Time Magazine, amongst many large scale media outlets, helped nationalize the title for Millennial's as The "ME, ME, ME" generation in their 2013 piece. The "me" generation title highlights our current infatuation with ourselves. We create social medias dedicated to pictures of ourselves, write blogs highlighting only our own opinions and watch shows about people's lives who are as self-obsessed as we are. The leading ladies in these reality shows are none other than the Kardashians.
Unlike many people, I do not have a Kardashian obsession. I used to watch their ultra-mega hit reality show, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, here and there but I never found their lives interesting enough to follow.
On the other hand, I am not a Kardashian hater either. I respect the empire they have created for themselves by primarily exposing their own lives. They do basically do what we do every day on social media, they just made a career out of it. The Kardashian’s are leaders in the “me” generation, creating products and careers for themselves based around their own personal branding. I even own my fair collection of Kylie velvet lip kits. Make fun of it all you want, from their prominent success, they're feeding into the society around them.
Young Kylie Jenner kicked off the two-part premiere of her own reality show “Life of Kylie” recently. Kylie is barely twenty years old but she is no stranger to the spotlight. Her dull, social media fueled new show highlights her successful life filled with private jets and personal assistants. She discusses her friends, her beauty empire, and vulnerabilities. “My first therapy session! Write that down!”, she yells. The show is pulled along with white bold text across the screen, psychedelic Snapchat transitions and a neon “Kylie O’Klock #LifeofKylie” dancing across the corner of the screen.
For those of you who don't want to watch "Life of Kylie" but still want to be in the know, I'll give you a quick summary of last week's pilot episode.Kylie. Kylie's team of people. Kylie's never been to prom. Kylie doesn't like airports so Kylie's team needs to find a working jet to get to prom. Kylie goes to prom. Kylie watches her best friend go on a blind date. Kylie goes to therapy. Kylie summarizes and explains how she feels like an outsider from everyone else in her famous universe. This is all accessorized by selfies and Snapchat videos.
Life of Kylie, along with the other collection of Kardashian based reality shows, is something I don’t think I will be watching any more of due to lack of interest. In the promo for the season, I didn’t even find one story-line I was remotely intrigued in watching unravel. What stuck out to me though is as much as we can make fun of Kylie's new show and Kylie in general, she is the definition of what this generation is. On a much less extravagant scale of course.
Among quotes of complaining about selfies and not driving her Lamborghini enough, one of her first comments lingered throughout the whole show to me. “There's an image I constantly feel the need to keep up with… in order to stay relevant to the public I have to be on Instagram and I have to be on Snapchat, just keeping people entertained.”, she tell us in the first couple of minutes of the show. We are all living in the middle of a generation where social media is the center of the social solar system.
Documenting every good hair day, early morning coffee run and weekend shopping trip is considered a norm. The obsession we have over a couple of apps and what image we are putting out in the world is an art form now. It’s even a career. Social media managers, social media stars and bloggers are just a few recent well-paid positions inspired by our addiction to social media. Creating aesthetic and relatable Instagram feeds and Twitter profiles are the bud of the modern existence. Kylie is just a product of this generation, only on global scale. And make fun of her all you want, she knows what she’s doing. We all know her name and I bet a lot of people reading this own her products. And she’s only twenty.
Overall, if you are a fan of reality television and the Kardashian klan, this is another show to add to your list. If you’re not, then this isn’t any genius work of entertainment that you need to be apart of. It’s simply another product of the Kardashian empire, but with more neon colors and Snapchat videos. It’s also a grand, fat, reminder that the “me” generation is in full force and thriving. Is that a good thing? You tell me.