Is Kim Kardashian returning to her influencer roots?
Is Kim Kardashian returning to her influencer roots?
An unfiltered new Instagram Story hints at a path forward for a star in transition.
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Side note: if the Kardashians don’t want to be influencers, they have promising careers as ASMRtists. —Kate
The Kardashians are some of the most boring people in pop culture, though I don't resent them at all for "being famous for doing nothing" (and they do make for great unintentional ASMR fodder). I still follow them on Instagram because it’s my American duty, but last night was the first time in recent memory I actually found myself engrossed by Kim Kardashian’s Story. If you skipped past her Scott Disick birthday tribute and posts about Skims, you landed on an AMA she conducted, using Instagram’s question feature, while getting her nails done.
It was nothing crazy—influencers do this all the time to boost engagement. Celebrities sometimes do it, too, typically picking the most vanilla questions to answer so they can pretend to be relatable. But Kim’s wasn’t so guarded, and it made me wonder if her post-Keeping Up With The Kardashian’s pivot is back to traditional influencer—or rather, what that’s become while she’s been gone.
Normally, we get Kardashian news from tabloids steered by “sources close to” the family, or three months later on their heavily curated show. But in her AMA, Kardashian quickly addressed three actual news items: failing the "baby bar" exam, her current lawsuit, and rumors that she and Kourtney Kardashian’s current beau, Travis Barker, previously hooked up.
Skeptics might offer up the Kardashian family standby: This was planned by Kris Jenner. But even if these answers were calculated PR moves, we’re getting them in a totally different way. Like, there wasn’t some coincidental article with former Kim Kardashian employees talking about how well she pays that appeared in Page Six to counter the lawsuit news. Kardashian gave us her side, herself.
There are other reasons to wonder if the family’s traditional celebrity is slipping. Coty, a beauty company whose portfolio includes Kylie Skin and a 20 percent stake in KKW beauty, has been overhauling Kylie Jenner’s brand, and sales are reportedly declining.
And while the family has already revealed that they’re continuing their reality TV journey on Hulu, Hulu itself has already started marketing the next Kardashian family with The D’Amelio Show, a reality show following the family of TikTokker Charli D’Amelio. Both families on the same streaming service will be a real generational clash, and I’m not confident the Kardashians can win it.
But this is all to say that I enjoyed seeing Kardashian play the role of normal influencer, even if it was just for a few slides. And I wouldn’t say her leaning back into her social media roots is any kind of demotion. She helped usher in this new era of online celebrity, and if last night’s AMA was any indication, her followers are hungry to welcome her back.