Image via E!
Ladies and gentlemen, gird your loins—Kim Kardashian is having another child.
At the tail end of Sunday night's Keeping Up With the Kardashians mid-season finale, which just so happened to be about Kim's ongoing struggle to get pregnant again, Kim revealed to her sister Khloe that she in fact, got pregnant again. And just like that, KUWTK stole the thunder from what might have been the greatest action sequence in TV history, courtesy of Game of Thrones. It's like Cersei said: In the game of Sunday night television, you either withhold enormous personal news like currency until the perfectly opportune moment, or you die.
Yesterday's release of the Vanity Fair announcing Caitlyn Jenner, formerly Bruce Jenner, to the world has made news of Kim's second pregnancy feel like it was announced two weeks ago, but trust us, this is a Kardashian news cycle—soon enough Baby #2 will be back in the forefront of your mind. Because as we learned in the nine months pre-North West (ah, when life was simple), the media and everyone with a Twitter account will dissect Kim's pregnancy in any and every way imaginable, and likewise, the Kardashian News Machine™ will exploit it to make sure you NEVER forget about them.
It's going to be a bumpy ride, but at least this time around I can clue you in to some things you should expect.
South West Jokes
Ohhhhh boy, this little play on words seems to be the go-to joke for Baby #2. News of Kim's pregnancy came just after 10 p.m. ET—by 11 p.m. the South West joke was played out. But that didn't stop anyone:
It just goes on and on and on. Imagine how funny this joke is going to be in a couple months, when Kim's a little closer to her pregnancy. And by funny I mean painful. Don't do it, sheeple—leave your South West joke in the Drafts.
A Million Eventized Mini-Announcements
The Kardashians aren't just in the news—they create the news. They basically have this down to a science at this point—controlling the dissemination of information so as to maximize their spotlight. Revealing Kim's pregnancy as a teaser for the second half of Season 10 of Keeping Up With the Kardashians is a perfect example of this. Not only does that move increase how many people watched the mid-season finale, but it also increases how many people will watch the second half of the season, and it trains the world to think that all episodes of KUWTK are must-watch, because who knows what morsel of news the family will reveal during the show.
So even though the big reveal happened last night, be ready for the Kardashians to make a huge deal out of a ton of smaller announcements related to Kim's pregnancy. Here is a list of possible mini-announcements that Kim and co. will eventize:
- The baby's gender reveal
- The first photo of Kim's baby bump
- The baby's name reveal
- The baby's godparents reveal
- The baby's nanny reveal
- The family's reactions to the pregnancy news
- What Kris Humphries thinks about Baby #2
- What Reggie Bush thinks about Baby #2
- What Miles Austin thinks about Baby #2
- What Ray J thinks about—you get the picture
Weird Photoshopped Baby Amalgamations
You can't put this one on Kimye or the Kardashians, but for some reason when celebrity couples have babies, news outlets resort to weird photo technologies to "predict" what the child will look like. "Judging by the results, product of two of the world's most famous stars will bear an uncanny resemblance to both of its parents—and will be unbearably cute," wrote the Daily Mail about the above photos, which look less like North West and more like if an infant Kim Kardashian had a Bieber mustache.
Criticism of Kim Kardashian's Pregnancy Fashion
Last time around, every time Kim stepped out someone was writing something rude about the outfit she was in. The one above, it's kind of warranted—the derision around her 2013 Met Gala dress was more so because it looked like a couch.
But aside from that, the criticism leveled against Kim became so harsh that it seemed personal. Blogs and commenters ripped her for wearing tight clothes instead of trying to hide her changing body, and basically broadcast the message that because she was pregnant, she wasn't allowed to dress how she wanted. It got so bad that after giving birth Kim admitted that the comments took a toll on her. "It made me feel insecure, so I have tried to avoid the limelight more," she told Vogue UK.
Kim is arguably even more famous than she was in 2013, so if you think the general public isn't going to microscopically judge her and her pregnancy on a 24/7 basis, you don't understand how the world works. The New York Post is always gonna be the New York Post:
Criticism of the Criticism of Kim Kardashian's Pregnancy Fashion
For every thinkpiece, there is an equal and opposite thinkpiece.
BUT HOW WILL NORTH WEST COPE!?
Gossip blogs have an ace in the hole that wasn't available during the last go-around, a trump card to play to juice them PVs: North MF'ing West. How the first child of the Wests is "dealing" with the prospect of having a baby brother or sister is an entirely new angle, ripe for gossip-mining. Will Nori turn into a monster? Will she be extremely excited to become a big sister? Will she make her crying jag at Kanye West's fashion show, the one that nearly destroyed Anna Wintour's eardrums, look like child's play (no pun intended)? Honestly, expect to see headlines for all of the above in the coming months.
(If you ask me though, North is going to own this kid. Look at how much of a boss she already is. She throws shade with the honed expertise of a Nicki Minaj—Baby #2 better be ready to bow down.)
The Very Pregnant Photo Shoot
It's like the Starks say: "A borderline grotesque, probably naked pregnancy photo shoot is coming."