Everybody loves to criticize the Kardashians — even other celebrities. Sometimes, especially other celebrities.
Keke Palmer knows what it’s like to face constant social pressures to change your appearance, but there’s clearly no love lost between her and how the Kardashians react to that same pressure. And she goes after Kylie Jenner, specifically.
While it’s clear that Keke Palmer has a lot of empathy for the bullying that Kylie received as a world-famous child, Keke also drags Kylie for the way that she’s responded.
So, Scream Queens star Keke Palmer, who turns 24 next month, gave an interview about social media pressure.
Celebrities, but especially black women who are celebrities, have to put up with a lot of online harassment.
(It turns out that sexism and racism don’t cancel each other out! Who knew?)
Basically, Keke — who is gorgeous — has been given every piece of unsolicited “advice” that you can imagine and some that you can’t, via Twitter and Instagram.
Some of it’s blatantly racist (or, in some cases, colorist — which can happen within ethnic communities), like “bleach your skin.”
Other times, it’s just the way that society treats people to view women.
(And the way that the quasi-anonymous nature of the internet makes people feel that they’re entitled to send people this sort of “feedback”)
People have told her to gain or lose weight, to wear more or to wear less, to do one thing with her hair or to do another.
She’s also been famous since she was a minor.
So when she talks about online bullying, she knows exactly what she’s talking about.
Keke Palmer says that she finds it “absolutely hard” to remain authentic, citing social media pressures that seek to drag people down.
“Everybody wants to make everybody so crazy, stupid, ugly, or dumb.”
That’s so true.
People like easy categories for people, and that’s even truer for celebrities.
They also want to drag people down in order to feel powerful and to feel better about themselves.
“So often [famous] people feel like, you know what, I’m just going to beat [haters] to the punch and either degrade myself or be so damn perfect they have nothing to say.”
That’s so sad but she’s absolutely right.
“We’ve seen extremes of that. In the sense of the Kardashians, it’s like I’m going to show you so much and be perfect and be everything a woman should be or everything a man would like or love.”
Some people are “perfect” just for themselves.
Others seem to be responding to external criticism.
We know that Kim Kardashian in particular pays careful attention to what the world is saying about her at any given moment.
It led to her making a tweet and then a full video to shut down rumors that she does cocaine.
Keke has found her own response, though.
“And I’m going to be exactly that so you can’t bully me anymore.”
That’s a great attitude.
Though, like, it’s probably easier to talk like that when you’re really, really gorgeous — as Keke is.
Kylie Jenner stands out among her family — and not only because she’s trying to use Life of Kylie to break away and build her own brand.
She’s the queen of Snapchat, she’s arguably the most influential teenager in the world, and she’s also the youngest.
“Specifically in the situation with Kylie, where you’ve had a young girl people have seen on television since she was a kid and they literally told her she was so ugly … the ugly person in the family.”
Keke’s spoken about Kylie like this before.
People can be so cruel to celebrity children. It’s absurd.
Remember, we live in a world where vile trolls have called Blue Ivy “ugly.”
(She isn’t, but even if she were, that would be unconscionable to say)
Keke does take issue with Kylie’s response, though.
“She went and did apparently everything the world deems as beautiful.”
That’s pretty true.
Sure, different people have different opinions.
(For some, they’d prefer Kendall Jenner’s figure to Kylie’s. Others might prefer Ashley Graham’s or someone else’s)
But if you look at Kylie’s lips and hips and ever-larger boobs, it seems that she adjusts to what she perceives that her fans want from her.
And Keke thinks that it’s bonkers.
“The even crazier part is that everybody loves her for it.”
That’s true — right now, Kylie’s arguably more famous for her appearance and social media presence than she is for her family.
We’re not trying leap to Kylie’s defense by any means.
Like, we’re all just brains piloting golems made of meat and bone, and some of those flesh prisons look a little nicer than others.
So scrambling to appease your fans by radically altering your body is kind of “letting the terrorists win” in Keke’s eyes, and we totally get that.
But … we’re probably only decades away from living in a world where basically everyone can adjust their appearances pretty radically.
It’s okay that Kylie doesn’t look exactly like her genetics would have made her look, you know?
The issue, and we think that it’s Keke’s issue, too, is that Kylie seems to have changed less for herself and more to respond to social pressures.
(Though we do have to admit that, when bullying becomes especially intense, what you want for you and what they want for you can get harder and harder to tell apart)
Overall, though, Keke Palmer makes a very fair point.
PS: You guys, Keke’s been on everything from True Jackson VP to Scream Queens, but my personal favorite thing that she’s ever done was a low-budget horror film with Liz Gillies and Jeremy Sumpter, titled Animal. It’s not “good” but it’s kind of great, if that makes sense.
