I wonder what it's like to be a Kardashian. Although there are plenty of people who pillory the socialite family for a number of reasons, what's clear to see is that with a multimillion-dollar empire (not to mention enough social media followers to populate a large European country), quite a few people care about the Kardashians.
Even more, it seems, harbour a fiery hatred for them. Whether they're leaking sex tapes; getting pregnant or just existing, nothing gets people going quite as much as a Kardashian doing a thing. It must be pretty exhausting.
Most recent recipient of the daily fire is none other than the youngest of the Original Trilogy, Khloé Kardashian. A few days ago her Khloé with a K app greeted us with a photoseries espousing to help us look "thin AF."
In it, she trots out the usual tips and tricks: take - or rather, have your photographer take - pictures from high angles; wear vertical stripes, etc. All in all, barely something that warrants being written down once, let alone repeated by numerous articles since. Including mine, I guess. I'm sorry for that.
However, Khloé's words struck a chord this past weekend, and not in a good way. People all over the internet have come out with torches in hand, stating that the self-loving, body positive image Kardashian promotes is at odds with this post. "This is so problematic. Influencers like you should be promoting people loving themselves instead of trying to change their appearance for photos." says Twitter user Ella, ending on that favourite mom-cry of "I expected better".
The longer the post stayed online, the more the Twitterati laid into Kardashian for seemingly presenting a hypocritical idea of self-acceptance. "You’re all about 'body positivity' and yet you’re giving hacks to people on how to look thinner?" queried one, while another noted: "Not something you should be promoting. Maybe 5 hacks to start living your healthiest, happy, best AF life…nah?"
For years, Khloé has been the "fat" or "curvy" sister. While Kim and Kourtney were trotted out as the good-looking ones, Khloé faced melodramatic speculation that she was actually OJ Simpson's daughter and calls to lose weight. Amongst that admittedly harsh deal, Khloé emerged as the face of the underdog, the one that 'ordinary women' could relate to. She literally wrote the book on self-acceptance.
Her now publishing a piece implying that she isn't happy with the way she looks has upset fans, who believe they might have been worshiping a false idol. They want her to be curvy and happy about it, so they can follow suit. Despite the outrage currently breaking out on Twitter, I'm sure it's nothing Khloé Kardashian can't recover from.
I can't say I'm an expert on social media, but posting a pic from a low-angle wearing horizontal stripes might be the way to do it. She'll figure it out.