Keeping Up With The Kar Dashi Ans

It has been 14 years and 20 seasons. They have shown us their marriages and divorces, the births of their children and their businesses. They have stumbled; they have cleaned up. We know what doing all that on camera has done for them...but what has watching it done for us?

- Anna Peele

In the beginning, there was Kim. Kim courting the press and being courted by professional athletes. Kim purchasing luxury items and becoming one herself. Kim being photographed by paparazzi and Playboy and her own phone. Kim smiling serenely at her own sovereignty as she conducted the greatest celebrity experiment to ever air on television: to see if by chronicling a quest for legitimate fame, a family could actually manifest that fame. Kim, with her mother and her sisters by her side, sucking us and much of the TV-watching world into years of Keeping Up With the Kardashians.

We have now beheld various Kardashian pairings take various American cities, and have accosted many people at many parties to extol the Kardashians’ influence on American—and global—culture. We have held dissertation-level discourse on the impact of Scott Disick’s insecurities on his relationship with Kourtney. We own a hat appliquéd with a photo of Kim crying after deciding to divorce her second husband, then-NBA player Kris Humphries. We’ve spent many ``` on a cookie iced with Kris Jenner’s face. We are wearing Kylie Cosmetics’ lip gloss.

As people who believe that aterialism and emphasis on appearance aren’t, like, great, we are trying to figure out why we find the Kardashians so admirable. And with the show ending, now seems like a good time.