When you think “Kardashian,” do you think “sound personal finance role model” or, rather, “everything that’s wrong with America in one word?” Whichever, now Kim K is hawking a credit card — for kids. Obviously.
The “Kardashian Prepaid MasterCard,” launching tomorrow at a glitzy Manhattan party, is being marketed to kids as young as 13, according to the New York Post. But lest you think this is a shameless ploy to capture the bank accounts and souls of America’s youth before they can learn any fiscal responsibility, on a par with marketing cigarettes to middle-schoolers, lighten up! It’s actually for the responsible parent. Says a rep for Mobile Resource, “Teens do not spend their money as their parents think they do…And, drugs are a huge problem in this country. I give my son a small amount of cash and track his spending on his card.”
So, see, now you’ll know when your kid is buying drugs. On his credit card, apparently.
Best-case scenario, the makers of this card know it’s morally repugnant and in order to live with themselves, have deliberately allied this abhorrent product with someone whose name is a byword for excess, lack of tangible achievement and, um, sex tapes. In other words, they’ve deliberately undermined the Kardashian Prepaid MasterCard, in the hopes that parents and kids will see the dangers of assuming debt, and that in a sense Kim Kardashian is Recession-era America: all gloss, no substance, and essentially bankrupt. Indeed, probably what they wanted to use as a tagline were Shakespeare’s words: “Time hath a wallet at his back, wherein he puts alms for oblivion, a great-sized monster of ingratitudes.”
More likely, this is the most cynical, depressing and morally bankrupt thing we’ve seen in at least a week (not to mention inaccurate — the FDIC doesn’t insure credit cards), and we’d weep for humanity, except that the Real Housewives of New York are also going to be at the launch party, and they might be doing stuff, so we’re distracted.
Aaaand…it’s only Monday.
Kim Kardashian Backs Kids’ Credit Cards [NY Post]
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