The One Month Kardashian Challenge — Could I watch all the episodes of, “Keeping Up the Kardashians” in one month? What, if anything, would I learn?
By: Liz Wilson
Tags: Kardashian, Social Justice, Inequality, Embroidery, Prison Reform

As UK COVID-19 lock down descended once again, I needed something aspirational to carry me through the isolated weeks ahead. I had checked into an Airbnb on a sufficiently remote farm, it would be a three mile walk to the nearest shop (I don’t have a car). I envisaged a creative retreat where I could isolate, forcibly exercise (or starve), and overthink some writing projects…oh, and also work online.

Many could claim it was a disturbing waste to devote such a precious gift of time to watching all episodes of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, but I had questions to answer. Why was this show so popular? Were the characters as self obsessed and pointless as I assumed? Were there even enough hours to complete this challenge in a month? I could have used maths to make that final calculation, but, like a Trump supporter, I decided the only proof I wanted was in lived experience.

It didn’t take me long to realise the enormity of the task I had taken on. Who knew the Kardashian franchise was so huge? I had no idea there were even 18 seasons, and when I got to the end of those, I realised the TV was still playing. To my surprise, there was also a 19th! That was not all, each year there were additional side shows filmed with individual cast members; Kourtney and Kim Take New York, Kourtney and Khloe take the Hamptons. At first I was watching the side shows as well but I quickly realised there was no time for such frivolities. If I wanted to achieve my goal, which officially related to the original series, I needed to focus. I started the final week with five seasons left to watch, it was going to be tight but it seemed like I should make it before the enforced deadline: the end of free Prime and Huyu trials.

The Kardashian challenge measured by embroidery

Before anyone dismisses me as a lazy TV addict, I was combining this monthly challenge with a side hustle, a beast of an embroidery project. Above, you can see a pictorial representation of the Kardashian challenge when measured by embroidery, instead of time. Some may argue watching the Kardashians was a complete waste of time, but I think we can agree the embroidery makes it a win regardless.

Who? Why? What?

So those of you who have been following the monthly challenge for a while will already know (I jest, it’s the first time I’ve done this), these events are not just about completing a task, it’s also about personal growth. I believe there is learning in every experience, what wisdom could I discern from the Kardashians?

Let’s pause a moment, just in case there is anyone left who somehow isn’t aware, and give a little background. Keeping Up With The Kardashians is a TV show that began in 2008 and tracks the life of the blended Kardashian-Jenner family. Four children from Kris Kardashian (nee Jenner, nee Kardashian)’s first marriage to Robert Kardashian, whose most notable life achievement was being friend and lawyer to OJ Simpson in the infamous trial where he was acquitted of murdering his wife. And two children from Kris’s second marriage to Bruce (now Caitlyn) Jenner. (I will use the name Caitlyn for the remainder of the article regardless of if the occurrence is before or after Caitlyn transitioned).

Kardashian Family Tree

Perhaps I have an immediate affinity with the Kardashian-Jenner’s because my family structure is curiously similar. I have four older siblings (three girls and a boy) from my father’s first marriage and then myself and a younger brother from the second. As the fifth child, I’m the Kendall of my family. Like the four Kardashian children, my father also died when I was young. I’d say the similarities between us end there.

What have I learned from the show?

I was prepared to despise everything about the Kardashians in the guilt-free paradise of knowing that whatever tragedy befalls the family, they have plenty of money to soothe their woes. Yet, it hasn’t been that easy. While the family do have some of the most extraordinarily vile arguments, littered with insults and accusations, they always pull together in the end. Without a doubt Kris is a unifying matriarch who occasionally steps in when things have gotten out of hand, pushing her kids to talk and apologise.

The family are at their best when they are teasing each other. In Season 15, Khloe and Scott enact revenge on Kris for her art snobbery by introducing her to fake artist, Art Vandalay (name borrowed from Seinfeld). Kris even unwittingly uses her home to showcase the hideous art pieces that were actually painted (more accurately, thrown together) by Khloe. However, while their playfulness can be funny, sometimes they go too far. The repeated “toilet paperings” of people’s houses was exasperating in the current climate change reality of a world breaking under the excess consumption of elites. Of course, their private planes make far more of an impact, but this felt even more needless.

More concerning was the Todd Krains prank in season 8. I accept the premise is hilarious, Scott makes nonsensical calls to an unwitting Kris, using a silly voice and pretending to be an old family friend, Todd Krains. Months later, when Kris is finally made aware, it transpires the prank continued despite Kris telling them she had been struggling to sleep due to anxiety about the potential stalker. In these moments, I marvel the family’s ability to laugh things off and continue to trust each other.

It is easy to see why Kim has been particularly adored by the public, there is something about her calm determination that is endearing. In episode, “Body Blows” in the third season, Caitlyn arranges a charity fundraiser in the form of a boxing match. Highest bidders get to fight members of the family. Caitlyn completes her challenge but things take a turn for the worse when Rob enters the ring and it becomes obvious his opponent is not playing for fun. Rob resigns, bleeding, and the other family members drop out of their matches. It is Kim who quietly goes to her mother and says that she still wants to do it. Kim met a service user from the organisation they are fundraising for earlier in the day, she doesn’t want to let them down. It is in these glimpses that we see a great role model, someone who is persistent, works hard, and cares about others.

I think it is easy for rich people to believe that they care about others who are, “less fortunate” (aka trapped in a system of capitalist slavery that intentionally prevents them from succeeding). When you have millions in the bank, you can freely give large sums of money without feeling any financial impact yourself. To the rest of us, it appears like incredible generosity, but in fact, research has shown that as a percentage of income, it is poor people who give the most. The Kardashians usually make efforts once per season to do something charitable. In one of the earlier episodes they hand out toys to children in hospital and Khloe explains to Kendall that this is what you do to avoid feeling bad about how much you have. There’s a chilling matter of factness to the way Khloe speaks that made me feel sad. Rich people tokenistically letting slip a few crumbs of their wealth, is on a par with white people not using the “n” word and thinking they have solved racism. It is society that has to change. Imagine what would be possible if rich people invested in dismantling the systems of oppression that prevent billions of people from having an equal opportunity to be financially independent.

Changing systems takes more than the casual donation of things, it starts with individuals. People with privilege need to change; their attitudes, their beliefs about why they have succeeded, their understanding of why other people haven’t. It was as I wrote these words that I had a sudden revelation and my jaw dropped open in surprise. Is this what Kim Kardashian is actually doing?!

From Season 14 Kim’s activism starts to feel less shallow. Kim and Khloe promote Planned Parenthood, a move for which they surely will have received significant backlash from the religious right in the US. In Season 16 Kim starts to campaign for wrongfully detained prisoners and this (in my opinion) is where things start to get interesting. Kim advocates for one woman, Alice Marie Johnson, asking Donald Trump for clemency. Alice was given a life sentence without the possibility of parole for a non-violent drug offence, she has served a staggering 22 years at the time of the request. They succeed and when Alice Marie is released, Kim starts to receive hundreds of letters from other incarcerated people.

In 2019 comes the announcement that, surely, no one saw coming. Kim is training to become a criminal justice lawyer so she can properly promote prison reform and fight mass incarceration. What?! The girl who does YouTube videos on how to do your make up?? Kim explains that it wasn’t enough to be a figurehead and sit in rooms while other people debate strategy, she wants to understand what is going on. Of course, there are critics who say she is just doing this for the publicity. If that is true, an 18 hour per week commitment for four years seems like one hell of an investment. For a woman who is a multimillionaire, and already one of the best known celebrities in the world, surely some trips to Africa with UNICEF would have been easier? What I see is someone taking time to understand the problem, in preparation of aiding the solution. Most of what happens in Keeping Up with the Kardashians is pretty pointless, but this, is a lesson we can all learn from.

Just when I thought things might get interesting, perhaps an opportunity to learn more about Kim’s exploits in social justice, alas the final seasons of the show fail to deliver. The family arguments become increasingly tense, with the sisters resorting to violence on a number of occasions. Kourtney spends the majority of the later episodes treating everyone like total crap. After years of therapy, Kourtney has decided that uncompromisingly insisting she gets exactly what she wants is just healthy boundary setting. It has the feel of someone who has spent too much time on a journey of self exploration, being validated by therapists who are more interested in securing an ongoing pay cheque than challenging clients to address their destructive behaviours.

A Princeton University study from 2010 found that happiness increases with income up to about $75,000, beyond this there is no impact. The Kardashians exemplify this. In one later episode Scott shouts, “When is this family going to catch a break?” My internal monologue instinctively spat out — you have all become multimillionaires over the course of the past decade, how much of a break do you need? Yet it is true, for the excessive wealth that they have, they do not seem to have a corresponding excessive amount of happiness. The family’s collective decision to end the show in 2021 seems like a good one, if for their own well-being, as much as ours.

Considering the time I spent on the Kardashian challenge, I concluded that the best thing to come out of it probably was embroidery. But don’t understimate that Kim Kardashian, from what I’ve seen, she might just change the world.