Blackness as a Costume: The Kim Kardashian Effect

Blackness as a Costume: The Kim Kardashian Effect

How beauty standards, profit, and selective silence reveal a deeper truth about cultural appropriation and exploitation

Kim Kardashian is a household name. If you haven’t heard of her in 2025, you’re among the very few. She’s a television personality, entrepreneur, and ex-wife of rapper Kanye West. And for nearly two decades, she’s shaped the look and language of mainstream pop culture.

But as the trends shift once again—from curves to collarbones, from acrylics to clean girl minimalism—many are left asking: Did Kim Kardashian profit from Black culture? And if so, at what cost?

The Fame Formula

Kim started her career in the shadows of Paris Hilton, working as her assistant. But she had bigger ambitions. In 2007, she landed her breakout moment with Keeping Up with the Kardashians, a reality show launched shortly after her sex tape with singer Ray J went viral. That scandal didn’t sink her—it launched her.

Over the years, Kim rebranded herself with the help of Kanye West. She went from fast fashion to high fashion, from D-list celebrity to A-list tastemaker. But her rise didn’t happen in a vacuum—it happened alongside a growing aesthetic shift in the mainstream, one deeply rooted in Black culture.

The Appropriation Blueprint

Throughout the 2010s, Kim embraced the “BBL baddie” aesthetic: fuller lips, exaggerated curves, long acrylics, and deep tans. She wore cornrows (which she once called “Bo Derek braids”), used African American Vernacular English (AAVE), and styled herself in ways Black women had long been demonised for.

Fans defended her, saying she was raising Black children and “appreciating” the culture. But many Black women saw the truth: Kim wasn’t bonding with a culture—she was banking on it. She wasn’t alone. Celebrities like Miley Cyrus, Justin Timberlake, and Christina Aguilera all dipped into Black culture to reinvent themselves, adopting its language, sound, and look—until it no longer suited them.

Then they walked away. And Kim? She did the same.

When the Trend Changed

In recent years, Kim has dropped the bold makeup, dramatic curves, and flashy streetwear. She now wears minimalist neutrals and sports a noticeably slimmer frame. As the “clean girl aesthetic” takes over—an ideal that favours whiteness, wealth, and thinness—curves are quietly being erased from the spotlight.

The rise of weight-loss drugs like Ozempic has only fueled the shift. Many speculate that Kim used it to reverse her famously curvy figure. Whether true or not, the timing is hard to ignore.

Once again, Blackness gets discarded like last season’s trend.

Black Women as the Blueprint, Then the Backdrop

The term blackfishing, coined by writer Wanna Thompson, describes non-Black women who manipulate their appearance to look racially ambiguous—tanning excessively, altering their features, mimicking slang, and embodying an aesthetic rooted in Blackness. But they don’t want the Black experience. They want the look.

And that’s the deeper problem.

For centuries, the world has consumed Black culture while rejecting Black people. In the 1800s, Dutch colonisers put Sara Baartman, a South African woman with a naturally curvy figure, on display in freak shows. They mocked her, sexualized her, and stripped her of dignity. Today, women with surgically enhanced bodies inspired by those same features are rewarded with brand deals, millions of followers, and cultural influence.

The irony? Black women still face discrimination for existing in the same bodies others emulate for praise.

The Double Standard

Kim Kardashian didn’t just participate in a trend—she shaped one. She became the face of a beauty ideal deeply tied to Black features. But unlike Black women, she moved through the world with privilege. She got access. She got protection. She got a profit.

Meanwhile, the originators of the aesthetic got silence, suspension, and side-eyes.

In her book White Negroes, Lauren Michele Jackson writes, “American culture loves blackness, but not Black people.” That truth echoes loudly in Kim’s transformation—from BBL queen to clean girl icon. From appropriator to amnesiac.

When It’s No Longer Cool

Kim’s sister Kylie Jenner followed a similar path. Once famous for her deep tans, oversized lips, and use of AAVE, Kylie now opts for clean makeup, covered-up looks, and a softened image. She shares two children with rapper Travis Scott. But just like Kim, she has distanced herself from the very culture that built her brand.

The message is loud: Blackness is cool—until it isn’t.