HOLLYWOOD - Every few months, American pop culture wakes up and decides to take the Kardashian family’s temperature. Are they still relevant? Do people still care? It’s become a national pastime nearly as old as their original E! series. But lately, the question feels sharper—perhaps because the answers are finally starting to shift.
By Allan R. Ellenberger for The Hollywoodland Revue
Photo Credit: Glamour
Kris Jenner’s recent birthday bash briefly revived the old magic: an opulent celebration, celebrity guests, and, of course, Kris herself emerging, remarkably taut, framed by one of the most artful facelifts ever executed in Beverly Hills. For a moment, the internet buzzed as if transported back to 2015. The matriarch knows how to stage a moment; she always has. But one dazzling night couldn’t mask the truth that, for the first time in years, the Kardashians are struggling to command the cultural conversation in the way they once effortlessly did.
Public perception is split. On one hand, the Kardashians remain power players: Kim’s SKIMS is a billion-dollar brand, Kylie still sells cosmetics at the speed of a mid-century department-store Christmas rush, and the Hulu series continues to perform well for Disney’s streaming empire. Their influence on beauty, fashion, and social media branding still reverberates through American culture.
But there's Kim, the family’s most famous export. For years she appeared unstoppable: influencer, entrepreneur, mogul, aspirational figure—whatever you thought of her, she was undeniably a force. But even Kim seems to be hitting turbulence. After widely publicizing her legal studies and her ambition to become a lawyer, she failed the bar exam—an embarrassing setback that generated more jokes than admiration this time around. The public, once eager to cheer her on, now appears… tired. The fascination has thinned into a shrug.
Then came Kim's highly promoted acting role in Ryan Murphy’s All Fair, a prestige-adjacent series meant to signal Kim’s next reinvention. Yet despite the hype, the ratings were lukewarm, reviews were snide, and social media mostly treated her performance as a novelty rather than a breakthrough. Even in failure, Kim was once the center of pop-culture gravity; now, even her missteps struggle to make a dent.
So, do people still care?
The answer is complicated. The Kardashians remain famous—in the dictionary sense of the word. But fame without fascination is hollow, and fascination is precisely what’s dwindling. Younger audiences aren’t invested in their storylines, older audiences have moved on, and even tabloids have shifted to newer, shinier subjects. A recent wave of commentary has openly described the family as entering their “flop era,” a phrase unimaginable just a few years ago.
The truth is this: the Kardashians built their empire on reinvention, controversy, spectacle, and a new kind of reality-era intimacy. But reinvention requires momentum, and spectacle requires a public still willing to look.
These days, the public seems to be looking elsewhere.
And yet, paradoxically, the family is still culturally present. Their businesses still sell, their shows still air, their social media still commands millions. They’re not irrelevant—they’re just no longer essential. They’re a legacy act in a fragmented cultural landscape where nobody dominates the way they once did.
Kris Jenner’s expertly engineered birthday photos floated across the internet like a ghost of their golden age, a reminder of how astonishingly powerful this family once was. But even that moment faded quickly, overwhelmed by an audience that now treats Kardashian content not with heated debate or breathless excitement, but with polite, fatigued indifference.
The Kardashians haven’t disappeared. They’ve simply become something they never were before: background noise.
The spectacle still glitters. The machine still runs. But the engine that once drove American pop culture feels quieter—slower, older, and increasingly out of step with a world that no longer needs the Kardashians to tell it what to watch, buy, or care about.
Relevance, after all, isn’t about fame. It’s about impact.
And the real question isn’t whether the Kardashians are still interesting.
It’s whether they can ever be interesting again.
What do you think? Are the Kardashian's still relevant? Please share your thoughts and comments below:
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I was never a big fan of them or of the show. Maybe what they showed is just not that interesting to me. You're right in saying they knew/know how to reinvent themselves which is why to date they're still here even if their shine seems do dwindling down. The new generation seems to care less about drama, fashion or whatever it is they brought.
Thanks Annie, I completely understand your perspective — their brand of reality-TV glamour isn’t for everyone. You’re right, though, that their ability to reinvent themselves is the main reason they’ve lasted as long as they have, even as their influence feels like it’s fading. And with younger audiences caring less about the kind of drama and fashion they built their empire on, it will be interesting to see whether they evolve again or simply fade into a different kind of relevance.