy Osbourne. When the Kardashians were named in the late journalist Barbara Walters’s annual list “10 Most Fascinating People” in 2011, she introduced the interview by saying she “had never heard more anger and dismay” than when it was announced that they would be featured. Walters even began the conversation by telling them, to their face, that they had “no talent.”
In hindsight, it is now clear that the Kardashians’ did have a massive amount of talent — the talent of getting noticed. They became early pioneers of what is now known as the “attention economy.” (This is partly why, when Instagram was founded in 2010, they quickly became some of the app’s most-followed accounts.) The attention economy is all about getting as many eyes on your content as possible. On their reality show, the Kardashians were experts at monetizing their constant cycle of conflict and resolution. And despite their fairly unique circumstances, this also allowed them to present themselves as “just like any other family” — another marketing masterstroke by their “momager.” People stopped expecting anything in particular from them and instead were satisfied with just watching them live their lavish lives.
As they became even more famous, the reality platform allowed the Kardashians to narrate their own story. Reality stars usually have little control over what makes the cut or how they are portrayed, but as executive producers of KUWTK, the Kardashians had a level of narrative control that most could only dream of. In a sense, the show was the connective tissue that brought all the areas of their brand together — a long infomercial that blended business with personal. But it was even more valuable as a place where they could “set the record straight” on various controversies. Whether it was Kim crying over her disastrous 72-day marriage to basketball star Kris Humphries or Kylie Jenner explaining her use of lip fillers, their commentary — usually delivered via confessional interviews — would become the official version of events, despite what had previously been reported in the press. No matter what we had read online, tuning in months later to hear about it straight from the source somehow still felt fresh and more trustworthy. It was something fans didn’t get from the typical celebrity. If you read a rumor in a magazine about an A-list actor, you never expected to hear their side of the story directly from the source. But the Kardashians were seemingly willing to talk about it all — even if the reality is that they were always in complete control of what we knew and didn’t know.
This type of manipulation was front-and-center on the second season of their Hulu show, which aired in 2022. In the first episode, Khloe Kardashian found out that Tristan Thompson, her on-again-off-again partner and father of her children, had cheated on her (again) and fathered a child with another woman. Not only that, but this was how viewers, after months of tabloid rumors, confirmed that Khloe and Tristan were expecting another child together via surrogate. Sat on the confessional couch, Khloe revealed that she had filmed Season Two while keeping the surrogacy from the cameras. It was a fairly audacious move to flaunt how much the show’s subjects were actually keeping from us and how edited and constructed it was, despite their constant reassurance that they would never hide anything from their viewers. But the scene simultaneously made viewers feel sympathy and appreciation for Khloe’s willingness to now open up about the situation. It was epic manipulation — in other words, the Kardashian brand at its finest.
But this was the last major bombshell we’ve seen on the Hulu show. Since the first season, The Kardashians has always felt more like a carefully curated docuseries than KUWTK. Now in its fifth season, the show is crafted to at least appear like a fly-on-the-wall look at the life of a family of moguls, not reality stars — but this doesn’t always make for riveting TV. The show has, in large part, turned into an hour-long inf0mercial for their various individual brands, making it feel less genuine and more like a marketing opportunity for the family. It’s become quite boring. And as the show has progressed, it’s been hard to shake the feeling that, with the boredom, we’re just not as pressed to find out about everything about them.
As is always the case with the Kardashians, you have to wonder whether this is all by their own design. Kim, in particular, seems to be leaning much more heavily into her image as a businesswoman. In 2023, her shapewear brand Skims was valued at $3.2billion, and this month, the brand opened its flagship store in New York. It’s a similar path that Kylie Jenner took when her company, Kylie Cosmetics, made her mega-rich. As Kylie’s business took off, she became noticeably more private and featured less on the show. In 2018, she even kept her first pregnancy a secret — a radical departure from the family norm of at least acting like they share everything, even when they actually weren’t. Kourtney has also been pulling away from the cameras for some time — in fact, the final seasons of KUWTK were mostly about arguments between the sisters over her lack of participation. And Khloe tends to use the Hulu show to promote her denim brand, Good American, which is typical of its emphasis on business.
Culture journalist Zing Tsjeng — co-host of the Good Bad Billionaire podcast, which explores the ethics of how the world’s richest people make their money — says it’s not uncommon to see female billionaires making a gradual transition into a “less is more” approach to fame. “For women such as Oprah and Rihanna, there is often a desire to move away from putting themselves right at the center of the brand,” she tells Rolling Stone. “If you were in their position, and it is a decision between making money by being constantly under public scrutiny and posting every day to make sure you’re in the news headlines — or you could make more money with a business like Skims, where you have more control over how public-facing you are — practically everyone would choose the latter.”
Jamie McCarthy
There are indications that Kim sees her future in a more managerial role — not only within the Kardashian empire but as a behind-the-scenes decision-maker in the business world. In 2022, she launched SKKY Partners, a private equity fund that invests in hospitality, luxury, and consumer entertainment. After making her first foray into acting with her 2023 role in American Horror Story, she will executive produce her first scripted TV show for Netflix alongside Emma Roberts next year. “Kim setting up a private equity firm is particularly interesting,” Tsjeng says. “If we’re being numbers-based about it, the people in entertainment who have made loads of money — like Jay Z or Ryan Reynolds — haven’t done it purely through creative pursuits, but by owning brands and investing their money in business ventures.” (According to recent reports, Kim is no longer a managing partner at SKKY but will remain involved as a senior operating advisor.)
Whether or not Kim’s future lies in private equity, the family-at-large still has several billion-dollar companies to protect, so it’s hardly surprising that The Kardashians is now less conflict-focused. They stakes are much higher. When they started out, the cost-to-benefit ratio of screaming at each other, threatening to sue each other, or getting into physical fights was much more favorable. The drama was what kept the show going and their paychecks rolling in. Now, they have more to lose and other income streams, and this might not be the type of attention they see as beneficial to the brand. Presently, it seems like Kim, in particular, wants to be in a more serious space — as a businesswoman and advocate for criminal justice reform. Tabloid-friendly conflicts on a reality show or attention-grabbing controversies, such as promoting appetite-suppressant lollipops, might seem incompatible with penning op-eds for NBC News in support of the release of the Menendez brothers. And investors and people in the business world might find it harder to take Kim seriously if she’s seen screaming at her sisters on TV every week.
Speaking of which, it’s important to note that the Kardashians are so successful because they are a family. Kim is undoubtedly the most famous, but the rest of the family has generated plenty of their own storylines over the years. As a group, they are greater than the sum of their parts — in fact, this was a central theme of their 2012 interview with Oprah Winfrey. In the aftermath of Kim’s messy divorce from Kanye West, “Kravis” (Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker) filled the void as a new power couple. After releasing a budget clothing line for Sears, model Kendall Jenner became one of the world’s top supermodels, launching the family into the elite fashion spaces they now dominate. And long before TikTok, Kylie had the world’s most-followed account on Snapchat, Gen Z’s favored app, and she usurped Kim’s Instagram follower count in 2020. With a combined Instagram following of over double the U.S. population, the Jenner sisters helped ensure the brand’s longevity by ingratiating them with a new generation.
Maintaining the family’s relevance with the younger generation might also be one of the reasons why Kim has been supportive of launching North West, her eldest daughter, into the spotlight. On the show, we’ve seen an increase in scenes featuring North in the last two seasons. She has been seen on the cover of magazines and accompanied Kim to the Met Gala. Of course, North has seemed genuinely interested in social media, fashion, and music, so while Kim might be nurturing her daughter’s interests, it also helps keep the Kardashian legacy going. “Fundamentally, the Kardashians is a generationally driven family story. It’s not so much about girls who are going out and getting drunk and hooking up with people. The compelling drama is the family dynamic,” Tsjeng says. “So it makes sense that they would be looking to soft-launch the next generation.”
Looking to the Kardashians’ future, Kim appears to be finding her inspiration from the past. She’s showing signs of evolving into a figure like Martha Stewart or Oprah Winfrey — two women she grew up with, who showed that it was possible to go from star to cultural phenomenon to mogul. MJ Corey — a writer who analyses the family under the name Kardashian Kolloquium on Instagram and TikTok — thinks that Kim is “inserting herself” into “older markers of fame that, as a ‘reality star,’ she was once shut out from.” We can see her desire to conquer the past in her fashion choices — like her purchase of clothing worn by Michael Jackson, a crucifix worn by Princess Diana, and the iconic Marylin Monroe dress she wore to the 2022 Met Gala. Or when she hired former Victoria’s Secret angels — Tyra Banks, Heidi Klum, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Candice Swanepoel — to model for Skims and joined them in the shoot before branching out into runway modeling herself. “That’s what you can do when you’re at the top,” Corey explains. “You can go backward in the pursuit of power.”
The ability to pivot the brand into different spaces and eras is the main reason why we shouldn’t count the Kardashians out just yet. Their genius — and Kim’s in particular — is that they understand the importance of change. Whether it’s evolving into something new or bringing back something from the past, they have an awareness of where they need to pivot next and when. They are in the process of trying to transfer their reality star fame into other genres. They are less interesting but by a very purposeful design. But make no mistake, fame is still their end goal, so just because Kim is in her #GirlBoss era now, that doesn’t mean we won’t see a reappearance of the same sisterly feuds that made them famous. If throwing some red meat to the tabloids becomes beneficial to them, they’ll probably do it.
Still, it does feel like the wider trend is that, as the Kardashians have become bonafide A-List celebrities — part of the pop cultural furniture — people have become gradually less interested in them. As their star, in the form we once knew, continues to fade, they leave behind a path for others to follow in their footsteps. Because of them, it’s now totally normal for reality stars to be social media influencers and, perhaps, one day, entrepreneurs built solely based on their name. “Being ‘famous for being famous,’ as they used to say, isn’t shameful anymore — it’s the dream,” Tsjeng says, “and the most alluring thing is that it’s not completely unachievable.” By launching a new celebrity genre, the Kardashians have a legacy that can never be taken from them. The downside, however, is that the shape that their fame takes within our culture is no longer new and exciting. That’s a reality not even Kris Jenner can control.
