It has become a cultural reflex to say we are sick of the Kardashians. People criticize their wealth, their perceived lack of talent, their role in promoting unrealistic beauty standards, and their influence on consumer culture. Despite this constant backlash, the Kardashian empire remains impossible to escape. New seasons, clips, headlines, memes, and controversies continue to circulate, and people keep watching, even after claiming they dislike them. This cycle of criticism and consumption makes the Kardashians a clear example of hate-watching as a feature, not a flaw, of popular culture.
From a Frankfurt School perspective, this pattern fits into Adorno and Horkheimer’s idea of the culture industry. They argue that mass culture does not require genuine enjoyment or approval to function. What matters is repetition, familiarity, and engagement. The Kardashians have always followed their predictable formula of wealth, conflict, confessionals, and spectacle. Viewers know exactly what they are getting, even when they claim to be watching ironically or critically. The very predictability that critics dismiss is what keeps audiences coming back.
Criticism itself becomes part of the entertainment. Watching the Kardashians often comes with commentary in TikToks, reaction videos, Reddit threads, and group chats devoted to dissecting how out of touch they are. This does not disrupt the system, it actually feeds it. Hate-watching still produces ratings, clicks, and cultural relevance. Critique becomes folded into the spectacle rather than standing outside it.
Stuart Hall’s concept of dominant and negotiated readings helps explain why viewers feel critical while remaining engaged. Audiences may reject the Kardashian's values on the surface, but they still accept the broader framework that their lives are worth watching. The negotiation happens in tone rather than participation. Even viewers who claim to watch just to laugh or just to judge are still operating within the logic of celebrity culture.
John Fiske complicates this further by reminding us that audiences are not simply passive. People use the Kardashians in different ways as symbols of excess, as cautionary tales, or as cultural reference points. Even this active interpretation does not necessarily weaken the culture industry, it actually strengthens it by keeping the text socially relevant.
Disapproval does not equal resistance. Watching something ironically does not remove us from its influence.
Why does our culture keeps rewarding attention, even when that attention comes wrapped in criticism? If hate-watching supports the very people we claim to hate, what would it actually take to stop watching altogether?
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