Repackaged self-published celebrity imagery empties art of aesthetic distinction

Evidence

The book as a conceit performs ironic disdain for art, while its contents empty out aesthetic distinction: its images familiarly reel (the majority had attracted literally millions of likes on Kardashian’s Instagram before any book deal); there is nothing new to see here, just a repackaging of what has already been seen so often that its fame consists only in being famous. Sexual titillation is little match for deadening agglomeration. In these fullnesses without discrimination, in cheeks without contrast, in the blur of all flesh, in the burlesque mordancy melding pure profit motive to winking exposé of misogynist image obsession, Selfish snapshots the genre of our time in all its immediatizing immersion. — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 330

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Supplies a concrete contemporary case of commodified self-display consistent with the economic-impatience thread; pairs well with existing cultural analysis material.