Kim Kardashian Just Doesn’t Get It

It’s not about envy, it’s capitalism.

Taru Anniina Liikanen
7 min readOct 21, 2022

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VOGUE Taiwan, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons. Source.

Okay, I’ll admit I have a thing with the Kardashians. Everyone knows them, and they show so many interesting things about the world.

Whether we’re talking about social media, slut-shaming, infidelity, eating disorders or violence against women, there’s always something to say about them.

And sometimes, they say something interesting about capitalism. So here goes.

You Better Work B*tch

Remember that Variety interview in which Kim Kardashian gave some great advice to women in business?

“I have the best advice for women in business. Get your f — — — ass up and work. It seems like nobody wants to work these days.”

Yeah. Kim could have given some actual, actionable advice, but she chose to go with that one.

She deservedly received a lot of backlash for her tone-deaf advice. How can a person born into such immense privilege have the nerve to say something like that?

In the days after the clip went viral, the Kardashian family gave some excuses, while comments from their former — poorly paid — employees began surfacing online.

It seemed the Kardashians don’t always believe in giving other people the recognition for hard work they expect others to give them.

Still, I admit I felt a little bad for her, as I have for a while now. Especially since her ex-husband began publicly harassing her and her then-boyfriend Pete Davidson. I thought she just hadn’t thought it through, and something stupid just slipped out.

The Kardashians are undoubtedly some hard-working women who have been treated as talentless and stupid during their entire careers, because they don’t sing, act, dance or focus on other traditional roads to celebrity. They’re famous for being famous.

But they’ve clearly shown us they’re great at something: making money. And their family is a fully female-led enterprise, which I support.

Then again, they’ve also done some harm, and this is where I’d love to see them take some responsibility. But from what they’re showing on their new Hulu show, The Kardashians

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Taru Anniina Liikanen

Finnish by birth, porteña at heart. Recovering political ghostwriter and comedian. Bad jokes my own.