[krapp]

The Kardashians have actual jobs, though. "Celebrity for celebrity's sake" is a role the American public assigned to them, as is the role of American societal scapegoat. That isn't a fundamental role they fill, Americans just enjoy hating rich women. You never see the same degree of contempt levied at rich men.

[amarant]

Elon Musk says hello? I hear a lot more hate towards him than I do the Kardashians.

Anyone who's ever used a Windows PC had probably joked about murdering Bill Gates. Jeff Bezos receives a fair bit of flack too.

Where I live, Karl XIV Gustav is similarly divisive as the above figures, some hate him and everything he represents, others love him for... I'm not exactly sure why actually, Google it.

There are oooh so many more examples too.. I'm not saying we live in an equal society, but men get hated on too,I promise

[krapp]

Sure, there are plenty of rich men who people dislike, but they aren't hated so much that hating them becomes a meme the way hating the Kardashians or Paris Hilton has. Even the FOSS community and the people who think Bill Gates wants to inject them with Illuminati roofies don't demean him personally, meanwhile "Kill the Kardashians" is a t-shirt.

Even the few male equivalents of "famous for being famous" that I could find (the lists are almost exclusively female for some reason) like Kevin Federline and the lesser known Baldwins seem to be given a greater degree of respect by popular culture.

[porkloin]

Very fair point - they do have jobs. I certainly don't mean to diminish the legitimate work of people doing social media, etc. It is work. I guess my point more broadly was that there are certain types of celebrity (sports, acting, music) which take a lifetime of dedication to a craft, which at least to my mind is more justifiable than folks who become famous on reputation/relationship/inherited status alone.

But of course, now that you have me interrogating my own biases, that's also true of someone like Lebron James. What other reason does he have to perform well on the court other than to maintain or improve his celebrity? Is he fundamentally different than someone like Kim K? I usually would say yes, but I'm not entirely sure now. I'm sure you're right that to some extent gender comes into play. The ways by which women become famous are scrutinized much more than the ways that men become famous, and that is pretty fucked up. I still believe that the "job" of celebrity has a lot to do with being mirror/punching bag for society, but I think the way in which I said it probably fell into some gender bias issues.

Your points are really good ones, and I appreciate you saying it!