Facts That Might Change The Way You Look At The Kardashians

Forget about baseball being the national pastime. These days, it seems to be making fun of the Kardashians. All those "K" names seem a bit much, and the ostentatious lifestyle comes across as tacky to many. Not to mention them appearing to be famous for being famous.

But there are some facts you should know that paint a very different picture of the Kardashian clan, that might even change your mind about them. Read on to learn more.

Contrary to her reputation of never having done anything other than be beautiful, Kim actually toiled for four years in a clothing store as a teen, then went to work for her father out of high school. She then worked as a Hollywood wardrobe stylist for various productions.

In addition, she showed an entrepreneurial spirit at any early age when she came up with a unique job: cleaning out and organizing celebrities' closets, selling the items on eBay, and splitting the proceeds with them. She started with Sugar Ray Leonard and his wife Bernadette and then picked up a slew of clients including Serena Williams, Rob Lowe, and Cindy Crawford. A friend dubbed Kim "Queen of the Closet Scene." Kim also sold her own purchases as well.

Kim also was once Paris Hilton's personal assistant and appeared on The Simple Life with her before she garnered fame on her own.

One of the biggest raps against the Kardashian family was that they are famous for doing nothing. But the original idea for Keeping Up With the Kardashians was to show them working and give free advertisement for their two stores.

For six years, Kris and Kourtney ran a children's clothing boutique together called Smooch. Kourtney wrote in 2009 on her website (via Zimbio.com) about the experience: "I used to work in the store all day, every day, stay hours after closing and was obsessed with it!"

And Kim, Kourtney, and Khloe started the clothing boutique DASH in 2006 when the space next door to Smooch opened. Part of the reason for the store was to give an adrift Khloe some direction after dad Robert Kardashian died of cancer in 2003. The Kardashian girls even read business books to learn how to succeed. Kim talked that year with Player magazine about how the sisters paid for the store themselves: "It's such a gratifying feeling that I'm taking care of myself. I have a friend that was joking the other day that this is her first month paying for herself ever in her life. She's twenty-six, and I have almost ten years' work experience on her." So much for the family not working.

The conventional wisdom is that Keeping Up With the Kardashians got the green light in 2007 when Kim's infamous sex tape with singer Ray J was revealed. But in an oral history of the tape release 10 years later, the New York Post says the TV show "had been in development since well before the sex tape was released."

And gossip writer Perez Hilton contends that fame would have happened for Kim and her family without the tape. He told the Post: "I think the sex tape hurt her more than it helped her. I don't believe that excuse the sex tape 'made her.' Paris Hilton made Kim Kardashian and that reality show made Kim Kardashian."

He also pointed out that Kim's stepfather Bruce Jenner and mother Kris were known names in Hollywood "They just knew all the right people," he said. "If it wasn't in 2007, eventually Kim and the Kardashians would have gotten their own reality show, somewhere, somehow. Because they wanted it, they were hungry for it and they knew how to get it. They had the connections."

The Kardashians are partially of Armenian descent through their father Robert; his ancestors safely emigrated to the United States in the early 1900s before the Ottoman Empire's genocide of Armenians. The New York Times said that starting on April 24, 1915 and continuing to 1922, an estimated 1.5 million Armenians were killed. Turkey, once part of that empire, still denies the genocide.

This is still a controversial issue, and one many Americans didn't even know about until the Kardashians used their fame for positive purposes. Kim and Khloe, along with Kanye and North West, visited Armenia in early April 2015, just before the 100th anniversary of the horrors. They received international publicity for this trip, especially when they went to the genocide museum and memorial. Khloe tweeted at the time: "My sister and I are trying to bring awareness not only to our Armenian genocide but genocides and human slaughter, in general. Knowledge is power!"

Then Kim wrote an article on her website criticizing The Wall Street Journal for running an ad which denied the genocide. Her letter was republished as an ad in The New York Times. Thanks to the Kardashians' actions, countless people learned of the genocide who would otherwise be ignorant of it.

Most of us know who we can count on in life. When you're famous, though, you may have fair-weather friends who want to use you for access to the finer things. And you have to worry that somebody in your personal life might sell you out to the tabloids so they can make a little coin.

When baby North was born, Kim and Kanye were afraid somebody they knew would sell pictures of the baby to the tabloids. So they reportedly set a trap by sharing fake baby photos with a few people in their life they had doubts about. Sure enough, somebody tried to sell one of the pictures. Ouch.

The Kardashians admit that it takes them a lot to look fabulous. Kim has talked about using laser facials, botox, and face fillers. Khloe revealed how her fillers went bad. And it took some prodding, but Kylie finally fessed up to having her lips done.

In 2015, Kim described to Into the Gloss what makeup and skincare products she uses, a list that contains everything from Neutrogena to La Mer. The kicker was a Guerlain moisturizer that costs $455. Jezebel totaled up all the costs for the products and revealed it came to $1,977.75.

In addition, she has shared with paid website subscribers clips of her everyday makeup routine and said it takes about two hours a day for makeup and hair artists to make her look good, and that it can take as long as three or four hours to get glammed up for big events. She even carries double-sided tape to give her more cleavage. And Kris spends an hour in the makeup chair just for being on Keeping Up With the Kardashians.

As confident as the family members appear, even they have issues with their bodies. When growing up and developing fast, Kim said she prayed that it would stop. Thanks to the paparazzi, Kim is careful about when she is outside in a bikini, saying bright days accentuate her cellulite, while overcast days hide it. She is even open about wearing Spanx. Kim has even faced criticism for pregnancy-related weight gain.

For years, Khloe was described as "the fat sister." And although Khloe has lost 40 pounds, she still won't wear a bikini. And now that she's being described as too thin, to which she responded: "First I'm too fat and now I'm too skinny. I love this game!!" Brother Rob was so embarrassed about weight gain, he didn't want to be seen without a shirt on.

So as much as we may envy their lifestyles, they have issues, too. Plus, unlike them. we don't get mocked in the tabloids if we put on 10 pounds.

The Kardashian women are pretty savvy when it comes to the world of business. Not only do they make money from the TV show, endorsements, and cosmetics (or is that kosmetics?), but their websites' paid subscribers and mobile apps also generate serious money, as do personal appearances. They also managed to figure out how to monetize social media and have have blazed new paths in the business world, making them $122.5 million in just one year.

And Kim is the wealthiest of all. As GQ put it in 2016, "Kim has so thoroughly monetized the very act of living that the money she earns from being filmed going about her life constitutes a relatively small sum compared with the one she generates from allowing people to see pictures and cartoon drawings of the life she has already filmed." The magazine notes that "she has figured out how to spin the mundanity of being herself — something billions of people do every day for free — into a more lucrative business than being the most famous rapper in the world."

You don't make (and keep) hundreds of millions by being stupid. They may not have advanced degrees, but the Kardashians are no dummies. And when they didn't know something, they read books and took classes to learn.

Yet people still question their intelligence. When Kim appeared on NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me in 2015, the network received outraged letters, including one saying that the family was "what is wrong with America today." To which businessman Gene Marks responded in Inc. magazine, "To that NPR listener, and anyone else who faults Kim Kardashian as 'what's wrong with America' I say you're the one who's wrong. This is a smart woman and a savvy entrepreneur. To me, a business owner, she's everything that's right about America."

Not only have most of the family members been in interracial relationships, but they have been outspoken against racism. In 2014, Keeping Up With the Kardashians aired some particularly bad example of what they have faced in response. The Week describes the scene when Kim and Kris went to "an impossibly glitzy opera ball in Vienna." The two "were interrupted by a man in blackface," the article said. "He approached Kim, saying, "It's me, Kanye!" Yeesh. Then when Kim was on a plane ride with baby North, a woman screamed at her, saying: "She's with a black guy, and that baby is black."

The show revealed how Kim then wrote in her blog about how these events made her "realize that racism and discrimination are still alive, and just as hateful and deadly as they ever have been.'"

Khloe said she had experienced racism when her father defended O.J. Simpson. "We would get kicked out of restaurants because my dad was defending O.J. or just really crazy things," she said on her TV show Kocktails with Khloe (via People). She also talked about the negative reaction she received from marrying Lamar Odom. "I would never think to say, 'Oh, by the way, my husband's black, so when he comes in don't let your jaw drop,'" she revealed. "When I moved to Dallas was the first time that was thrown in my face."

The fact that the Kardashians come across as nice people goes a long way to explaining their enduring popularity. They seem like folks you would like to hang out with. Their good manners have a lot to do with that. Kim is known for doing handwritten thank-you notes. And Kris Jenner hammered into all of the kids the importance of being on time.

The lesson has held. When a fan asked Kim in 2016 for job advice, she responded with some good advice: "Be yourself and be professional....and be on time!!!!"

This show got some criticism, much due to the title and the idea that getting in shape for anybody else is a bad idea. But Revenge Body With Khloe Kardashian is really about both physical and mental self-improvement. While the participants may have set out to get back at someone, they invariably like their 12-week transportation because of the way it makes them feel, and not anybody else.

And unlike programs like The Biggest Loser, which promote unsustainable weight loss (who has time to go to the gym for four hours each day like on the show?), Revenge Body's trainers, including Corey Calliet, Latreal Mitchell, and Khloe's personal trainer Gunnar Peterson are pretty sensible.They work the participants hard, but in a realistic fashion. And viewers watching at home can pick up fitness tips. Each successful transformation is ultimately very inspiring, as they leave their old lives behind.

Money can't buy you love, as the cliche goes. Or perfect health. From depression to infertility to diabetes to weight gain to divorce to self-esteem issues, the family has been open about lot of real topics that people would not expect from them.

Just one example is teenage Kendall sharing her embarrassing issue with acne with her subscribers (via Life & Style), "Where it really impacted me was how self-conscious I became about it," she said. "It completely ruined my self-esteem. I wouldn't even look at people when I talked to them. I felt like such an outcast; when I spoke, it was with my hand covering my face."

Sure, they've managed to monetize these revelations, but even so, would you want to discuss these things with millions? Not many people would.

While the Kardashians have had their share of issues, including sibling rivalry and squabbles with each other, they ultimately always have each others' back. Not everybody can say that when it comes to their own family. As Khloe says, "Family is everything."