I like to buy things.
Sigh.
A lot.
In fact, I'm a marketing department's dream come true. The stuff ad campaign dreams are made of. If you tell me that I need Something, convince me that everyone else already has the Something and throw in a picture of a thin, good-looking woman wearing or otherwise promoting that Something: stick a fork in me, swipe the card, whatever. It's the reason I own something like, oh, seventy nine shades of pink lip gloss and probably a hundred and sixty three variations on bronze-colored eye shadow. I probably saw a picture of Frida Pinto wearing that shade and figured, "hey, that's exactly what I didn't realize I absolutely needed!"
And yes, I'm embarrassed about what a sick testament this is to our shallow, consumer-driven culture, I feel badly about it once a month like APR-driven clockwork when the credit card statement arrives, yes, you may consider that remorse well and truly wallowed in.
That's not the point.
Sephora invites me to "Discover the sensual scent inspired by one of the world's most idolized women." Boasts that the scent "evokes Kim's sultry style with crisp top notes, lush mid notes, and a sexy drydown. Gorgeous, voluptuous florals reflect her allure, while soft jasmine, tuberose, and gardenia mirror her femininity."
To interpret it another way: you can shell out up to $65 to smell like the perhaps the most obnoxious Famous-For-Nothing hack ever to swindle her way into our collective E!-watching consciousness. If it wasn't enough that she gets a front row seat at awards shows these days, if it wasn't enough that she's plastered all over every mens, fitness, and fashion magazine from here to Dubai, if it wasn't enough that our facebook sidebar ads bombard us with offers to "get skinny like Kim!" we can SMELL like her now, too. Oh. Boy.
It's not so much that I have a pathological problem with Kimmy herself (just the empire she's been allowed to build and the countless gossip pages over which she reigns), it's that there's someone out there that bought into her suggestion to market a fragrance. That's the person I have a pathological problem with. The person that says "women these days should want to smell like that omni-present girl that's famous for nothing, because you want to feel sultry, sexy, gorgeous, voluptious and feminine.
I'd sooner buy a fragrance by Heidi Montag. No, I would. Actually, I'd buy the big bottle, the smaller bottle, the purse-sized sample, and I'd whip it out and re-apply whenever I was in a crowd. I'd wave the bottle around and coo breathlessly about how I love smelling like Heidi - because people would GET that - they'd be in on the joke. The satire of paying for a bottle of denatured alcohol with Heidi's name on it, that's obvious. The purple Kim Kardashian bottle: it just says "I'm a moron. I'm funnelling money into the coffers of this completely over-exposed, inarticulate bimbo that leaks her own bikini photos for more media attention. I want to support the empire daddy's money built. I want to encourage more self-indulgent heiresses to slap their name on something and call it "their career."" It was one thing when Paris Hilton made herself famous for nothing - entirely something else when the next gen Paris-knockoff tries the same, recyled formula and we're expected to fall for it all over again.
Irate much, Heather? Aw, not so much....it was just the suggestion that she's one of the worlds "most idolized women" that brought on the righteous indignation. Really? The WORLD idolizes Kim Kardashian? The WORLD?
The world.
And you could not PAY me to buy that purple bottle. Which is saying a lot. I'll pay for almost anything. Almost.
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