Hello and welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today
we are tackling a subject that is, well, frankly,
it's the elephant in the room. Oh, it's more
than an elephant. Actually, scratch that. It's
not the elephant. It's the entire circus, the
tent, and the ticket booth combined. It really
is. It's completely unavoidable. You might love
them. You might hate them with a fiery passion
that, you know, keeps you up at night. Or, and
I think this is probably the most common category
for our listeners, you might claim to be... Totally
intellectually indifferent to them. Right. Above
it all. Completely above it all. While secretly
clicking on that Daily Mail sidebar every single
time. Every time. You can't help it. We are talking,
of course, about the monolithic pop culture entity
that is. Keeping up with the Kardashians. Monolith
is exactly the right word. I was looking at the
raw data and the source material you sent over.
And the scale is just hard to wrap your head
around. It's staggering. We aren't just talking
about a TV show here. We are talking about 20
seasons. 14 years on the air. Nearly 280 episodes.
And that is before we even start to count the
specials, the spinoffs, the wedding events, the
crying on vacation montages. It's immense. And
look, I think for a lot of people. especially
those who pride themselves on watching prestige
TV like Succession or The Wire. It is very easy
to dismiss this. Oh, yeah. It's the easy target.
To just call it reality TV fluff. Just vapid
people doing vapid things for attention. But
the mission for this specific deep dive is different.
It has to be. We aren't here to recap the fights
or gossip about who is dating who this week.
Right. If you want that, you can open literally
any tabloid website right now and get your fill.
Exactly. We want to analyze the mechanics of
this machine. We want to look past the tabloids
and answer the bigger structural questions. How
did this even start? How did it fundamentally
change the... landscape of television? And perhaps
most importantly, why did we all watch? Because
the numbers say we did. That is the question.
And to answer that, we have to connect some dots
that might seem. totally unrelated at first.
We have to look at a grainy Sunday BBQ tape from
the mid -2000s. We have to look at the whole
sociological concept of being famous for being
famous. And we have to look at how the entire
manufacturing of celebrity just shifted on its
axis right around 2007. Okay, let's unpack this
because the scale of this empire is just wild.
We aren't just talking about a TV show. We are
talking about a monster pop culture. Business.
That's a quote, isn't it? That is a quote from
Ryan Seacrest, by the way, who was there at the
very, very beginning. And he would know since
he basically helped build the foundation. Our
primary source for this deep dive is a really
comprehensive history of the series, which details,
I mean, everything from the production notes
and casting decisions to the critical reception
and the massive business dealings that happened
behind the scenes. So let's go back. Way back
before the contouring kits, before the billionaire
status, before the Met Gala invites. Before any
of it. We need to look at the origin story. And
I think we have to start with the family tree
because this didn't just pop out of a vacuum.
No. And this is where the American dream narrative
really kicks in, though maybe a twisted version
of it. The name Kardashian was already in the
public consciousness in the 1990s. It was. But
for a very grim reason. A very grim, serious
reason. Right, we're talking about Robert Kardashian.
The father. He was a high -profile attorney,
but... More importantly, he was a close personal
friend of O .J. Simpson. When the O .J. murder
trial happened in the 90s, which was, you could
argue, the first massive reality TV event in
American history, Robert was on the defense team.
He was the guy reading O .J.'s letter to the
media. That's such a crucial point. The family's
first taste of fame was adjacent to this enormous
media circus. Right. They saw firsthand how cameras,
lawyers and public opinion. all mixed together
into this crazy storm. They were kids watching
their dad navigate the biggest media story of
the century. Exactly. And then on the other side
of the equation, you have the mother, Chris Houghton,
who we now know, of course, as the matriarch,
Chris Jenner. The momager. The original momager.
Now, Robert passed away in 2003, but by then
the family dynamic had already shifted quite
a bit. Chris had divorced Robert and married
Bruce Jenner in 1991. And for our younger listeners,
or maybe listeners outside the U .S., we should
probably clarify, Bruce Jenner, who is now Caitlyn
Jenner, was a huge deal before any of this. Massive.
An Olympic gold medalist. The definition of the
American hero. The face on the Wheaties box.
Literally the face on the Wheaties box. So look
at this blend you have. You've got the Kardashian
kids, Kourtney, Kim, Khloe, and Rob. And then
you have the Jenner kids, Kendall and Kylie.
You have this OJ Simpson legal notoriety mixed
with Olympic athletic fame. It's a weird brew.
It's a very specific cocktail of Hollywood adjacent.
That's how I think of it. That's a great term
for it. They were rich. They knew famous people.
They lived in Calabasas, but they weren't. you
know, movie stars. They weren't Hollywood famous
yet. They were the people who knew the famous
people. Right. They were on the periphery. And
this brings us to what I kind of call the Paris
Hilton era. This is where it gets really interesting
for me, because I think people forget that Kim
Kardashian really cut her teeth in the industry
as a worker. Worker. That feels like a bit of
a stretch for someone living in a Calabasas mansion.
Well, relative to the industry, she was a stylist
and a personal assistant. in the early 2000s
who was the absolute queen of reality tv that's
harris hilton The Simple Life. Exactly. And Kim
was working for Paris. She was literally appearing
in the background of the Simple Life episodes,
organizing Paris's closet. I remember seeing
those clips. She was styling Lindsay Lohan for
events. She was in the trenches of early 2000s
celebrity culture. So she was essentially an
apprentice. That is the perfect word for it.
She was in the background of the paparazzi shots,
holding the bags, keeping her mouth shut, and
just watching. Watching how the game was played.
learning from the people who were, for better
or worse, inventing modern celebrity. She saw
how Paris utilized the paparazzi, how she monetized
her image, how she turned the act of doing nothing
into a full -blown career. It's almost like she
was doing a post -grad degree in fame. It really
was. But then, of course, we have to talk about
the catalyst. The event that took them from Paris
Hilton's friend to a household name overnight.
The 2007 sex tape with Ray J. Right. We have
to handle this delicately, but also look at it
transactionally, because that's really what the
source material emphasizes. Right. You have to.
So in early 2007, a private tape of Kim and her
then -boyfriend Ray J. was leaked. Now, Vivid
Entertainment, which is basically the dis - Disney
of the adult film world, they bought the rights
for a million dollars. A million dollars. That's
a hard number, a real transaction. It is. And
the analysis in the source is very direct. It
notes that the release of that tape was a major
contributor to their rising fame. There's just
no getting around that fact. But here's the key
difference. And this is where Kris Jenner's genius,
if you want to call it that, comes in. This is
the pivot. Yes. Most people in that situation,
especially in 2007. They would have retreated.
It was a scandal. It was seen as shameful. You
go into hiding. You hope it all blows over. The
Kardashian family, led by Chrystia, did the absolute
opposite. They pivoted immediately to television.
That was almost instantaneous, wasn't it? The
timeline is incredibly tight. Incredibly tight.
The tape comes out in early 2007. By October
2007, Keeping Up with the Kardashians is on the
air. That's less than a year. It's a full -on
media counteroffensive. It's reframing the narrative
on their own terms. So let's talk about the pitch.
Because the idea for a show didn't just fall
out of the sky. Kris Jenner was looking at the
landscape. She saw the Osbournes. Do you remember
the Osbournes? Vaguely. Ozzy Osbourne, the rock
star, and his, let's say, dysfunctional family.
It was huge. It was the first time we really
saw a celebrity family just... You know, walking
around the house, yelling about burritos, the
dogs making a mess everywhere. Right. The mundane
mixed with the insane. And Chris thought, I have
a crazy fun family. We should do something like
that. It's the sitcom reality format. And this
is where Ryan Seacrest enters the picture. And
just to set the stage, Ryan Seacrest in 2007
wasn't just a host. He was becoming a mogul.
He was hosting American Idol, which was the biggest
show on earth. The biggest thing ever. He had
his own production company. and he was hunting
for something in that exact vein. He wanted a
family -based show that had that chaotic energy
but was unscripted. So Seacrest sends a cameraman
to the house. Right, which I love. It wasn't
a shiny pilot with a full crew. It was a test.
He sent one guy to film a Sunday BBQ. A BBQ,
which sounds incredibly mundane, just people
eating burgers and, I don't know, pasta salad.
Totally boring on paper. But Seacrest watched
that tape and he said something fascinating.
He said, quote, they were all together as crazy
and as fun and as loving as they are. He saw
it. He saw the potential immediately. He realized
that the chaos was the hook. The fact that they
were all talking over each other and fighting
and hugging in the span of five minutes, that
was the show. He saw the archetypes right. The
bossy mom, the distinct sisters with their own
personalities, the chaotic dad figure in Bruce.
He saw a sitcom cast that he didn't have to hire
actors for. Exactly. And if we connect this to
the bigger picture of television history, the
timing was just impeccable. The show was announced
in August 2007. Okay. Why does that specific
date matter? Because that was exactly one week
after the Simple Life Paris Hilton and Nicole
Richie show announced it was ending. Wow. I did
not realize it was that close. Yeah. That is
that's a direct handover. It was a literal passing
of the reality TV torch. The genre was shifting.
It was moving away from the socialite out of
water trope, which was, you know, Paris Hilton
trying to milk a cow to this new family ensemble
format. So the show premieres October 14, 2007,
and almost immediately they lock into a formula.
And I love this description from the sources.
Critics called it the Hollywood version of the
Brady Bunch. It's such an apt comparison because
even though it's unscripted, when you really
analyze the structure of a typical episode, especially
in those early seasons, it follows a very rigorous,
very familiar sitcom like beat sheet. Let's break
that down for the listener. Yeah. Because I think
we watch these things passively and don't even
realize we are being fed a very specific structure.
Okay. So you usually have an A plot and B plot.
Right. Right. Step one. Show off the privileged
lifestyle. You have to establish the setting,
a mansion, a yacht, a high -end boutique in Paris.
You need the wealth porn immediately. Right,
the visual candy. The escapism. Step two. Introduce
the conflict, but, and this is so key, it's usually
a minor squabble. So low stakes. Incredibly low
stakes. Maybe someone loses a diamond earring
in the ocean. Kim, there's people that are dying.
That famous line comes from that exact moment.
Exactly. Or someone buys a Bentley they can't
really afford. Or there is a prank war involving
a goat. It allows the audience to feel a little
bit of stress, but not too much. It's safe. And
then, what's the third act? Step three, resolution
and the moral. You wrap it all up with a monologue
or a voiceover, usually from Chloe or Kim, that
reinforces the importance of family. We fight,
but at the end of the day, we're sisters and
we love each other. It's a safety net. It always
ends with the family unit being strong. It is.
It's comforting. Critics noted that it was harmless
hijinks. It was safe viewing. It was set against
this backdrop of extreme wealth, which provided
the escapism. But the conflict was usually resolvable
in 22 or 42 minutes. It wasn't The Sopranos.
It was Full House with Gucci bags. But this brings
up the big question, doesn't it? The authenticity
question. The million dollar question for all
reality TV. Because Kim is on record in the beginning
saying, quote, if we're going to do this reality
show. We're going to be 100 percent who we really
are. A very bold claim for any reality show.
Extremely bold. Yeah. But then you have the constant
accusations, critics and viewers, you know, constantly
pointing out storylines that felt fabricated
or reenacted that classic. Can you walk through
that door again and look more angry vibe? Well,
the source material notes a very specific and
very telling contractual detail. The network
E. Never aired anything the family didn't approve.
Wait, say that again? That's, that is huge. The
family had final cut. That basically kills the
entire idea of reality, doesn't it? It's a controlled
narrative. They are the executive producers of
their own lives. So while the emotions might
be real, the tears, the anger, the frustration,
the presentation of them is completely curated.
It raises a really important question about what
authenticity actually means in the age of reality
TV. Right. Is it real if you only show the parts
you want people to see? That's the reality paradox
right there. And speaking of people who maybe
didn't realize what they were signing up for,
we have to talk about the cast outside the immediate
family. Ah, yes. The revolving door of partners.
The revolving door. This is where the sociological
aspect gets really interesting. You have the
core unit, the sisters, the mom, the brother.
They are the constants. They're protected. But
the partners. They often serve as proxies for
the audience or as catalysts for drama. And the
show chews them up and spits them out in very
different ways. Let's start with Scott Disick.
Because he is arguably the sixth sister. He's
a core member now. Scott is a fascinating case
study. He started as Courtney's on -again, off
-again boyfriend and was kind of positioned as
the villain in the early seasons. He was the
flashy, arrogant, suit -wearing guy from New
York. Exactly. But he was smart. He developed
his own persona within the show, Lord Disick.
He even had his own web series, Lord Disick.
lifestyles of a lord he leaned into the absurdity
he did he leaned all the way in he understood
that the show was at its core a comedy he played
the game along with them he provided the comic
relief and that is why he lasted so long on screen
even after he and courtney split up for good
he became the audience surrogate yes he was often
looking at the camera with this expression like
can you believe this is happening he definitely
understood the assignment but not everyone did
Who didn't fit the mold? Well, look at Reggie
Bush. He was dating Kim in the very early seasons.
He was a high -profile NFL player, a Super Bowl
champion, but he openly commented in interviews
that he never, ever felt comfortable being followed
by cameras. You could see it. You could see the
tension in the footage. He said he only did it
because it was important to Kim. He wanted to
be an athlete. The show wanted him to be a character
in a rom -com. And those are two very different
jobs. Completely different. Athletes are used
to being controlled by coaches and playbooks,
not reality TV producers. The friction was palpable.
And then, well, then you have the Chris Humphries
saga. Oh, boy. This is a pivotal moment in the
show's history, season six. Kim's fairytale wedding.
I remember watching this. It wasn't just an episode
of television. It was a cultural event. People
I know had viewing parties for it. It was huge.
The two -part wedding special drew 10 .5 million
viewers. That's insane for cable. That is Super
Bowl territory for a cable reality show. But
let's look at the aftermath. The famous 72 day
marriage. It barely lasted two months and the
divorce was incredibly public and messy. But
what's most interesting is Humphrey's claim afterward.
He claimed he was set up. What did he mean by
that? He felt he was edited to look like the
villain to justify the breakup. That scenes were
manipulated to make him look like a jerk. And
this goes right back to that control we were
just talking about. Precisely. If the fairy tale
marriage is failing, the show needs a reason
why. The audience needs a bad guy and a good
guy. And the show is always, always going to
protect the core cast. In this case, Kim. So
Humphreys gets the villain edit. He becomes the
guy who is ruining the vibe rather than just
a guy in a bad relationship that isn't working
out. It really shows that it's dangerous to be
the outsider in that editing room. Yeah. You
have no power over your own story. None whatsoever.
And then we have Lamar Odom, Chloe's husband.
Another really tragic arc. He was an NBA champion,
a beloved figure in L .A. He was so charming
and funny, he and Chloe even got their own spinoff,
Chloe and Lamar. Which was really popular for
a while. It was. But as his personal struggles
with addiction and the marriage breakdown happened
in real life, he slowly disappeared from the
screen. It's a really stark example of the toll
that this level of public scrutiny can take on
a relationship that is already fragile. The camera
helps build you up. and then it documents your
fall. And then the biggest curveball of all,
Kanye West. Now, this is a fascinating case study,
and I'd call it the convert. The convert. Because
initially, Kanye refused to be on the show, adamantly.
He did. I remember seeing early episodes where
Kim is on the phone with him, but he's off camera,
where he'd walk through a shot and hide his face.
It was like he was a ghost in the machine. He
cited the backlash. He was a serious artist.
He even publicly criticized the cinematography
of the show. I remember that. He complained about
the lighting. He's a perfectionist. He didn't
like the flat lighting, the sitcom aesthetic.
He thought it cheapened his brand. He was high
art. The show was low culture. But then something
shifted. By season 16, he's doing the confessionals.
He's sitting in the director's chair, talking
to the camera, smiling. He eventually took a
prominent role. It suggests that even the biggest
critics, if they stay in that orbit long enough,
eventually get pulled into the gravitational
pull of the show. It's unavoidable. It became
the primary way the family communicated with
the world. And if you were part of the family,
you have to be part of the show. You can't be
married to Kim Kardashian and be invisible. It's
just not possible. And we also can't forget Rob's
relationships. Adrienne Bailon from the Cheetah
Girls, who later said appearing on the show really
hurt her career because she was just branded
as Rob Kardashian's girlfriend. And Blac Chyna.
Whoa! Talk about drama. She actually got her
own spinoff, Rob and Chyna. She did. Which brings
us perfectly to the business model. Because Robin
China wasn't an anomaly. It was part of a very
deliberate strategy. We need to look at Hardashian
Inc. This is where the story goes from a TV show
to a global enterprise. This is what blows my
mind. The sheer volume of content. It wasn't
just keeping up. It was a cinematic universe
before Marvel even figured it out. It really
was. Just listen to this list of spinoffs. You
had... Courtney and Kim take Miami. Originally,
it was Courtney and Chloe in Miami. Right. They
swapped sisters. Then Courtney and Kim take New
York. Courtney and Chloe take the Hamptons. Dash
Dolls, which focused on the employees at their
clothing store. I forgot about Dash Dolls. Life
of Kylie. Flip it like Disick. It was an endless
stream of content. It's relentless. It's like
they were colonizing different cities and different
demographics for television. Okay, we need the
Hamptons crowd. Send Khloe and Kourtney. That's
a good way to put it. And it changed the E! Network
fundamentally. Before the Kardashians, E! was
a place that reported on celebrity. They covered
the red carpets. They had the news ticker. They
were observers. Exactly. With this show, they
shifted to making celebrity. That is a massive
paradigm shift in media. It's the vertical integration.
And Khloe was very open about this. She admitted
in an interview that the show was basically a
30 -minute commercial. The show was the engine.
symbiotic loop. And the money followed. Just
look at these deal numbers from the source material.
In 2012, they signed a three -year deal with
E. In 2015, they signed another one for a reported
$100 million. $100 million. And then in 2017,
they re -up again for a deal reportedly worth
$150 million. And that's just for the show. That
doesn't count the individual businesses that
the show launched. Skims, Kylie Cosmetics, Good
American. And we have to mention the synergy
with social media. This show grew up alongside
Twitter and Instagram. How did that work? Because
usually TV networks hate people looking at their
phones during a show. Not this show. This show
embraced it. It became the most social ad -supported
cable program. Even as total TV viewership fluctuated
over the years because of streaming and cord
cutting, they held on to that key demographic,
the 1834 -year -olds, because they were interacting
on social media while watching. They created
a feedback loop. A perfect one. King would live
tweet the episode as it aired. Fans would react.
It made watching the show an interactive event,
not a passive one. So they are making hundreds
of millions of dollars. They are dominating the
ratings for their demographic. They're changing
the face of television. But let's be honest.
Yeah. So many people hated them. The critical
reception is polarizing, to say the very least.
Polarizing is being polite. I'm looking at some
of these reviews from the source material. It
says universal panning. from critics since the
very first premiere. The New York Times called
it a show about desperate women climbing to the
margins of fame. Oh. IGN called them whores of
attention. That is incredibly harsh language
for a TV review. It is brutal. The Washington
Times even called the show a sign of moral, spiritual,
and cultural decay, like the fall of the Roman
Empire, but with lip gloss. This is the hate
watch phenomenon, and the criticism almost always
focuses on that one central concept. famous for
being famous. It is a Mubius strip of celebrity.
They're famous because they are on TV and they
are on TV because they are famous. It drives
critics crazy because there is no talent in the
traditional sense, no singing, no acting, no
athletic achievement. The talent is being famous.
But not everyone hated it. There were some more
nuanced takes in the sources. Yes. Some critics
from places like Rolling Stone and the A .V.
Club, they sort of leaned in. They recognized
the seductive qualities of their vanity. There
was something undeniably compelling about watching
people with gargantuan egos live out these completely
frivolous lives. It's almost like watching a
nature documentary. About a completely different
species, yes. And there's the American dream
argument, right? They made something out of nothing.
They built an empire. on their own personalities.
It's the ultimate entrepreneurial story in a
weird way. Precisely. And Psychology Today noted
a fascinating paradox. They argued the family
became more relatable the more famous they got.
How does that even work? That seems completely
counterintuitive. They're billionaires flying
on private jets. Well, the theory is that by
exposing every single aspect of their lives,
the ugly fights, the divorces, the insecurities,
Kim's psoriasis breakouts, Chloe's fertility
issues, they create this pseudo intimacy with
the viewer. I see. Even though they are on a
yacht in Greece, you see Kim crying about a breakup.
And on a human level, you think, I know what
that feels like. It bridges the enormous gap
created by the wealth. It's what academics call
a parasocial relationship on steroids. That makes
a lot of sense. And we've seen them go through
some major, major life events. We've touched
on the wedding, but we have to talk about Caitlyn
Jenner's transition because this was handled
on the show in a very specific, very public way.
It was. It was a massive television event. There
was a two -part special on Keeping Up called
About Bruce. This was before the name change
was official in the public eye. Right. And then
there's a separate docuseries, I Am Kate. Now,
E was very, very careful to say I Am Kate was
not a spinoff. Right. They wanted to distinguish
it. It had a different mission. It focused on
broader LGBTQ issues. It had a more educational
documentary style tone. But looking at the critical
response to the About Bruce specials on the main
show, many critics felt it was a missed opportunity.
They felt it seemed staged and controlled. There's
that word again. Control. It's the recurring
theme of the entire Kardashian enterprise. Even
with something as deeply personal and culturally
significant as a gender transition, the Kardashian
machine has to process it through its own filter.
It has to fit the narrative arc of the show.
The story has to be told their way. So after
20 seasons, nearly a decade and a half, the family
makes this huge announcement in September 2020.
The show is ending. The end of an era. It felt
like a real cultural milestone. The final season
concluded in June 2021. Well, was it really the
end? Of course not. It was never going to be
the end. Because almost immediately, they pivot.
They announce a massive deal with Hulu. The new
show is just called The Kardashians. It just
proves the point we made earlier about them being
ahead of the media curve. The platform changed.
They moved from linear cable to streaming. But
the content machine didn't stop for a second.
They realized they don't need the e -network
anymore. They are the network. The audience will
follow them wherever they go. Their brand is
bigger than any single channel. And they have
the hardware to prove it. We can't ignore the
awards. They consistently won Teen Choice Awards,
People's Choice Awards. Year after year. Often
in the guilty pleasure category, sure. But a
win is a win. It validates the audience. Critics
might call it cultural decay. But the people
voted. They voted with their remote controls
for 14 years, and they voted with their clicks.
So what does this all mean? When we zoom out,
we've gone from a single Sunday BBQ tape to a
multi -billion dollar global empire. It's a story
about the evolution of media. They didn't just
ride the wave of reality TV and social media.
They learned how to direct it. They changed how
we define celebrity. They monetize their own
lives in a way that no one had ever done before.
Certainly not at this scale. And they did it
as a family, a chaotic, loving, arguing, ridiculously
wealthy family. A Brady Bunch with a lot more
money. Yeah. And much better lighting. Exactly.
So as we wrap up, I want to leave you with a
final thought. You brought up those brutal reviews
earlier, the ones that talked about cultural
decay. It raises a provocative question, doesn't
it? It's the central question of their legacy,
I think. Did the Kardashians force their vanity
upon us? Did they create this culture of obsession
with frivolity and fame? Or did the show simply
hold up a mirror to a society that was already
obsessed with it? Were they just giving us what
we secretly wanted all along? So did we create
them or did they create us? That really is the
question. I think the scary answer might be a
bit of both. Something to mull over the next
time you're scrolling through Instagram and you
see that familiar aesthetic? Check your own sources,
your social feeds, and you'll see the legacy
is alive and well. Thanks for listening to this
deep dive. We'll see you next time.