What comes to mind when someone says Kardashian? Fame, beauty, fashion, celebrity. But what comes with fame? Influence. The Kardashian-Jenners are one of the wealthiest, most well-known families in the world, giving them quite a bit of power. Although great power comes with great responsibility, these women have a history of presenting the American public with unrealistic beauty standards and sometimes unhealthy ideals. Their oversaturated images and questionable statements can have dangerous consequences on society, specifically for impressionable young girls.
The Kardashian family rapidly grew in popularity after their show Keeping Up With the Kardashians aired in 2007. This show featured the family’s personal and professional lives for twenty seasons, gaining millions of viewers over the years. But their prominence began far before this, when Robert Kardashian, Kris Jenner’s late husband, was on the defense team for the OJ Simpson trial in the 90s. Later, in 2003, Kim Kardashian gained notoriety as Paris Hilton’s assistant and was often seen attending parties with the socialite. Most notably, Kim Kardashian’s widely circulated adult tape with Ray-J leaked in 2007, rapidly taking her from a model to a pop-culture celebrity, sparking interest in her family along the way.
The Kardashian sisters are icons, entrepreneurs, social media influencers, and television stars. At the same time, their controversial actions surrounding beauty and body size directly clash with this. In May of 2018, Kim uploaded a sponsored Instagram post advertising appetite-suppressing lollipops that she called, “literally unreal”. These candies were Flat Tummy Co. products, a non-FDA-approved company whose social media advertisements are banned in the UK. A significant portion of Kim Kardashian’s followers are younger girls, and the restrictive behavior is teaching them that hunger is something negative to be ignored or controlled. Deena Shen, a sophomore at Wilcox High School, expressed her thoughts on the celebrity family, saying, “I think the Kardashians portray unrealistic body standards that definitely negatively affect young women, especially girls and teens in general. Just because we do know they’ve had surgeries doesn’t take away the impact of their actions.” Teenage girls face the brunt of the Kardashians’ influence, often experiencing the pressure to change themselves from social media and society alike.
In a recent episode of The Kardashians, Kylie Jenner started a conversation with her sisters about their influence, saying, “all of us just need to have a bigger conversation about the beauty standards that we’re setting” (Feel, Deal, Heal). While this is an important step towards transparency, the episode itself spoke less about their harmful effects on society, instead victimizing and shining a light on the family. Later in the episode, Kylie said she regretted her breast augmentation and hoped that girls like her daughter wouldn’t feel the need to alter themselves. While any honesty is an improvement, it’s important to note the time these discussions took place. The Kardashians follow the trends, so when a small, curvy body was topping magazine covers, the family threw themselves into the spotlight. Recently, women on social media have been celebrating self-love and embracing different body types. The Kardashians appear to be veering in this direction as well, effectively negating the impact of their newfound transparency. The Kardashians have massive amounts of influential power, but like most, they tend to go along with the latest craze or trend.
Overall, the Kardashians have the power to shape how girls and women around the world view themselves and their bodies. In the past, they have done significant damage to the feminine idea of beauty, promoting unhealthy, unrealistic fantasy lifestyles. Their newfound accountability has incredible potential to improve their negative influence on society, so long as they treat it with the magnitude it deserves, and not like “just another trend”.
