Back in the day, there were probably people who were informed that a carpenter’s fiancee was having another entity’s baby in a stable, and greeted the news with the already timeworn zinger: “Sorry, who are these people? Why is the Bethlehem Bugle printing this rubbish? If I wanted this, I’d read the Nazareth News. In case you hadn’t noticed, there is a CENSUS happening while you waste your time with this crap. Why don’t you do a really long and expensive investigation into the tax story and registration programme (ie SURVEILLANCE, because you obviously need it pointing out?!?!?!) instead of concentrating on this fluff that would be more at home lining a camel’s stall?”
I need hardly tell you how preposterous those sneerers look now. Guys, you probably had a real hard-on for your own integrity at the time. But you were so off the pace! You don’t have to care for that stable story – you don’t even have to think it has been satisfactorily stood up to this day – but whichever way you shake it, it turned out to be quite a big deal.
Imagine your gratitude, then, to learn that Lost in Showbiz has another big deal for you. As part of its ongoing and unmatched commitment to quality service journalism, this column is offering you in on a major new nativity story. It is the forthcoming birth of a child who, quite simply, changes EVERYTHING. To wit: the firstborn of Mr Rob Kardashian, of Calabasas, Los Angeles, and his fiancee Ms Blac Chyna, of Rob’s house in Calabasas. (Except when they fight, when I think she repairs to Tarzana.)
If you are already aware of Blac Chyna, you may want to proceed directly to paragraph 12. If you aren’t, then draw near. Gather in, truthseekers, marshalling your recollections of the Book of Revelation and any working knowledge of the Kardashian clan.
For another rises.
And the rest don’t like it one bit.
But first, the nuts and bolts. As well as a seemingly limitless supply of female sisters with names starting with the letter K, there is a Kardashian brother. His moniker, rather prosaically, is Rob. He is named after the deceased Kardashian paterfamilias and sometime OJ Simpson buddy Robert Kardashian, recently portrayed by David Schwimmer as Earth’s wettest man.
Within the Kardashian family dynamic, truth be told, Rob has always felt more of a chip off that old block, while the girls are – how to put this? – Very Much Their Mother’s Daughters. Bless Kim, Khloe and Kourtney (and indeed, their half-sisters Kendall and Kylie), but they rarely missed a chance to sympathetically discuss Rob behind his back, and on camera. So we have always been able to keep up with his pitiable weight gain, his no-good girlfriends, and what his sisters seem to have diagnosed as a kind of clinical introversion – which is to say, he hasn’t published/broadcast/monetised every waking moment of his existence.
Chief among his no-good girlfriends was Blac Chyna (real name Angela White), a pneumatic rap-video fixture who has a child with Kylie’s current gentleman caller, Tyga. Think of these guys as reality TV’s Bloomsbury set, though they are obviously slightly nicer people than Virginia and co. Anyway, the Kardashians have never been keen on Chyna’s relationship with Rob. But don’t take my word for it – as always with the Kardashians, the set texts explaining the relationship are accessible to even the casual reader. Consider Rob’s rumination, appended to an Instagrammed picture of Chyna throttle-smooching him: “When the pussy good but your family don’t like her so you drop your family and become an orphan.”
All you really need to know about Blac Chyna is that she has a bigger arse than Kim, she appears to be even more grasping than Kim, and to the ill-disguised fury of natural-born Kardashians, she has filed documents copyrighting the name ANGELA KARDASHIAN for use in entertainment services and as a “social media celebrity”. Oof. Like the old saying goes: it takes a harbinger to catch a harbinger.
Furthermore, she teems. Her belly swells with a new Kardashian – and even more ominously, it is a female Kardashian. Though the big reveal (ie birth) will not occur for about another eight weeks, her kicks have already been seen through Chyna’s bump, and disseminated via Snapchat.
Given her mother’s radioactive ambition, this development has the potential to tear a hole in the very fabric of reality TV, very possibly opening up a portal to an even less appealing dimension. Certainly, she represents a grave threat to the establishment – namely, her aunties. Already, Rob and Chyna have their own Kardashian spinoff show, called Rob & Chyna. “Very few love stories have created as much pop culture buzz as Rob and Chyna’s,” cooed a senior E! executive as he announced it, “and we are thrilled to see Rob in such a happy place.”
Well, quite. Episode one aired recently, and featured Rob moving out after a lively disagreement in which Chyna was moved to scream at Rob: “ARE YOU STILL TEXTING BITCHES? YES OR NO?” No sooner had the credits rolled than Chyna shared a link with her 8.5 million followers to her merchandising store, where the latest offer was a T-shirt bearing the insta-legend “ARE YOU STILL TEXTING BITCHES?” And the words “YES OR NO?” on the back. (If you’ve read The Wealth of Nations, you’ll know this exact move was sketched out by Adam Smith in the sealed section marked Keeping Up With Kapitalism.)
So hats off to Chyna, who has, quite simply, totally Kardashianed the Kardashians. As so often, I am reminded of the words of Gina Gershon in the world cinema classic Showgirls, shortly after Elizabeth Berkley has pushed her down the stairs so she breaks her hip and Elizabeth accedes to the role of queen stripper instead. Gina takes it incredibly philosophically, you may recall, observing: “There’s always someone younger and hungrier coming down the stairs after you.” Will Kim and her second-tier sisters manage similar equanimity as Angela Kardashian pushes on? I can only leave that debate in your capables.
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