That Photo Broke Everything

Kim Kardashian posts an Instagram photo and somehow it’s the thing that finally kills Twitter. I don’t usually care about Kim K—she’s just one of those people who exist in the background of celebrity culture, fine to ignore. But that photo. She’s posing in a white bodysuit, head barely visible because her ass is literally the size of her entire torso, and she captions it #NoFilter like she’s asking us to believe this is real. It’s not, obviously. It’s geometry. It’s physics that doesn’t exist. But it doesn’t matter because the photo is already everywhere, being screenshot and memed and discussed by millions of people who also didn’t care about Kim K five minutes ago.

I’m not jealous. Okay, I’m a little jealous. Not of her, but of the fact that you can do one thing—take one photo—and have it completely consume the internet for a week. Everyone’s angry or turned on or both, and it’s all because of this image. Kanye probably got texted a congratulatory message by someone. He didn’t deserve it. She did the work.

So I go home and stand in front of the mirror for a while, which does nothing, and then I seriously consider buttering my own ass like it might somehow help. It won’t. But the absurdity of it, standing there with a tub of butter, that feels appropriate somehow. That’s the only honest response to any of this.