For the longest time, I did not know what to make of Kim Kardashian. There are plenty of big booties and pretty faces in this world so her fame baffled me. But I have come to a realization which at first was somewhat uncomfortable: Kim Kardashian is really smart. Personally, I’d like to challenge her to an IQ test before I admit defeat but statistically speaking, she is probably smarter than you or I.

If you type her name into Google, it comes up with 200 Million hits. Abraham Lincoln comes up with 80 Million. Genghis Khan, the ruler/creator of one of the largest empires to ever span this earth and direct ancestor of 4% of the world’s modern population, generates only 8 Million. In terms of fame, Ms. Kardashian blows out of the water modern royalty, heads of state and scholars like Newton, Da Vinci, Einstein and Hawking. According to my hasty non-scientific search, only Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama among a scarce few celebrities like Will Smith and Michael Jordan surpass her Google hit count. But the presence of Presidents ebbs after leaving office and Mr. Jordan and Mr. Smith aren’t getting any younger. She will probably surpass them all with one more decade of this hoopla.

5000 years from now, after World War 75 has wiped out civilization for the umpteenth time, some electronic anthropologist will come upon a semi-decayed and barely functioning server or microchip from our time. In data mining the information, this future scientist may legitimately wonder whether Ms. Kardashian was some kind of global empress. And the confusion of these future anthropologists will not be misplaced per se. Our society is infatuated with Kim Kardashian. Both her fans and her haters.

How did this happen? I am not exactly sure but I know it is not Kim Kardashian’s fault. She only deserves credit.

I work in an industry with many educated men and women. As for morals however, this lot of people varies as greatly as society. Yet when Ms. Kardashian’s name is brought up, I routinely hear the same things from this advanced group of thinkers: talentless hack, lucky bimbo or any of the vulgar terms for women which correlate to “ladies of the night”.  I will admit I at one point believed and agreed with many of these people bashing Ms. Kardashian from afar. (While well aware of her, I have never seen the show)

But I began to wonder what is the real difference between Kim Kardashian and Sharon Stone? Or even Katy Perry? Not physically but rather in terms of business acumen or life decisions. Assuredly, there are several but I think Ms. Kardashian wins where it counts. Do forgive me, Ms. Stone, I love you but I have to call it as I see it. You too, Ms. Perry.

Sharon Stone, if you don’t know, is an incredibly intelligent person and member of the haughty brainiac club Mensa. What I am sure you do know about Ms. Stone is she is/was a major sex symbol in Hollywood. Though I saw it several times, I do not know or care what was the plot of Sliver for one reason: Sharon Stone was in it.

At that age, triflings like plot and dialogue were totally irrelevant. The only thing I expected was a hot and naked Sharon Stone and god bless her for never letting me down. (make your own jokes)

You see, because Sharon Stone is smart, she understands the importance of having more sex appeal to society than the next actress, who may or may not have been as comfortable filming the same scenes. Ms. Stone was willing to push the envelope further than others and it helped land jobs in a very competitive industry, creating financial wealth for herself. There is nothing wrong with the business choices Ms. Stone made. In my opinion, she made them wisely when facing competition like Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts, who had basically corned large segments of the non-nude-scene actress industry. While my family does not share the morals of Hollywood celebrities, I fully acknowledge showing her cooter in Basic Instinct was a good career move.

This is the sexist dynamic in which these people live. Promiscuous behavior, public appearances with occasional antics and the attention which follows helps these women land lucrative jobs. And as society changes or slowly continues to degrade, the amplitude of this behavior increases in order for the celebrity to capture the same amount of attention as before. Hence the modern invent of every-celebrity-has-a-sex-tape. All of this is done for the hope of being able to make money in the profession they desire. The hope some rich or well-connected producer, executive or director will make them a star. Essentially, their lives are one long and embarrassing public job audition.

All Ms. Kardashian did was cut out the middlemen. She knows the masses only care about superficial glamor, sex and fame and devised a way to profit from it. She no longer relies on others to make herself wealthy. She will never need a job. She is a product, marketing plan and supply distribution chain wrapped into one human being. She can attach her name to frivolous apps via the hard work of others and expect to receive over $200 Million, per CNN. If Kevin Hart gets $2 Million to tweet a message of support for a movie, I wonder what Ms. Kardashian could command if not already doing so. No matter whether they are wholesome or promiscuous, all those actresses and actors with supposed talent cultivated through years of hard work will rely on bigwigs and financiers to get paid until they are dead. Not Ms. Kardashian though. To her, acting is for suckers.

But don’t think she did not work hard to get here or that she does not still work hard. She like all those actresses was once begging too. She like them worked often in degrading ways to achieve her current status. Ms. Kardashian was not the original “no-talent” phenomena, just the one which lasted.

That accolade belongs to Paris Hilton. Do not forget Ms. Kardashian was basically Ms. Hilton’s lapdog for a couple years. Ms. Kardashian saw what Ms. Hilton was doing turning talentless celebrity into dollars and decided she would do it better. She snaked all the media space and attention away from Ms. Hilton when the only reason we ever knew of Kim Kardashian in the first place was Ms. Hilton.

This was probably too easy for Ms. Kardashian. I honestly wonder whether Ms. Hilton could multiply seven times eight and come within fifty-six of the correct answer. There is no way someone so vapid and hollow was going to last while also carrying the charisma and intellect of a brick wall. And while everyone has a sex-tape, Ms. Hilton seems to have had as many as some porn stars. For non-porn stars, one sex tape should be more than sufficient.

So Ms. Kardashian just repackaged what Ms. Hilton did, sex tape and all, but did it more wisely. She was smart to include her whole family in the product so they could contribute material, carry some of the weight and release some of the pressure and workload. It should also be noted there are a lot of people on this planet who would not treat their family so well as to share rising but not yet fully established fame and wealth. She deserves big props for trying and succeeding in securing something not just for her but for those closest to her.

Even beyond her business success, there is a plainly obvious reason to not over-look Ms. Kardashian’s intelligence. I do not care how little she studied in school or what degree she has never earned, her father did not get to his position in life by being anything less than a extremely smart, shrewd and capable man. In his field, one does not achieve his level success without great intelligence.

And from what I gather, her mother manages the family so she is no dolt either. We can be certain the children of such people are not dumb, dimwitted or incapable even if they have never heard of a quadratic equation. Intuition and image management will take you much farther in the world of celebrity than book smarts.

I would guess Mr. Kardashian may have had apprehensions about the way things have gone but even a stubborn father could not deny the incredible business success of this daughter. A daughter who by now has likely exceeded the wealth the father obtained doing things the hard way.

So while Ms. Kardashian is doing it better than all the other questionably-moral actors and actresses out there, is she doing it better than someone like Katy Perry?

Yep. Most definitely.

Musicians unlike actors are able to have more control of their earning potential once they’ve achieved mega status. At this point in her career, Ms. Perry most likely needs bigwigs and moneymen as little as Ms. Kardashian. Same with Madonna or U2. But they still work their butts off.

I did not know too much about Ms. Perry before this year but knew she was a star who hit on Tebow and had a nice song about fireworks. Then I saw the Super Bowl Halftime Show. Amazing! What a show. I have two small kids so I have now seen it at least 60 times and it still doesn’t get old. If you want to see a grown man pretending to be liger with a child on his back, shouting “Boom, Boom, Boom” and shooting imaginary fireworks with his hands, then come to my house after dinner. For this average man and his family, this show blew our minds. And guess what, while I have no interest I am 100% certain I will be buying Katy Perry related products in the future because my daughter now adores Ms. Perry. This is called brand building.

Ms. Perry deserves it too. That performance was no small feat. Musicians like her or Justin Timberlake work endless hours in rehearsal and practice throughout their youth to get where they are. They sacrificed for success. Them and those around them. Imagine how many people had to work their butts off to put together this Beijing-Olympic style performance just so Ms. Perry could work her butt off to make it an ultimate success. I would not have been able to physically withstand running around a stadium for twelve minutes changing outfits and doing dance routines.

Further, no one could convince me to do the stunt she did at the end. I wonder what the liability insurance is for someone with her earning potential to be strapped to a pyrotechnic star which is flying through a stadium with TV cables everywhere and while internal fireworks are occaisionally being shot off around her.

Katy Perry has big balls and so do her insurers. Not only did she pull this stunt off, she absolutely rocked the entire night, including when looking like the most adorably out-of-place-white-girl during Ms. Elliot’s performance. I think at the very end even Ms. Perry was surprised at how well it went. I sure was.

This is what Katy Perry has to go through to grow her brand and create more wealth for herself in the future. She may not have to do stunts often but she will  have to put in long hours of work to be ready to perform at the requisite level. This is not an easy job.

So screw it, why bother with it if you’re Kim Kardashian? She can achieve the same amount of wealth and stardom as Katy Perry without the cardio training, stunts, rehearsals, physical stress, emotional stress and super-frequent travel required for musicians. She puts in a fraction of the effort of someone like Ms. Perry or Mr. Timberlake and still goes farther. To Ms. Kardashian, all the various ways people have worked to obtain fame and wealth are for suckers, not just acting.

Then there is that photoshoot. I love this photoshoot. It was stated Ms. Kardashian takes thousands of selfies to find the best one before posting to social media. Wise image management. However, I do not know if she could ever take a selfie or professional photo better than the two below. Together they are a work of art. Indeed a metaphor for her life, her success and our infatuation.

First, you almost can not help but stare because they are so unique. A symbol of her entire career so far.

Second, there is the obvious nudity and focus on her rear, symbolizing her use of more-risque-than-the-next sex appeal to rise to stardom.

Third, there is the hilarious tounge-in-cheek stupid human trick with the champagne. It is as if she is mocking her haters by saying: “What do you mean I have no talents? Can any of you do this? HA!”  Absolutely perfect.

Finally, there are the expressions on her face. To me, she has a look of jubilant defiance of societal norms. That she has been successful despite what we all thought. That she will continue to do it and there is nothing we can do to stop her. And that she is having a lot of fun too.

In the words of Mr. Sheen: “Winning”

Ms. Kardashian is not going away any time soon. She is here to stay and we might as well enjoy the ride. Because whether we want to accept it or not or whether we would behave in a similar fashion, the reality is Kim Kardashian will always use her greatest asset to remain in the public eye and generate wealth.

Except it is not the famous asset she carries behind her and on which we’ve all been focusing. Rather it is the asset we’ve long pretended does not exist. It is the smart, shrewd and capable one hidden between her ears.

Congratulations, Ms. Kardashian. I am thoroughly impressed.

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