The Great 818 Debate
Moments from my conversation with Chantal Martineau, author of "How the Gringos Stole Tequila"
I think most of you have by now seen my Hot Take about Kylie’s seventeen-minute jet ride for The I Newspaper — here’s an excerpt:
In a politically polarised landscape, studies prove time and again that social media thrives on — and manufactures — conflict. So too, do the Kardashians. Mcdonald’s has its golden arches, and the Kardashians have controversy. We’ve been trained to engage — however passingly, however begrudgingly. I wish I could run a study to prove my own empirical theory that images and headlines featuring the family earn “clicks” far faster and more frequently than most other media content, but I suppose the matriarchy’s staggering combined Instagram power of over 1.2 billion followers speaks for itself.
There are a few ways to explain why we call them out with almost Pavlovian compulsion. The polarising Kardashian dominion over social media and their strategy of curated oversharing has fostered a false sense of knowing them, so whenever they transgress – donning Black women’s hairstyles without apology, advising young women to “get off your ass and work” – it feels personal.
We also live in a representative political system in which grandstanding about the moral failures of the “other side” can be a shorthand way to announce one’s own merit. Anytime the Kardashians mass-deliver scandals, it’s a convenient chance to perform our own ideologies and allegiances online through retweets and comments — I am good because I said Kylie was bad — especially enticing given the unconscious understanding that Kardashian content gets attention.
Some people really didn’t like my “callout of the callouts,” and I empathize with their resistance to reexamining rage that they view to be righteous. In theory, it is righteous. I was angry too. The Elites treat these pollution machines as if they are toys, and play with those toys with a sociopathic casualness. My op-ed was meant to challenge people to consider their overall relationship to Kardashian outrage so that we can collectively move beyond the Spectacle.
In the original draft of the piece, I had an interview with author Chantal Martineau, author of How the Gringos Stole Tequila: The Modern Age of Mexico's Most Traditional Spirit, about Kendall’s 818 scandal, which I thought might help people understand why I’m a bit cynical about the cyclical performative activism so regularly induced online by the Kardashians.
My wise editor at The I wanted the op-ed to feel a bit brisker and ultimately cut this section for space. Thus, I’m going to share it with you here until I can think of a timely pitch to a publication to use it for! I also plan to dedicate an entire chapter of my own forthcoming book to Martineau’s work, so this is not the last conversation you’ll be reading between us!
Without further ado:
I realized that much Kardashian discourse is optical in a way that reflects the current political condition — and the family’s masterful marketing bids — when, in 2021, Kendall Jenner released her tequila brand, 818, and social media exploded with “hot takes” on yet another example of the family’s long history of cultural appropriation.
This sudden widespread investment in Mexico’s culture and economy seemed like a net positive. Until I discovered that George Clooney, Nick Jonas, P. Diddy, and a long list of other celebrities also have tequila brands, following Hollywood’s legacy of exotification of Mexican exports. “It goes way back to Jimmy Buffet and Margaritaville,” Chantal Martineau, author of How the Gringos Stole Tequila: The Modern Age of Mexico’s Most Traditional Spirit, tells me.