Whenever someone asks how do you know the Kardashians, you immediately say, "Television!" With no hesitation. However, the follow up question should be, "well what do they do?" When you think about it. What do the Kardashians do? Why are they famous? In my opinion, they are famous for doing nothing but letting a camera follow them around, occasionally take a few pictures for huge editorial spreads, and of course making appearances all over the world. Which is cool; "you gotta do whatcha gotta do." With that being said as of recently, by recently I mean the past couple of years, I have noticed the Kardashians receiving media praise for racially appropriating a number of styles and bodily features that are rooted in the African American community. The most notable being Kylie Jenner. It started with the "Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge" where people began to take notice to Jenner's plumper/fuller lips. and for some reason the media just made a huge deal out of it as if it were the best thing since sliced bread. While African Americans, for years, were made fun of because of their larger lip size and often compared to beastly animals, but now when Kylie Jenner does it, it is fashion all of the sudden. Same situation with her new "cornrows" look. I recently read a tweet from MTV UK's twitter page, calling Kylie Jenner's slick back braids the hottest new trend in fashion. I literally had to put my phone down. Black people have been wearing their hair in cornrows for years, and were always called, "hood" or "ghetto" and as of recently "ratchet!" But when someone of the majority in a place of privilege appropriates a style that has been trademarked within a certain culture. Then all of the sudden it is "fashion." Just goes to show what kind of people are in charge of the media, and how we as media consumers are ignorant to a lot of the underlying messages that play out in front of us on the television screen.
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