The first would be Confusion, i.e., who is this person and why should I care about them? The next is Ambivalence, where you now know who the person is but are really not committed to caring (most contestants are eliminated before we ever get through this phase).
Then there's Strong Feelings (love them, hate them, love to hate them, hate to love that you hate them, and so on). Then sometimes, you move on to Over-Saturation (usually during finale time).
After the finale, fans and haters might move back to Strong Feelings, non-fans back to Ambivalence, but as the aftereffects of notoriety begin to hit the reality TV "stars," some of us move on to Pity.
And that's where I'm at with the central figure of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. I pretty much fast-tracked to Strong Feelings (guess which one) and Over-Saturation within about 7-8 seconds of watching the first episode of the show.
I'm as big a fan of a sassy, eccentric family as the next person, and I can tolerate some pretty trashy TV. But the entire family – at least how they were portrayed on Keeping Up with the Kardashians – seemed so uniformly repellent in word and deed, I couldn't find any real humanity to relate to on that show.
Since the show, though, the unending stream of really nasty press about Kim has now actually officially pushed me into Pity. The kicker was that - after making it to number two on the list of "Dumbest Celebrities" - she also landed in the number two spot on AOL Black Voices' List of “10 Women We Love to Hate.”
Number two. She scored higher than New York (Tiffany Pollard).
Doesn't there seem to be something out of whack here? Sure, I'm all for poking fun, I poke fun professionally, but the level of vitriol aimed at this young woman just seems a little bit out of proportion for her crime, namely, attention-seeking. Sure, she might not have the talent to justify her level of fame, but neither do a lot of people who are similarly in the public eye.
We still have, mercifully, at least a little while before the second season of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, but maybe the new season will bring a new take on Kim that will help minimize the negative reception.
Source: AOL Black Voices
