Sign of the Apocalypse #66: The one and only Kim Kardashian, celebutante

By Michael J.W. Stickings

If you happen to find Kim Kardashian attractive, in one way or another, either in whole or in part, it's hard to feel sorry for Reggie Bush, star running back for the New Orleans Saints. He did, after all, get to date her -- and, well, to get to know her, presumably, in a deeply personal way.

But still...

Here are the two front-page Yahoo headlines that caught my attention last night:

-- "Kim Kardashian splits with longtime boyfriend"; and

-- "Kim Kardashian cuts Bush."

Notice that the first headline doesn't even mention Bush. If anything, he's an afterthought. The story is about the big star, Kardashian, not whatever guy she happened to break up with.

The second headline mentions Bush but is clear that it was Kim who broke up with Reggie, as if it was she who was calling all the shots.

Problem is, it's not at all clear what happened. According to the AP (the story to which the first headline links), they just "called it quits." According to the other article, which (un)helpfully quotes an anonymous source, they split up because they don't get to spend much time together. (Another anonymous source clarifies: "They loved each other so much but they hardly saw each other... They just need a break right now.")

Now, you may be asking, "Who cares?" Or perhaps, as I am this very moment, "Michael, you're on vacation, don't you have better things to do than blog about this oh-so-beautiful celebrity couple?"

Well, I had a few moments to spare, late at night, and what gets me about this is not the break-up -- because, yes, who cares? -- but the coverage of the break-up, and specifically the utterly unwaranted attention lavished on Kardashian.

Kim Kardashian, who is famous mostly, and pretty much solely, for being Kim Kardashian -- and for having... well, certain assets that many men of my persuasion, and no doubt some of other persuasions, and no doubt many on the other side of the gender divide, find, well... compelling.

What else is she? What else has she done? Her dad's a famous lawyer (O.J. says thanks). Her mother married Olympian and quasi-celebrity Peter Jenner. She appeared in Playboy. She's been in some terrible movies. She's a model. She has a workout DVD (but no Jane Fonda is she, yet). She has some perfume coming out (but, then, even Britney has her own perfume). There was that pornographic home video (which seems almost de rigeur for would-be "celebutantes" -- see Hilton, Paris). And, of course, there's the "reality" show about her own family, the prime engine of her stardom (excepting her assets, which really keep her in the limelight), Keeping Up With the Kardashians, a show that almost perfectly captures the shameless self-absorption of America's celebrity culture, and of its shameless inhabitants (not that I've seen much of it, though I'm sure I've seen enough).

(Celebutante -- what a horrible word, what a horrible concept.)

Don't get me wrong. She might be a lovely young woman with brains and a personality. And if she wants to get together with me to talk all this over, to fill me in on her many virtues, well, I'm up for that (though my significant other would no doubt want to come along, which would be fine with me).

And maybe it's not her fault, not all her fault, that she's become what she's become.

But seriously. How is it that Kim Kardashian has emerged as a fairly significant, and a significantly well-known, star, a celebrity whose every move is somehow worthy of the closest attention?

That's right, it's because we're getting ever closer to the Apocalypse, of which her being a star, for nothing at all really, is a bright, blinking neon sign made brighter, and blinkier, by the vapid culture that put her on the pedestal in the first place and that keeps her there for the rest of us apparently to drool over.

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Meanwhile, Reggie Bush has actually done something. He won the Heisman Trophy at USC. And although his pro career has thus far been somewhat disappointing, partly due to injury, he has been, when healthy, an exciting, game-changing playmaker -- yes, a legitimate star on the gridiron.

And 2009 will be just his fourth season in the NFL. Whereas his ex has probably maxed out, with little more to offer, Reggie's best may be yet to come.