Kardashianization

English

Etymology

From Kardashian +‎ -ization.

Noun

Kardashianization (uncountable)

1. The process of making or becoming like the Kardashian family or their products or self-promotion.
   • 2013 January 20, Dan Le Batard, “When kings of our sports world turn into jesters”, in The Miami Herald, 110th year, number 128, page 18A:

     Mock the gossip-monger for his or her obsession with celebrity in supermarket’s magazine aisle, but what we witnessed last week was the Kardashianization of our sports-news cycle, swallowed as it was by Scorn’d Sports Consumer.

   • 2013 May 7, Beth Kassab, “Disney’s glam makeovers send wrong message”, in Orlando Sentinel, page B1:

     Merida, the sweet, independent princess from “Brave,” will officially join the Disney Princess Royal Court on Saturday. Translation from Disney-speak: Merida is about to get her glam on. Off-the-shoulder gown. Eyeliner. Lipstick. Wild red curls tamed into voluminous sexy locks. A coy expression enhanced by her new, fuller lips. This is the Kardashian-ization of the Disney Princess.

   • 2013 June 16, Deroy Murdock, “Elevation of the average has killed U.S. spirit”, in The Gleaner, 129th year, number 144, Henderson, Ky., page 4A:

     The U.S. now wheezes beneath the crushing weight of lawsuits, environmental impact reports, diversity consultants, a $17 trillion national debt, entitlement proliferation, lethargic economic growth, the lowest labor-participation rate since 1979, relentless Twitter distractions, and the mind-dissolving effects of Kardashianization.

   • 2014 May 12, Donna Freydkin, “Minnie Driver will ‘Zero’ in on ‘hard story’”, in Lansing State Journal, page 8B:

     But [Minnie] Driver’s still wary of what she calls the “Kardashianization” of children of the famous, of putting them in magazine spreads and on reality shows, of using them to promote films and clothing lines.

   • 2015 June 2, cicero venatio, “America today: "Call me Caitlyn."”, in alt.politics.elections (Usenet):

     With America in it's waning days, as total economic collapse nears, America is focused on Bruce Jenner's cover photo on Vanity Fair. It is the Kardashianization of America, as California runs out of water, the Kardashians can not be shamed into turning off their sprinklers on their palatial green landscapes.

   • 2016 July 7, John McKie, “How the Spice effect still packs punch”, in BBC News‎^[1]:

     "They inaugurated the era of cheesy celebrity obsession which pertains today," he says. "There is lineage from them to the Kardashianisation not only of the music industry, but the wider culture."

   • 2017 April 5, C.J., quoting Peggy Orenstein, “Peggy Orenstein aims to overthrow the ‘princess industrial complex’”, in Star Tribune, volume XXXVI, number 1, page B2:

     Sound Minnesota values and research for books such as “Girls & Sex” don’t make bestselling author Peggy Orenstein a fan of the impact the Kardashians have had on society. “Kim [Kardashian] gets fame and money in exchange for selling her sex appeal without changing a system that urges girls from an early age to view their bodies as projects to be constantly monitored and improved, a system that requires women in the public eye to be ‘hot’ in order to get ahead or even have a voice — whether they’re actors, singers, athletes, newscasters, lawyers, politicians, whether they are 15 or 65,” said Orenstein. […] I was noticing that girls are marketed to from the earliest ages. What they learn in that marketing through the princess industrial complex and into the Kardashianization of girlhood is that how they look is more important than who they are. […] In my most recent book, “Girls & Sex,” I write about how girls learn that self-absorption is the same as self-confidence. It means self-confidence is the same thing as being narcissistic. That’s the essence of the Kardashianization of girlhood.

   • 2020, Richard Dresser, It Happened Here, Brown Books Publishing Group, →ISBN:

     With honest political reporting off the menu, the networks gloried in bold and hard-hitting takes on pop culture. The Kardashianization of America was complete.

   • 2021, Chiara Pussetti, quoting an Argentinian makeup artist, “Shaping the European Body: The Cosmetic Construction of Whiteness”, in Alvaro Jarrín, Chiara Pussetti, editors, Remaking the Human: Cosmetic Technologies of Body Repair, Reshaping, and Replacement, New York, N.Y., Oxford: Berghahn Books, →ISBN, part II (Reshaping), page 99:

     Search in Instagram: in the lower classes you find a false beauty, which is what I call Kardashianization.

   • 2021 June 6, Dave Hyde, “The intersection of sports, commerce and fraternity prank”, in Independent Tribune, volume 119, number 68, page B5:

     Don’t write this off simply as the Kardashianization of America or the continued descent into social nihilism. We’ve always had events like this in South Florida.

   • 2022 January 30, Matthew Gilbert, “Pam, Tommy, and the art of looking back”, in Boston Sunday Globe, volume 301, number 30, page N7:

     The first, “The People v. O.J. Simpson,” had big points to make about mass media, the seed that grew into the Kardashian-ization of America, and the sexism directed at prosecutor Marcia Clark.