Kardashian Kolloquium Writer MJ Corey on the Kardashians' Impact

In 2018, MJ Corey, a psychotherapist and writer based in New York, started an Instagram account called “Kardashian Kolloquium,” where she uses moments from E!’s Keeping Up With The Kardashians and now Hulu’s The Kardashians — and incessant media surrounding the family more generally — as material to draw grander conclusions about American society, the entertainment industry, the cult of celebrity and today’s media landscape. Her intersectional analysis of reality television through the lens of sociology and philosophy offers an academic approach to content many ignore as superficial or meaningless distraction, thereby legitimizing it in an artful and approachable way.

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“Applying theory to the Kardashians helped me understand the [media] theory better, and my hope is to make it feel more accessible to other people too,” Corey says. “I feel like we’re witnessing the slo-mo swan song of critical thought and it feels important to model critical thinking frameworks for people. And more and more, to get people to care about stuff, it needs to be presented in a fun way.”

Corey’s account is an extended, living dissertation on the Kardashian family and what they represent in today’s culture. With each post, she dissects not only the nuances of language by close-reading the dialogue of the show, but also their hyperconsciousness of media and images, and how they’ve been able to curate a hyperreal universe uniquely their own.

MJ Corey spoke with THR about postmodernism, why she sees the Kardashians as an entertainment corporation, why she thinks they speak so “simplistically” and how her Instagram account has become “a journey of documenting self-study and trying to bring people into it.”

What motivated you to start this work analyzing the Kardashians and their empire?

I was never really that interested in the Kardashians. I was a fan of Kanye [“Ye” West]’s music, so when he started dating Kim, I noticed it and thought it made sense in a weird way. At the time, I liked the fact that Kim was this ethnically ambiguous person in the spotlight during the early aughts era of certain beauty ideals. I noticed her but I wasn’t interested in reality TV so I was just peripherally aware of them.

And then in 2018, a friend put on Keeping Up With the Kardashians, and I was kind of, like, affected. I was moved by how uncanny and weird it felt. I had seen reality shows in the past that didn’t really grab me like this; it didn’t feel as much like junk food for the brain like many other reality shows had felt for me. [When I saw] the Bora Bora episode, where Kim and Rob Kardashian are arguing at that resort, it was that typical staged Kardashian antics energy, but then again this fight felt very real. There was a moment when Rob said to Kim: “Mom raised you better than that, Dad raised you better than that.”

I told my sister about it, who was a film student at the time, and she was like, “Oh, yeah, you have to read Jean Baudrillard. He explores exactly that weird liminal space that the show lives in.” It became fascinating through that lens. And so really my account became an excuse for me to [delve into my analytical impulse], and it helped me understand postmodern theory — and media theory — better.

Reality TV and scripted television are not really viewed as being in the same world, mostly because I think writers, creators and actors see reality shows as a less legitimate exploration of the medium. But what you’ve done is really take a serious look at a show that a lot of people dismiss as superficial, tabloid-esque television. Why does The Kardashians deserve a more academic approach?

I view the Kardashians as a prompt and a prism, because they give us so much content, there’s so many of them, and they do so many things. There are all these dynamics that they can just [make into] content. There’s kind of a “well-made play” element to this. So this is an excuse to learn about the well-made play genre.

But [the show] can also be a prism because they have not remained siloed to the medium of reality TV — that has been their center of gravity, but they have brought media and commerce and marketing together in these ways that make them like an American fractal.

They’ve subsumed culture for so long, and they’ve amassed controversy, so I think the show is now a bigger part of cultural conversations about the Kardashians. I think it’s more integrated now. Outrage baiting and seizing the media, creating scenarios that are so easily reproducible by headlines, social media content, retweets, and posts … is all a part of how we live now. They are more than just reality stars because they brought every form of media into their project and then expanded it. They really conquered it in a different kind of way.

What you’re exploring when you talk about the different archetypes each family member represents, likening them to Disney characters or superheroes, interests me, because it’s an analysis of the family as parts and also as a whole. What is your approach to understanding the Kardashians both as a combined force but also as separate brands and personalities?

I really enjoy doing reads of the show the most because it consolidates everything — the fractal is all there within the show. They’re doing product placement with the show, they’re telling their little narratives about their lives to show they’re singling each other out as archetypes in the show, so it’s kind of all in there.

Comparing them to Disney characters or these larger cultural emblems … there’s a few benefits to that. It’s fun and it makes [the analysis] accessible because these are highly visual cultural figures. The Incredibles is something that most of us can refer to and recognize quickly, and that’s why I think Kanye has driven so much of these references; it’s an optical way to weigh in.

The Kardashians are a lot like the Disney conglomerate. There’s a quote in Dutch architect Stefan Al’s book The Strip: Las Vegas and the Architecture of the American Dream.… He quotes Walt Disney who says something like “all fairy tales have to be exaggerated or caricatured, it’s the nature of fable,” or something. And so, the Kardashians are doing that with the way they curate their stories: They emphasize things in these extreme ways, and then they compress little things, and it’s all to serve them, but it’s also to squeeze the most out of their lives to affect the most mass appeal they possibly can, to reach as far as they can globally. It has to be really exaggerated and curated, so things don’t get lost in the shuffle.

That’s why they speak so simplistically too. I think the message gets across easiest when it’s uncomplicated, so it all funnels into their commerce. The whole brand is about selling themselves. And that’s not really new to marketing, especially after the 1950s when our society became much more consumerist. There are social contracts for the formula that they’re following and now innovating on.

There’s definitely a hunger for hyperreal entertainment; I think of the popularity of mockumentary-style shows like Abbott Elementary as one example — that blurred line between fiction and reality clearly appeals to viewers. The Walt Disney Company is media and commerce canon at this point; how do you map the Disney conglomerate formula onto the Kardashian family structure?

I think they are masters of dialectics. So the ability to promote the sexuality of their images but then revert to very traditional, Americana values of family and gender roles [is interesting]. They subvert gender roles by being so high-powered and ruthless, but then they also use traditional gender roles as a shield and really perform them.

Disney put out a [“Synergy”] map of the Disney brand in 1957; it’s a web of connected domains within the brand to show that it’s really a conglomerate — from the cartoons to the T-shirts to the theme parks. I want to do that so badly with the Kardashians because they also have so many different hubs of income.

I actually think we could compare [West’s] Donda era of publicity to the Disneyland theme parks because what the Kardashians and Kanye give us is a strong dose of experiential marketing; even though it’s two-dimensional, when they make us feel involved in their personal dramas, that’s experiential. I feel like that’s what Disney was going for with his Disney parks.

The Kardashians have proven themselves to be astute at predicting what consumers want; the success of their personal brands and businesses seem based on this. Do you think that they are driving culture by designing virality around their own creations, or are they picking up on already established trends and simply financing, adopting, and magnifying them to the point they become mainstream?

When they started, Kris [Jenner] mentioned in a reunion episode with Andy Cohen, there was a perfect storm of things happening. So they had the drive, they had the access and privilege, they probably had the business acumen. At the time, it’s a reality TV culture and they had proximity to it, so I think they did learn what worked. Also, we can look at the social context [in 2007]: They are a multiracial family with this culturally appropriative tendency in the beginning, and they are an ethnically ambiguous, maybe Middle Eastern family in a post-911 landscape entering the Obama administration. That was all already kind of in their favor.

And then they got on social media at the helm of these platforms. Kim got on Instagram, and did really well when it started; so much of success on social media is timing, and she was an early adopter. When people were still taking pictures of their meals and sunsets, Kim put a claim on selfies, wrote and published a book of her selfies, and she let people make fun of her for her vanity. But the fact is, it’s proven in psychology that people respond better to images of faces, so it was bound to happen eventually that there would be a selfie storm, but she popularized it and claimed it, lived in the shame of judgment, and then that grew to shape the Kardashian influence on Instagram. There’s just natural ways that they see what works and then do more of it.

I think the same thing is true for cultural appropriation. They saw the response, the agitation, the energy concentrated there. There’s obviously capital associated with Black culture and entertainment. So I think they are somewhat authentic, and then they improvise based on what numbers are telling them … because as much as we’re watching them, they’re watching us. Data collection is a real thing, surveillance culture is real, and there’s no way they’re not studying the numbers. I think social media really helped them figure out how to be what we are and reflect America back at itself, and then leverage that.

I want to touch on what you said about Kim living in the shame of people making fun of her, especially since you’re a psychotherapist. I’ve been thinking a lot about how humiliation is used as a tool in celebrity-tabloid-gossip culture and how, for better or for worse, it impacts fame. What emotions do you feel drive the show and their entire enterprise — is it shame, is it anger, is it joy?

That’s an interesting question. It’s tough because what I try to do is actually psychoanalyze the systemic effect they have on us as audiences. I always struggle with how to boundary my abilities with psychoanalysis of them, because they’re such media holograms to me. I don’t think I can psychoanalyze them because who knows who they are actually?

But to your point, there is a self-effacement that they really revel in and enable, because it engages people. There is a sadomasochistic element to the way they put themselves out there, and we consume them. And they come out stronger. I actually think that dynamic is why it was so controversial when Kim wore Marilyn Monroe’s dress to the Met Gala because Marylin was an American icon who was used and thrown away, she has a tragic end to her story. I think it was so offensive to people that Kim co-opted her, is because Kim Kardashian isn’t tragic. She’s consumed and then always survives at the end; I think there is disdain for that. I think we want to see our female icons chewed up and spat out and then we feel sorry for them — it’s romantic to remember them that way. But Kim is different because she doesn’t really allow that. She does allow herself to be consumed, and insulted and critiqued, but she kind of just stands through it.… It’s that calm is my superpower thing.

What I will say is I sometimes feel confused about what keeps them going. I think that might be sort of what we’re getting at here together, like, they have the money and the fame, why not just retire? Are they working really hard to stay relevant? That’s an interesting drive that I can’t relate to, actually.

What are your thoughts about the transition of the show from being on E! to now being on Hulu? Obviously our cultural landscape is different 15 years later, so are you seeing any similarities or departures between the two iterations of the show?

I think they break the fourth wall a lot more, which was such a pleasure for me watching this because that’s what I have my feelers out for at all times with them — when are they showing an awareness of what they’re doing? There’s a self referential [element]; they talk about the cameras so much more this time around. I’m always looking out for those postmodern and multimedia moments, but [the Hulu series] is pleasant to watch. It’s nice on the eyes. They’re really good at narrative. They’re really good at the hero’s journey, but it doesn’t have that old Kardashian charm of sisters rolling around on the floor together.

Also, the hiatus they took between E! to Hulu was exhausting because they made sure to compensate for that absence on TV by performing so much for tabloid and news media in extreme ways that were exaggerated and really persistent. They did not rest with the media content.

Now they’re kind of shifting it back so you have to watch the show to see the details. But they gave us a lot in that media era between [networks].

I’m curious why you think your account resonates with general audiences interested in the Kardashians, but also why a more specific entertainment industry audience might find the family intriguing, despite the fact that they are notoriously considered talent-free influencers. And yet they somehow have just as much fame — and cultural impact — as Hollywood’s finest trained actors.

I think the reason they’re relevant to Hollywood people is because they do represent this new model of publicity that is very real and more democratized, for better or for worse. It’s tough because I really admire great talent. I love the transcendence of art and being lost in a song or a film. A great performance blows me away, it’s just electric. So I understand that [sentiment]. I also think that people are deluding themselves if they want to cling to the gatekeeping [around fame].

Whenever I kind of challenge people to the thought experiment of why the Kardashians or influencers may surpass and eclipse these older models of fame, like within the Hollywood studio system … There’s a common impulse with most industries to scoff at influencers and the kind of reality-based, self-as-commodity, data-driven journey Kim has modeled. But the influencer pathway merely lays bare what may have always been true about how media operates. Aren’t actors commodities to studios and networks, in a sense? Aren’t most TV pilots treated like data-driven content — achieving production only once a test audience and decent ratings pass it through? Hasn’t product placement been a go-to marketing strategy in plenty of projects? Still, I understand that it’s unnerving to see the actual collapse of the lines between social media and the film industry.

The Kardashians and their content is easy to produce because their latest drama just gets compressed into headline content and social media content, which is easier and cheaper to make than Hollywood films. There’s been a boom in documentaries on streaming services [because] reality content is more visceral to people in a different way.

The industry is going to have to accept that the influencer economy is coming for all other industries. Films will need the support of influencers and social media communities in order to succeed — conversations online are creating the hype that critics were once relied upon to generate. Films featuring people’s favorite Instagram-to-big-screen crossover stars will have great success. I think the Kardashians have had a huge hand in this shift. Kim, after all, was the “original influencer” who popularized a self-determined, algorithm-determined fame model. She also showed the sheer power of partnerships that bridge industries. I also think it’s worth it to abstain from romanticizing the studio system or previous forms of entertainment production. Those years may have produced better art — but was it actually any more moral? Some might argue that the entrance of social media as a force in the entertainment industry actually democratizes things. The masses decide who they want to keep up with, who they follow and, therefore, who they want to make famous.

I wonder if when we confront reality-based content as the next frontier of entertainment, we can make it better and more interesting. I think Nathan Fielder is doing this with his work. The Rehearsal is essentially a reality show. It elevates and complicates all of the basic conventions of reality TV. But it’s undeniably made with taste and a very real, philosophical sensibility.

The sociologists and philosophers who have foundationally influenced your thinking on media — Jean Baudrillard, Marshall McLuhan and Daniel Boorstin — spoke a lot about the acceleration of media, spectacle and the creation of the self. Through studying their theories, which were not only current but often prophetic, are you able to predict what comes next for The Kardashians and entertainment media more broadly?

What has amazed me about those thinkers is that the Kardashians are, like, living examples of what they were anticipating.

I personally think we’re in a hellscape and all of this has to do with new media and capitalism and how they relate to each other. The Kardashians basically reflect the system as it is, and I want to understand that.

The Kardashians also have the benefit of now being intergenerational, so there is going to be interest in the Kardashian kids. That’s coming next. I try to [limit] how much I talk about the children; I think it’s wild that they live almost in a Truman Show, but I do think that when they are of age and more cognizant of their realities, there will be public interest and a lot to say.

The thing about the Kardashians that overwhelms me is that they keep showing us how far they can go, and how big they can get. I think it’s an allegory for capitalism. And it’s just a question of when it collapses.

The Kardashian Kolloquium project has made me very, very bummed about social media culture and this era. But I’m just trying to use it to learn and flourish my own intellectual life, and maybe inspire others, but I’m not feeling great about where things are going.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

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