What has Kim Kardashian done?

There are times when you wonder if the world has tipped askew on its axis.

Times like when the news bulletin is chock-a-block with fevered excitement over some supposed celebrity whose marriage has broken up. No, wait - it was a sham all along! According to sources close to the couple, that is.

It's a funny thing with priorities and what is news. Who can remember a time when, aside from certain recent royal events, a wedding and subsequent dissolution of a union generated such a media storm as that of Kim Kardashian.

Who, you say? Exactly, despite the largely broadcast and online media interest in this Kardashian woman, it is hard to know why there is the level of interest. So, who exactly is this woman who is so important that her relationship failure is top-line news? Well, I know she had a reality television show but, aside from that, am at a loss as to her achievements or claim to fame.

A quick online check on Google turned up more than 500 million hits. Clearly she is someone important who has achieved great things. Or maybe not. According to Wikipedia, Kimberly Noel "Kim" Kardashian is an American businesswoman, socialite, television personality, model, and actress who seems to have found fame courtesy of a reality series based around her family, Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

Right, that clearly explains the fascination, which borders on obsession in some quarters, with this woman of little apparent substance who generates more than twice as many hits on a Google search as US President Barack Obama, who rates a mere 240 million. Steve Jobs, the late inspiration behind Apple, rates 368 million - still well behind Kardashian.

It simply wouldn't be fair to compare the relative merits of these people, and that is not the intention, but you have to wonder about what kind of society we live in where celebrity is celebrated to the point of obsession in this way, more so than actual achievements.

To me it is symptomatic of the social-media driven explosion of meaningless communication, driven largely by a 15-minutes-of-fame mentality and obsession with celebrity. Why do people suddenly think every minute aspect of their lives is suddenly so interesting they can and should make it public simply because they can?

People are, by nature, curious; we like to know about other people - their activities and likes and dislikes - but surely such adulation and intense and widespread interest as Kim Kardashian inspires should be predicated on some actual achievement.