I’m sure you’ve all been waiting to hear what Kim Kardashian has been up to. Apparently, she has landed a leading role on a new television series (honestly, I didn’t need to read the review to know I have no interest in watching it), but I did learn something new. Kardashian is a moon landing denier! I shouldn’t be surprised, since she was married to Kanye West, but I’m supposed to keep track of looney conspiracy theories and missed that one.
Fortunately, NASA shut her down this time.
But it’s one thing to purchase a billionaire’s (breathable and stylish, hand to God!) product and another to buy into the skewed version of reality they’re promoting. We can laugh at the conspiracy-minded lunacy Kardashian touted on a recent episode of “The Kardashians,” but the fact that NASA had to publicly and officially refute what she said tells us plenty about the times in which we’re living. NASA does a lot more than plant flags on lunar surfaces. It undertakes vital scientific research that is at risk of being defunded under an administration more devoted to bathroom renovations than functional progress.
But I have something to add to the legend of Kim Kardashian. NASA may have rebuffed her, but guess who wants her to join his “research team”?
Kim Kardashian is welcome to join my research team on 3I/ATLAS
— Avi Loeb
Is anyone surprised? She has negative research qualifications, but she is loaded with empty PR potential, which is all dear Avi wants. Sign her up!
Do you think you would be talking about her if she didn’t claim to be a moon landing denier?
She knows what to say to get attention.
The TV series has been getting historically-awful reviews: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/nov/06/kim-kardashian-alls-fair-show
I guess Loeb does all his research on TikTok too.
Do you think Kardashian gives a shit whether PZ talks about her?
As far as I’m concerned, Kim Kardashian is little more than a mannequin with a heartbeat.
That only evinces your ignorance, John Watts. She’s a lot more.
Here, inform yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Kardashian
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Kardashian founded KKW Beauty and KKW Fragrance in 2017, both of which operated until 2022; the former was valued at over US$1 billion in 2021.[2][3] She founded the shaping underwear and foundation garment company Skims in 2019, which is valued at over US$4 billion as of 2023.[4] Following the closure of her cosmetics and fragrance brands, Kardashian founded her skincare line, SKKN by Kim, in 2022.[5] She has released a variety of products tied to her name, including the 2014 mobile game Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, the 2015 photo book Selfish, and the 2015 emoji app Kimoji. Her acting credits include the films Disaster Movie (2008), Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor (2013), two PAW Patrol films (2021 and 2023), and the twelfth season of the anthology horror series American Horror Story (2023–2024).[6]
Time magazine included Kardashian on their list of 2015’s 100 most influential people.[7] She was named among Fortune magazine’s Most Powerful Women in the world in 2023.[8] With a significant presence online and a large following across numerous social media platforms, she is the seventh-most-followed individual on Instagram and the eleventh-most-followed individual on Twitter.[9][10][11] Both critics and admirers have described Kardashian as exemplifying the notion of being famous for being famous.[12] She became a billionaire in 2021,[13] and is estimated by Forbes to be worth US$1.7 billion as of May 2025. Kardashian has become more politically active by lobbying for prison reform and clemency,[14] and, as of 2019, is under a four-year law apprenticeship supervised by the legal nonprofit Cut50.[15][16]
@ beholder
Considering who she comes from, it would be more shocking if she were a Moon landing truther.
“Will Avi Loeb initiate Kim Kardashian in alien probe research?”, Enquiring minds…
#4: What? Are you suggesting she isn’t a daily reader of Pharyngula? I am shattered.
#6: Exactly. “famous for being famous” — exactly what John Watts was saying.
Yes, PZ, but not only for being famous. She leveraged that into a business empire.
The claim that ‘Kim Kardashian is little more than a mannequin with a heartbeat’ ignores her business and charitable and educational and advocacy activities as much as her business acumen and wealth accumulation.
A rather successful and powerful and influencial 45-year old woman, who has hardly rested on her laurels.
Are you a Kim K. fan, John? Because you’re doing a lot glazing for a person of no discernible talents who was born into wealth.
<snicker>
No. But I am not misogynistic, either.
And I respect achievement. I respect competence.
Sure, she has some shit beliefs, maybe. So what?
(I am not that shallow)
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You are making the error so many make; I am disputing your thoughtless caricatured perception, and adducing something somewhat objective instead.
Right? That I dispute your thoughtless attempted putdown does not mean I am a fan.
Here’s an analogy I’ve made in the past: if you said Hitler used to fuck chihuahuas every morning, I’d dispute that claim, and it would not entail that I am a Hitler fan.
Same sort of thing. I get this all the time.
Disputing that claim would simply be a matter of correcting an untrue statement. It neither requires praise nor condemnation of the subject to do so.
Obviously when someone calls Kardashian “a mannequin with a heartbeat” they’re not being literal and, therefore, aren’t making an untrue statement. What they’re doing is using metaphorical language to describe how they feel about her.
To disagree with that sentiment suggests you feel more charitable toward her. True, that wouldn’t necessarily make you a “fan” but it strongly implies you believe her to be a positive figure.
And I’m not sure what misogyny has to do with any of this. Can a woman public figure not be criticized without it being misogynistic? If I called Travis Kelce a jockstrap with a pulse would that be misandrist?
“Disputing that claim would simply be a matter of correcting an untrue statement. It neither requires praise nor condemnation of the subject to do so.”
That’s exactly what I did.
(Read my extract, if you doubt me)
Yes. But your #5 is rather dismissive and ignores the facts I adduced.
And I very much classify it in that broad category of misogyinstic dismissal — she’s a bimbo, no more.
Ahem.
You’re suggesting that in our milieu calling a woman a derogatory name that fits a pattern of gendered devaluation is no different than calling a man one, and that misandry has the weight of misogyny.
Facile, but evasive.
(Perhaps consider that ‘you too’ is tantamount to a confession)
No, you didn’t. Here’s what John Watts wrote:
It’s pretty clear that he was stating his opinion of her. There was nothing there that needed to be corrected.
Your response consisting of an exhaustive list of her accomplishments does nothing except to show you felt the need to justify your difference of opinion.
No one wrote this or even implied it. She, as PZ stated, is someone who is famous for being famous and whose public persona comes off as vain and superficial.
She’s not the only celebrity, male or female, to fit this description but she’s the subject of this thread, therefore criticisms have been focused on her.
No, I’m asking you if dismissing a male celebrity would be considered misandrist since you’re suggesting it’s “misogynistic” to do so to a female celebrity.
Are female celebrities beyond criticism? If I called Lord Jamar (look him up) an ignorant loud mouth regarding his opinion on the shape of the Earth, am I being racist since he’s a Black celebrity?
Since I’m now using a Black celebrity as an example, you can’t resort to some evasive bullshit about false equivalence. Racism, if that’s what it is to criticize a Black celebrity, is at least an equal scourge as misogyny.
Walte, tsk.
Indeed. You got me.
Yup. I confess I did.
I felt the need to point out an exhaustive list of her accomplishments in response to the claim about her being “little more than a mannequin with a heartbeat”.
That you don’t think there’s a LOT more to her than being a mannequin with a heartbeat is up to you and John.
“little more than a mannequin with a heartbeat” is more than implying she’s but a bimbo.
That’s the extent of her merit, for some. You and John, for example.
Yes you are suggesting exactly that.
The fact you’re searching for analogues is telling, BTW.
Also, what? I don’t need to look your Black celebrity, unless you call him “little more than a mannequin with a heartbeat” it’s not comparable. It’s not a sexed claim, but it has different resonance, as I noted above. Misandry and misogyny are not equivalent in our culture.
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But hey, carry on dissing the billionaire businesswoman. Little more than a manikin!
(BTW, the term is based on the diminutive of ‘man’, because of default gendered terminology)
Best of luck Walter and John. Yet another thread taken up by 1 person taking up near on half the replies, and not only that but off topic, all about him, and specifically designed to vampire your time away. Again and repetitiously again. I have a stock standard reply to this fellow whenever directly addressed by him. Do feel free to use it,
indianajones, feel free to verify that each and every comment by me is in response to another to me by someone else. This is fact.
I am not the one taking up the thread, is those who keep addressing me, or whinging about me with a false claim.
See, I can’t respond to a non-comment, can I? Takes two to tango.
Gotta love how some imagine me responding to people is making it all about me, rather than others making it all about me. As you just have!
@ 5. John Watts : ” As far as I’m concerned, Kim Kardashian is little more than a mannequin with a heartbeat.”
That is literally dehumanising language there. Also obviously false.
Call Kim Kardashian out for her words and actions and esp here her denial of the Moon landing’s reality which insults everyone who worked on the space program – and the Russians too who were beaten by it and also followed it’s progress & know too well its reality? Sure. Absolutely! Deny that she’s a human being or consider her only barely so somehow. Nope. Definitely not.
No fan of the Kardashians at all – Kim included – but yeah, that’s not cool.
Hey, I can clear this up once and for all. America is …
…
..an asteroid!
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/916_America
When that specific asteroid is colonised by humans and they develop their own little world there, they will have the absolute rright to call themselves unambiguiously Americans.