And while I was vaguely aware of a person called Kim Kardashian, famous for being famous but dark and fleshy to differentiate her from the blonde and angular Paris Hilton, I hadn't realised that she'd gone viral.
Clearly I needed to know more about this phenomenon, so I sat down to watch an episode of her E! Channel reality show, Keeping Up With The Kardashians. It came with one of those viewer beware teasers, promising us a good old wallow in coarse language, violence, drug use, sexual references, nudity and adult themes.
Those warnings should come with a warning: don't get your hopes up. Mother Kardashian let fly with the F word at the dinner table. Judging by the reaction of her 15-year-old daughter, it was hardly the first time.
Kim's stepdad, the 1976 Olympic decathlon champion Bruce Jenner whose adventures in cosmetic surgery have left him looking like he's just been discharged from a serious burns unit, gave her stepsisters possibly the least enlightening birds and bees talk of the post-Victorian era. And that was it.
This episode revolved around a rash. Convinced that it would have devastating consequences for her image and career, Kim threw a tantrum that seemed to last several days. As she told sister Khloe (all the Kardashians have first names beginning with K for kute): "If I gain a pound, it's in the headlines; imagine what the tabloids would do to me if they saw these spots."
The fact that she said this while displaying the spots to an international television audience not only tells us that the atmosphere on Planet Kardashian is too rarefied for irony, it also takes us to the heart of the matter.
Keeping Up With The Kardashians isn't a reality show at all. It's actually an unreality show, a fantasy, a fairy tale for a wannabe generation that sees wealth and fame not just as ends in themselves, but as the apex of human achievement.
As an A list celebrity in a society in which being a celebrity is a lucrative profession, Kim is handsomely rewarded for being famous: she and her soon to be ex-husband earned $23 million for getting married. Now 31, she has a reported net worth of $60 million and lives in a house roughly the size of Te Papa.
In other words, her existence bears no resemblance to everyday - sometimes known as grim - reality.
Secondly, the term "reality show" implies that what we're seeing is life in the raw, unscripted and unfiltered. But KUWTK isn't a fly on the wall documentary. You'd have to be stupendously naive to believe that it isn't pre-planned and rehearsed or that the Kardashians don't exercise tight control over what does and doesn't go to air.
Kiwis of a certain age might question that, thinking no one in their right mind would give the green light to a programme which portrays them as vain, shallow, money-obsessed vulgarians.
That misses the point: the Kardashians know their audience; they know fans either don't interpret their behaviour that way, or don't see anything wrong with it.
The Kardashians also understand that they're in the entertainment business where nothing succeeds like excess.
Kim has responded indignantly to suggestions that the wedding was just a stunt to drive up ratings and generate publicity, but her explanation was an admission that the persona has taken possession of the person.
"I got caught up with the hoopla and the filming of the TV show that when I probably should have ended my relationship, I didn't know how to and didn't want to disappoint a lot of people."
The show must go on.
But this isn't real life, so after a decent period - and in Hollywood 72 days is a decent period - you simply write the unwanted character out of the show.
