sdoulfik

Keeping Up with the Kardashians (2007)

Exploiting the Active audience and making emerge a society obessessed with consumerism

This show is more political than just entertainment. We need to question why are so many people watching this show which has no important message. This shows makes us think of a society that is obsessed with watching reality even though it has no educational or informative message. it is a culture that is obsessed with a narcissistic society as Pecora write about in the Surveillance Society. The Kardashians not only make it seem that it is important to publish their private lives and make it an entertainment but they also send a message that many must critically analyze: consumerism. They show their houses and talk about their brands in order to target young audiences and not only receive money from the show but also from their brands. It is the complete exploitation of the fan audiences. When done watching an episode, audiences walk out with a desire to purchase things and speculate about useless stuff like how kim lost a $70,000 earrings in the pool and cried about it. The Kardashians want to create realism and influence an ideology of consumerism. Even though it is blatant their show is scripted or might be manipulated at times in order to create social media buzz. For example, when Kim Kardashian recorded the conversation with taylor swift and Kanye West and published it on snapchat in order to humiliate Taylor and gain more snapchat followers. It is all done for profit and fame. The real question that show make emerge critical discussions is why do the Kardashians believe people would want to watch their private lives? Isn't that exploiting the audience by using their time for useless content? As well as to promote their brands? Every episode is pointless and had drama that we don't need to see such as the drama when Bruce Jenner told the family he wants to transition to a female. The whole episode was Kylie, Kourtney, Khloe complaining about how he has never talked to them about this even though he's been feeling like a woman for a long time. How does this narrative and plot affect the audience? It doesn't teach us anything other than being obsessed with reality TV.