

Celebrities
The Kardashians, Explained
While a nation mourns the end of Season Seven, a confessed addict attempts to understand her own obsession.
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Every day, hasty calculations are scribbled on dusty blackboards in Harvard, grey-suited men gather at top secret meetings, strange machines clank and monkeys in fez hats frantically type, all trying to work out the answer to one question: What is a Kardashian?
Now, I don’t claim to be one of the greatest minds of my generation. But I have watched a hell of a lot of repeats of Keeping Up With The Kardashians and Khloe and Kourtney Take Miami with my mouth hanging open, which I feel qualifies me as something of an expert on pop culture, like Perez Hilton but with even bigger tits.
So: what is a Kardashian? The answers are many and varied.
They are a rich family with big bottoms and an obsession with the letter K. They are the children and heirs of Robert Kardashian, who was OJ Simpson’s attorney and died in 2003. They have a reality show, they are a brand, they are a pox on our society, and one of them is going out with Kanye West. They embody the worst excesses of trashy, modern wealth, therefore they’re strangely compelling, like the world’s most expensive sandwich or a dog in a designer bag, or a six-star hotel in Baku.
In the grand scheme of things, the Kardashians are small fry, but still, they’re here, and we are witness to their triumphs, tragedies and small victories, from childbirth and buying new SUVs to appearing on red carpets in Vegas and getting Ass Botox. They never do anything remotely useful, but I LOVE them, shamelessly.
Here is your handy guide so that you can, quite literally, ‘Keep Up With The Kardashians’ (and then kill yourself):
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