Why Hollywood Doesn't Care About The Kardashians Anymore

Only in America could the Kardashians have risen to such heights. We idolize two things in the USA: being famous, and being rich, and it was living at the exact intersection of fame and fortune that made them such an inexplicable success to begin with. For ten years, we've watched the lives and loves of the Kardashian-Jenner family, hearing the details of their charmed lives even if we haven't really wanted to, and as they've embedded themselves further and further into the culture, they've reaped the dual rewards of nonstop exposure and lots and lots of cash. But if you think the act of keeping up with the Kardashians has become a little tiresome, you're not alone, and there are signs that the Hollywood engine that raised them up may be on the verge of getting sick of them once and for all.  Some of the reason is their fault, and some just has to do with how long they've been around. Here are some of the biggest indicators that Hollywood doesn't care about the Kardashians anymore.

Between Kendall's for-profit promotion of the Fyre festival and her universally-despised Pepsi ad, people are taking more pleasure than ever in watching this family get caught up in scandal. The Pepsi ad, if you don't remember, was Kendall Jenner's first big ad campaign as a model, instantly criticized and scorched to ash for its use of civil unrest and political protest as a backdrop to sell soda. 

The Fyre festival, of course, was just a hilarious mess—a hilarious mess which Kendall was reportedly paid $250,000 to promote, using her celebrity and reach to lure unsuspecting people to the nonexistent island party like a modern-day siren. On top of that, the Kardashian-Jenner clan has come under fire from the federal government and media watchdogs for not being explicitly clear when they're posting sponsored content, meant to be identified as an #ad or #sponcon. (The Fyre post was evidently tagged with neither.)

The success of the Kardashians is a feat of marketing that works so well because it's mutually beneficial. Magazines court the family to appear on their covers with financial incentives; you pose, we pay, and in the interest of scoring exclusive content fans just have to see, they pay big. But some reports show that magazines putting Kardashians front and center on their covers have actually seen their sales decline. For years, publications have been fretting over smaller-than-expected returns on their investments after coughing up big bucks to court the Kardashians. If readers aren't interested in seeing them, then magazines will be less inclined to feature them. Part of this decline can be attributed to an overall decline in the magazine industry for sure, but their specific underperformance speaks to a trend that should have Cosmopolitan's so-called "America's first family" worried.

Instead of keeping the brand on point with high-quality, low-quantity content, the Jenners and Kardashians have spread themselves thin with spinoffs of varying success. There's been Kourtney & Khloe Take The Hamptons,  Khloé & Lamar, Rob & Chyna, the talk show Kris, I Am Cait... that's literally not even the half of it. And those are just the shows! Even people who've never watched an episode of TV centered on the family has still seen them in the news, whether they're pressing their own agenda or a part of someone else's story. By way of one example, with Kim being married to Kanye West, every Kanye story in the news becomes a Kim story too. Lamar Odom's health scare brought Khloe to his bedside, and the 2016 presidential election brought Caitlyn Jenner into the culture wars. Basically, they've got their fingers in just about everything, and there's only so much of that that we can take—or that the family can sustain.

They say that in Hollywood, it's all about who you know. But what if everybody knows who you are, and no one likes you? This is a dilemma the Kardashians have faced from the very beginning, but as the Kardashians have grown more successful, so has the resentment from their peers. The fashion designer Tim Gunn has gone in on the family, calling them "vulgar" and saying they live inside an "aura of yuck" before offering this fashion advice: "If Kim Kardashian is wearing it, don't." 

But it's not just their senses of style that have come under fire. Actor Jonah Hill has reacted to the Kardashians by calling them "disgusting" and bashing their work ethic, while Anna Wintour delivered a devastating backhand implying the family was tasteless as she featured them on the cover of Vogue; that's not shade, that's savagery. Fabio, of all people, calls the family "nothing but money whores" who have "no sensitivity." These are not the kinds of things you say about your friends!

One of the most ingenious aspects of the Kardashians' rise to fame has been the diverse ways they've brought in money over the years, never relying on only one revenue stream to keep their coffers full of cash. But there's a shady downside to their little-bit-of-everything approach. On more than one occasion, the Kardashians and Jenners have been accused of cutting corners or committing blatant theft of intellectual property, ripping off less-fortunate artists and entrepreneurs to serve their own business ends. 

Kylie Jenner's cosmetics brand has been thoroughly dragged on social media for seemingly repackaging existing products and selling them as hers for dramatically higher prices, and her brand's advertising campaigns have been hit with personal accusations of plagiarism. These aren't isolated incidents, and whether the truth is as bad is it looks is almost irrelevant. With this family, appearances are everything, and if they can't shake off the reputation that when it comes to business they're just a bunch of thieves, they've got nothing but trouble ahead.

Barbara Walters delivered one of the all-time greatest burns on the Kardashians when she told them, on TV and to their faces, that they don't have any talent. Kendall Jenner's foray into the cutthroat world of modelling has been one of the family's biggest moves toward getting legitimized as hard workers who deserve success, but there's just one problem: there are some outspoken voices in the modelling world who don't want her there at all. Going from shooting Kmart ads to walking New York runways in two years is nothing less than a meteoric rise, and if you believe some voices in the fashion world, it's a rise that doesn't have a thing at all to do with talent. Fashion commentator Robert Verdi dismisses folks like Kendall Jenner, calling them "models of the moment." "In another day," he says, "these girls are not real models." The actress and model Rebecca Romijn calls the support of social media stars like Kylie Jenner "frustrating," marking her as part of a trend that "legitimate fashion people" can't stand. Ouch.

In a nation full of people who for the most part don't have $500 to spare, the fact that Kim Kardashian can score upwards of seven hundred thousand dollars for snapping pictures at a Hamptons party with twenty-five bodyguards in tow is bound to breed contempt. Hollywood is full of people who are struggling to make it, and even big name actors you love don't bring in the kind of cash the Kardashians can just by showing up. Daniel Craig is one actor who's gone off on the Kardashians about how they make their money. "They're worth millions. Millions!" said the actor. "You see that and you think, 'What, you mean all I have to do is behave like a f*cking idiot on television and then you'll pay me millions?'"

Beginning in 2007 with a big assist from Ryan Seacrest, Keeping Up with the Kardashians is the spark that started the fire that is the family's mass media takeover. But there are worrying signs that their ten years of dominance may be coming to an abrupt and ugly end. The ratings for their flagship program are as low as they have ever been, despite high-profile, heavily-advertised episodes about shocking events like Kim's robbery ordeal in Paris. After 13 seasons and countless spinoffs, fewer people are keeping up than ever. 

The changing media landscape has as much to do with it as Kardashian fatigue; when you can catch up with your favorite member of the family on your own time via social media, why make time to watch their show? It's a bad sign for the series, but not necessarily the whole family. If they can keep their audiences on Snapchat and Instagram, they're not done for, even if their show goes off the air, but it's still a worrying sign.

Every year, the Kardashians give their fans fewer and fewer reasons to stay onboard, snapping at fans on social media and in public when they're not outright misleading them. (For one thing, Kylie, we will never—ever!—believe those lips are real.) Antics like these only serve to drive away existing fans, and don't do a lot to draw in new ones, which one would think would be essential at a time when interest in the family seems to have plateaued. 

So while Kylie may be queen of Snapchat now, there's nowhere to go from there but down. (Just ask Kim about how that feels.) The Kardashians' success has been incredible, but its earned them a lot of scorn, and reputations they won't be able to easily shake. This empire will fall one day, and if they aren't careful, there might not be anyone there to catch them when it happens. To put it bluntly, the Kardashians and Jenners would do well to figure out what a lot of their fans already know: keeping up with the Kardashians is so 2007. These days, we kouldn't kare less.