Summary

The article defends Kim Kardashian against accusations of being a gold digger in her relationship with Kanye West, suggesting instead that Kanye benefited more from the association.

Abstract

In an opinion piece titled "In Defense of Kim Kardashian being called a Gold Digger," the author argues that Kanye West is the true gold digger in their relationship. Despite initial perceptions of Kim as an attention-seeker and a narcissist, the author points out that both Kim and Kanye were equally wealthy at the start of their relationship, with Kim having an estimated net worth of $40 million. The article suggests that Kanye, who was losing relevance in the media, used the relationship to revitalize his career. The author provides evidence of Kanye's increased net worth following his involvement with Kim, implying that his success was largely due to the Kardashian brand's influence. The piece concludes by challenging the double standards applied to women, particularly in hip hop, and commends Kim for her business acumen.

Opinions

The author believes that the term "gold digger" is inappropriately applied to Kim Kardashian, considering her substantial wealth before her relationship with Kanye West.
Kanye West is portrayed as someone who leveraged his relationship with Kim to regain media attention and enhance his net worth.
The article criticizes the societal tendency to label women negatively for their associations with successful men, suggesting this is a form of misogyny.
Kim Kardashian is acknowledged for her role in increasing the couple's fame and wealth, painting her as a savvy businesswoman rather than a mere celebrity.
The author implies that Kanye's financial and career success post-2013 was significantly influenced by his marriage to Kim, more so than his own efforts.
The piece takes a stance against the stereotypical portrayal of women in hip hop culture, advocating for a reevaluation of how women are judged in the public eye.

In Defense of Kim Kardashian being called a Gold Digger

When it comes down to her and Kanye West, Kanye is the gold digger

Screenshot off of twitter. Public Domain.

I can’t believe I’m doing this because anything Kardashian-related makes my eyes bleed, but here I am anyhow. I blame it on the feminist in me not being able to back down from injustice.

There’s almost no doubt that Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are narcissists. In fact, their whole relationship from the get-go felt like a stunt — one of those fabricated Hollywood relationships molded together by business managers and PR teams to drum up attention and revenue (and it worked). After all, you have to be a certain kind of clout-chasing woman to hook up with an attention-whore like Kanye.

When Kanye and Kim got together, they were neck and neck in riches as well as notoriety, except Kanye was heavily falling out of favor with mainstream media and society. He was becoming irrelevant, especially with his unhinged god-complex rantings and the lack of a hit single in years. “Gold Digger” was back in 2005 and “Heartless” was in 2008. Outside of hip hop radio and genre, Kanye was becoming tiring old news.

“Bad attention is better than no attention.” — the motto of narcissists everywhere

For a narcissist, the lack of attention and relevancy may as well be death itself. So then what better way to get back into the limelight than to hitch yourself to the most scandalous attention-seeker of the moment, right?

Now here’s the “defense of Kim” part.

When they first got together, all over social media, so many people (yes, some hating women did this too) called her a gold digger; and now that they are divorcing, the gold digger comments are coming back.

I’m going to have to go #TeamKim here and say that she’s not the gold digger in this scenario and she never was. He is.

I’ll also say that in this case, the term “gold digger” needs to be redefined because it is not just about money. At the time they got together, Kim was worth roughly $40M (around 2014). Kanye was worth $57M. This is all assets combined (not cash on hand). And these are just estimated numbers.

Yes, lots of things they did were mutually beneficial, or else they wouldn’t have lasted this long. Narcissists don’t stay in relationships that they don’t benefit from in some ego-stroking way. Although, it does seem like Kanye is the more controlling and toxic of the two.

Regardless, $20M difference to millionaires who are already in the tens of millions, I can’t really say that’s “gold digging” as it just puts them in the same social circles and statuses. Neither of them would be privy to the “old money” or “tech giant” set of riches. There’s rich, and then there’s rich after all.

But let's look at non-tangible value, meaning fame, notoriety, household familiarity. One of them was going out of the limelight and the other was just coming into her own. Between 2012 and 2018, the Kardashians were on a meteoric rise, and even if you hated them and avoided their shows, there was no way you could avoid their names. They were in just about every US household between the ages of 16 and 45.

More proof that Kanye was just riding the Kardashian coattails? After “Heartless,” Kanye’s net worth doubled to $20M, but after that, with no more hit singles, his net worth only grew at a steady, but respectable pace. It wasn’t meteoric in any way though…at least not until he hitched a ride on the Kardashian train. You see a $15M jump in the year that he became involved with Kim (2013), despite having no hit record or single and only producing a song that got mocked into musical parody history (which was better than the original video).

But you also see that in that same time period, Kim’s net worth doubled from $40M to $85M, far surpassing Kanye.

Thanks to his involvement with Kim Kardashian, Kanye is once more a household name. He’s no longer bankrupt (which he was ranting about prior to hooking up with Kim). In fact, he’s a self-proclaimed billionaire now, in large part thanks to the business savvy of being associated with the Kardashians. Being with Kim Kardashian made Kanye West a very, very rich man. Would he have been able to attain it without her help, her show, her publicity, and her association? We’ll never know. (*cough* doubt it *cough*)

So who’s the gold digger again?

People, especially men in hip hop, love to call women bitches and gold diggers. They love to paint women as sleazy opportunistic, clout-chasing whores, but in this scenario, Kim was the golden meal ticket and Kanye was the clout-chaser.

Love her or hate her, you have to respect the woman for her hustle. And all the men out there calling Kim a gold digger again, yeah, I’m pretty sure she can’t hear you past Kanye’s whining and antics trying to get back his meal ticket.

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