← Financial Tea with Mrs. Dow Jones
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- [00:00]
A
Okay guys, we need to talk about factor because they make chef crafted dietitian designed ready to eat meals so you don't have to choose between real food and convenience. With over 175 banned ingredients, every factor meal is designed around what supports a healthier lifestyle and nothing that doesn't. Plus they are ready in two minutes and they require no prep and no cleanup. So even on days your schedule is completely out of control, eating well is still achievable. Let's eat real. Head to factor meals.com Mrs. Dow Jones 50 off and use code Mrs. Dow Jones 50 off to get 50% off and one free breakfast item per box for one year while supplies last until 1031 2026. That's code Mrs. Dow Jones 50 off at factor meals.com Mrs. Dow jones 50 off at factor meals.com slee website for more details. Today's episode is brought to you by honeylove, which is my favorite bra, underwear and shapewear brand. They are an independent female founded brand and I just love that all their products are intelligently designed by women who actually wear them, including the company founder Betsy. And their shapewear is so good. The Honey Love shapewear uses targeted compression to enhance your curves. They don't squeeze you in, you don't get that muffin top. It really works with your body, not against it. It. I also love how their products feature lingerie inspired design details and I sort of like want to show them off and they have high quality fabric. They just feel like a dream against your skin. Look. Shopping for bras is always a nightmare but with Honey Love I can feel comfortable while also feeling chic. And their Cross Flex Activity bra has quickly become my favorite bra to work out in. So treat yourself to the most advanced bras and shapewear on the market. Use our exclusive link to save 20% off honey love@honeylove.com tea that's honeylove.com tea and then after you check out they're going to ask you where you heard about them. Support our show, tell them that we sent you, experience the new standard and comfort and support with Honey Love.
- [02:05]
B
Basically, Kris Jenner co founded a literal church and The Kardashians invest 10% of their income every year which basically allows them to create a self contained circuit of money flow because churches are not taxed.
- [02:19]
A
This is Financial Tea. What's up sippers? Welcome back to the Financial Tea. This is of course the podcast where I teach you how to build wealth with a side of market drama, money scandals and financial pop culture. And that is what we are really leaning into today because we are going to talk to MJ Corey, who is a psychotherapist but also the author of Deconstructing the Kardashians. She is the woman behind the popular social account Kardashian Colloquium and really one of my favorite cultural critics. So I'm really excited to have you. Mj, welcome to the financial tea.
- [03:01]
B
Thank you for having me. That was a great intro.
- [03:03]
A
Well, thank you so much. Well, I mean, you are an illustrious lady and we're so happy to have you here because, you know, we sort of do the same thing where we use the Kardashians. I use them all the time to get people interested in finances. You use them to get people interested in academia. And you're such an expert on them. So I'm excited to really deep dive and find out all the juicy dirty secrets about their financial lives.
- [03:27]
B
Let's get into it.
- [03:28]
A
But first, let's get into the MDJ market report. What's up sippers? Our first story is about our girl, Jennifer Aniston, otherwise known as Rachel from Friends. That girl has been parading her taut fear 50 year old body on a yacht all over Mallorca. She's on it with Courtney Cox, Pedro Pascal, Jason Bateman and drumroll please. Her inspirational speaker slash hypnotist boyfriend, Jim Curtis. And you know, my financial brain obviously started going when I saw these pics and I'm thinking like, okay, you know, a yacht is 500k a week and you know, for Jennifer that's Nothing. She's worth $320 million. But like J is not, you know, like he might lay that good pipe, but the man is really worth only a million dollars. And yeah, I said only. Cause compared to 320mil, it does feel like only. So what do you do when you have a girlfriend who wants to go on that fancy ass yacht? Like you're certainly not doing a 5050 split. And so I just wanted to talk about this in case you are in a income gap relationship as well. Because the key here is to split everything proportionally, not equal. So like don't pay half and half pay by percentage. And by the way, 76.6% of couples with a wealth gap already do this. So you probably know this already. But just like don't match dollar for dollar cause then you're just going to go broke trying to impress the other person. Our second story, I'm obsessed with and it is about love and money too, but really a lot of money. Frankly. So meet Che Tae Won. He is the chairman of SK Group, which is basically the tech giant making the chips that power Nvidia, like basically powering the AI revolution. So back in 1988 he married Ro SEO Yong, who's the daughter. Stay with me. Of South Korea's sitting president. So she's like a society girl, you know, she's an it girl. Fast forward 34 years and he asked for a divorce. Cuz men are pigs. And he publicly revealed that he had a child out of wedlock. And so then they went to court. And at first the court tried to hand Roe 45 miles claiming that Che's billion dollar stock portfolio cause he built this big chip business was his own separate personal property. But Roe fought back and basically told the court like hey, so I actually spent 34 years raising our three kids, running our home, leveraging my family's social capital. Cuz don't forget I am the President's daughter to back this business while he built this empire. And the coolest thing ever is that the High court listened to and they issued an earth shattering ruling that declared that non financial labor like childcare, domestic work and social backing is a direct contribution to a company's valuation. And it basically ruled that executive success doesn't just happen in a vacuum. It relies on an invisible home infrastructure. This is definitely revolutionary in the court, but Obviously economists and Mrs. Dow Joneses have been making this argument for years because we all know that women and girls perform 12.5 billion hours of unpaid care work every single day. And if that work were paid, it would be worth at least $10.8 trillion annually, making it one of the largest sectors of the global economy. And un women estimate that women still perform nearly three times more unpaid care work than men worldwide. So I think it completely makes sense that the court ordered him to pay her $644 million in cold hard cash. And if this sounds familiar, it's because we've seen this spouse as a co founder dynamic play out before. I was thinking immediately when I read this story about Mackenzie Scott, which like there's always the loser men online who are like why'd she get so much of Jeff's money? She's just Jeff Bezos ex wife. But like in reality she was Amazon's employee number one. Like she literally drove that Chevy across the country. While Jeff, all like five foot four of him, wrote the original business plan for Amazon in the passenger seat next to her. She handled the initial bookkeeping, she wrote the employee paychecks, and she Negotiated their very first FRIGHT contracts out of a garage. So when they divorced, her $38 billion stake in Amazon wasn't a payout. Like, I hate when people say that it was really her equity as an operational co founder, but I just feel like the main takeaway here is that unpaid labor isn't worthless. Obviously we know that, but it is underpriced. And I just love that courts are recognizing that those contributions create real economic value and in some cases are worth $644 million. So I'm really excited for her. Our last story. I don't know, guys. We're in like this crazy IPO boom and I just want to talk about it because you guys know I don't believe in buying IPOs, but there's a lot coming to the market. Reformat is the next one. And they're doing a roadshow. And when you do an IPO roadshow, it's basically where companies are pitching themselves to investors before going public. And so the fashion brand recreated that Margot Robbie bubble bath scene from the Big Short. So instead of a banker clicking through a PowerPoint to, you know, get these investors attention, they literally have a model lounging in a tub explaining Reformation's sexy math, while executives are, like, pitching revenue growth and how they're going to use AI to build the business. And I mean, it's smart, right? Like, it definitely got investors attention, but it just got me thinking a little bit bigger about where we're at right now with investing, because it feels like getting investors attention has become almost as important as getting their money and the fundamentals of the business, which obviously I really don't believe in. Like, if you're going to invest in a company, do it because the numbers make sense, not because they have a cool video. But every IPO is definitely selling more than a business. It sells a vision. I just think that, like, that excitement can turn easily into hype. We saw it with SpaceX. Investors were piling in on the story. They loved Elon, they saw the future of the world. And that sent the stock soaring. But then the shares have fallen nearly 50% from their highs once they actually shifted back to the fundamentals of SpaceX, which is like. And it's not doing that great. And this is exact same cycle as the dot com bubble and it's the same cycle as the SPAC boom. And I know maybe you're not investing in IPOs, hopefully you're doing index funds. But when we invest in anything, we're looking at revenue and profits and execution. And yes, Every company has a story and you can, you know, gloss it up and tie it in a bow. But from our side, if you want to be a successful investor, you need to know the difference between buying the vision and ownership. Overpaying for the hype. And that is really important in 2026 because, you know, people are getting really obsessed with marketing. It's too much. They're even marketing stocks. Okay, I hope you love this episode, sippers. Don't forget to rate and subscribe and review. It really helps the show. And I'll see you next week. Stay rich. Before we start, I wanted to just start with a rapid fire questions we ask every guest. What are your best and worst purchases of the week and how much did each cost?
- [10:56]
B
Probably best purchases involve my other life as a psychotherapist. I'm working on expanding my business so I'm getting licensed in more states. So I'm licensed in New York, Nevada and Massachusetts, and I'm expanding to Oregon and Arizona. And so every application for reciprocity costs about 20 to 40 bucks. And I've just been kind of making those applications. I think it's an investment in my future.
- [11:21]
A
I love that. What's your worst purchase of the week?
- [11:24]
B
Worst purchase. I'm obsessed with these dark chocolate covered pretzels from the Unreal brand. This is not a plug.
- [11:32]
A
Oh, they're so good.
- [11:33]
B
But I keep buying them. So I bought like four and they're seven bucks each. And I'm just like, what am I doing? And I'm like, just clearing them, like one bag a day.
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A
And then you know what, you're gonna wake up one day and forget they exist.
- [11:45]
B
Yes. That's how it works.
- [11:46]
A
Yes. It is always how it works. You get hyper fixation. And then my next rapid fire question is, what is the cool, craziest financial move the Kardashians have ever made?
- [11:53]
B
Oh, probably the California community Church.
- [11:57]
A
Yes.
- [11:57]
B
Which you did a video about that I quote in my book.
- [12:00]
A
Okay. Amazing.
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B
It does.
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A
So do you want to explain that a little?
- [12:02]
B
Yeah. So how the Kardashians, basically, Kris Jenner, co founded a literal church and The Kardashians invest 10% of their income every year, which basically allows them to create a self contained circuit of money flow because churches are not taxed. It's just wild and to. And it happened a long time ago. It was uncovered whenever you made that video, actually. But every now and then, really ever since it entered the TikTok discourse, it comes up like, people will comment, like, have you ever written about the Church. Like, it's just. It's so weird.
- [12:31]
A
And by the way, that video gets Shadow banned a lot. If I talk about that, it will get Shadow banned.
- [12:37]
B
Wow.
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A
And there are people who I know who know the Kardashians, who then they asked me to take it down.
- [12:43]
B
Yeah, they don't like that one.
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A
They really don't like that one. And it's a storefront in a strip mall. And what's interesting is that they don't even go to that church.
- [12:50]
B
Yeah.
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A
So they're not even pretending like that is where they worship. It really is just a tax front.
- [12:55]
B
Yes, totally.
- [12:56]
A
Very interesting. I agree.
- [12:57]
B
Yep.
- [12:58]
A
You talk so much about this moral line of the Kardashians for profit. Something that I, in researching this interview that I found so interesting was, you know, right now, when we think about them, we think about their success with Skims and Kylie, Beauty and Lemmy, and it all seems sort of above board. But what we forget about is that when they started, it was the beginning of this influencer marketing moment, and they were shelling insane things. Like, Kim literally promoted a morning sickness pill and did no speaking about the side effects or any, like, ad disclosures on it. They had a credit card. I mean, they had a makeup line before all their makeup lines.
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B
They had a fake tan.
- [13:46]
A
Their fake tan. So can we talk a little bit about. Yeah. Like, sort of the beginning of how they made money on being Kardashians.
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B
What's so interesting is a book that I sourced a lot in my research was actually Piece of Kardashian ip, their fake sort of memoir, coffee table book, Kardashian Confidential, which came out in 2010. And in that book, there's a little sentence that says something like, we are making the most of this moment that we have of getting attention, and we don't apologize for it. We're going to use it to leverage business. They said that's what smart business women do as early as 2010. Like, they had really just hit the scene at that point. So they made their intentions very known that they understand that attention could be converted into capital. And around that time, I think, is when Kris Jenner was also shilling crystals on, like, qvc. And one thing that's interesting to think about with the Kardashians and, like, their kind of trajectory is they were shilling weird products for other people when they were hitting the scene, and they were ready to do that. But then over time, they wanted full ownership, top down.
- [14:45]
A
Yeah. Which is like, where we're at now. And what I also think is really interesting about how they monetize is that they take their most intimate family milestones and they sell them. And so I wanted to talk a little bit about, like that as a template for other celebs to follow.
- [15:01]
B
The Kardashians know how to commodify nostalgia. And nostalgia is like a drug. Like, psychologically, if you look at it, nostalgia is really meaningful to us, and it's a powerful emotion. And so the Kardashians do make the most of literally any childhood memory. Family home videos. They layer them into the shows, into episodes. And I have a few theories about this. Beyond the emotional pull that it has, it can lend products a sense of credibility. So I quote an art critic named John Berger in my book who says that we see products that have an idea of cultural lessons half learned, and we think that they have some kind of greater meaning. So, like, beyond family memories and personal experiences, Kim Kardashian putting out a perfume that's in the shape of, like, a body. A body. It looks like a Grecian statue. We know vaguely there's something historical about that and kind of, like, meaningful, and it's like an artifact. And so they lend those kind of layers of meaning to their own products. And. But then getting back to the idea of the personal. The sex tape was like seed capital for the family.
- [16:08]
A
So true.
- [16:09]
B
It's as personal as it gets. And that is like, seed capital is really where the wealth began.
- [16:13]
A
Yeah, that's so true. So they've just been using that blueprint over and over again?
- [16:17]
B
Yes, Yep, exactly.
- [16:19]
A
You know, you have such a fascinating background and skill set, but it might not be the most conventional or expected path. So I just wanted, you know, we. I've sort of jumped in because I have so much I want to talk about. But let's just first explain what it is that you do for my listeners, just because I want them to, like, understand.
- [16:35]
B
Yeah, totally. So I'm a psychotherapist, but I was always a writer as well. So basically, let me back up. I went to Columbia University for nonfiction writing first, and I was like, I'll write this book. I want to write, and it'll be fine. And it just didn't happen. I had brutal workshops. It was not going well. It was a story that was way too close to me. I wasn't ready to write it. And so then I was like, what do I do? And I always knew that I wanted to be a psychotherapist. I just figured it would be a midlife career shift from being a Writer. But I thought, you know what? I don't really have a plan for myself as a writer. I'll go back to school and become a therapist. So I stayed at Columbia and I got my degree in counseling psychology, also from Columbia University. But while I was doing that, I did need an outlet. So in 2018, a friend put on Keeping up with the Kardashians. I was very late to the show. I was one of those people that did think reality TV was junk food. Like, I wasn't interested in it. And I was so struck by the show and how uncanny it made me feel. Like I felt this uncanny valley feeling.
- [17:34]
A
What do you mean by that?
- [17:35]
B
It's the feeling that people get when they see a robot that's too human. Like, and so it's like the collapse of something really fake and artificial technology. And then what feels real and human, and it's like this weird feeling. And Keeping up with the Kardashians gave me an uncanny valley feeling. So I called my sister, who was a media studies major at Smith, and I said, this show is weird. Like, it's really, really staged. But then there's these weirdly really real moments where, like, when Kim cries, it sometimes seems really real. And it just gave me this weird feeling. And my sister said, yeah, you should be reading French theory. That's what the postmodernists write about. And so I started to document my self study of postmodern theory and media theory on Instagram. I made memes and kind of was just like collapsing the Kardashians with this theory. And I really found that the theory made the Kardashians easier for me to understand. But the Kard made this historically, you know, very difficult to understand theory easier to understand. So that kind of blew up. And then suddenly my writing career picked up and I was able to really, like, explore these ideas through my work and maintain my practice.
- [18:40]
A
So you see the Kardashians as a way of talking about society as a whole. And you write out that in your book. So will you tell us a bit more about that philosophy? I really want to focus on the money side of it.
- [18:50]
B
Okay, the money side. Well, what I always say is, because I get criticized a lot for doing this work and for having the Kardashians as subjects, but I think that they are.
- [19:00]
A
Which, by the way, we do. Like I said, we do the same thing. Like, exactly what you're saying about it made both sides easier to understand. Like, using celebrity makes it easier to learn about finance. Using finance makes it easier to learn about Celebrity. I think it's so powerful.
- [19:13]
B
It is, it is. These things should not be inaccessible to us.
- [19:16]
A
No.
- [19:16]
B
And they are kind of inaccessible unless there's a bridge. And that's the thing. I think the Kardashians are this metaphor for America. I think that they are, I like to say, a prompt and a prism, so they can be a prompt to deep dive anything the Kardashians have done. Anything you can think of under the sun, they've done it. They've touched it in some way. So Kim Kardashian just dressing up as Marilyn Monroe, it can just be an excuse to learn more about Marilyn Monroe, but it can also be a metaphor for the ways that original items, like Kim wearing the original dress, become commodified and exploited through fast fashion. Like, it can be a metaphor for how America itself really functions business wise. So I also say what I do is no different than looking at wwe, the Disney franchise, the Las Vegas Strip, because it's all the same economics, really. It is storytelling and turning information into commodity at a massive scale. So that's kind of my. My take on the Kardashians.
- [20:14]
A
I love that.
- [20:14]
B
Yeah.
- [20:15]
A
What do you think the Kardashian tells us about how SOC thinks about money? Because they really, like, put it on a pedestal. Like, even when you think about early Kylie, specifically, like King Kylie era, it was. She almost flaunted her wealth like she was a rapper. She was the youngest female billionaire in the history of the world. And I think, you know, post the robbery, it became a lot less blingy. But it still is. I mean, even Kendall, who's maybe the least ostentatious of them, is always wearing the row, which despite not having logos, is like thousands and thousands of dollars for a T shirt.
- [20:49]
B
Yes.
- [20:50]
A
You know?
- [20:50]
B
Yes. So I think the Kardashians are really selling us an American dream story, so.
- [20:56]
A
Yeah, they are. I agree with that.
- [20:57]
B
Yeah. Like, Kim makes a lot out of her Armenian immigrant sort of ancestry and family story.
- [21:07]
A
Okay, guys, When I first started Mrs. Dow Jones, I was selling a lot of merch and it was a business idea that I was sitting on. And then I set up Shopify and it made its so easy to get started because they truly have everything you need to start selling. And you're ready from day one, including the moment your first customer is ready to pay. Shopify checkout helps more customers finish their purchases, and when they come back, their details are already saved. So it's just one tap and they're done. And that's because Shopify handles the setup and the checkout so you have more time to focus on growing your business and the tools to do it. Shopify has been so, so helpful in Mrs. Dow Jones and making the business more accessible and I just like really loved using them when I had that store. They power millions of businesses worldwide, from household names like Mattel and Gymshark to small businesses just getting started. So go to shopify.com financial tea for your free trial. That's shopify.com financial tea to start your free trial. Shopify.com financialtea Today's episode is brought to you by Honey Love, which is my free favorite bra, underwear and shapewear brand. They are an independent female founded brand and I just love that all their products are intelligently designed by women who actually wear them, including the company founder, Betsy. And their shapewear is so good. The Honey Love shapewear uses targeted compression to enhance your curves. They don't squeeze you in, you don't get that muffin top. It really works with your body, not against it. I also love how their products feature lingerie inspired design details and I sort
- [22:35]
B
of like want to show them off.
- [22:36]
A
And they have high quality fabric. They just feel like a dream against your skin. Look, shopping for bras is always a nightmare, but with honeylove I can feel comfortable while also feeling chic. And their Cross Flex Activity bra has quickly become my favorite bra to work out in. So treat yourself to the most advanced bras and shapewear on the market. Use our exclusive link to save 20% off honeylove@honeylove.com tea that's honeylove.com tea and then after you check out, they're going to ask you where you heard about them. Support our show. Tell them that we sent you. Experience the new standard in comfort and support with Honey Love. Speaking beyond celebrity, what do you think their role in the rise of influencer has been? You know, did their show sort of carve out that path in certain ways because this is now such a huge, huge economy. Obviously I make money as an influencer and this didn't exist before them.
- [23:27]
B
Yes, this is the new economy. So the Kardashians hit the scene in 2007 and it's still a reality TV culture and product placement was a thing and talking about, you know, different making ads for people in that kind of way was a thing. There was an episode of Keeping up with the Kardashians that shows the girls modeling bikinis for Girls Gone Wild for a new swimsuit line. And that's kind of like early influencering Kind of, you know, like they're making a storyline around this person that they're partnering with and his product. But I would say the best example of the Kardashians as these original influencers is with Kim's wedding to Kris Humphries. The Kim K. Fairytale wedding. It was branded. There was a whole big episode built around it to bring the public into this ritual process, which I talk a lot about the theory and media theory around that. In my book that has its origins in the Kennedy funeral and royal family weddings. But what was different about it was that everything for that wedding was basically donated. Like the flowers, the dress, and like
- [24:34]
A
that wedding cost $10 million.
- [24:37]
B
Yep.
- [24:38]
A
6 million out of pocket. But then 4 million offset by promotional deals.
- [24:44]
B
Yep.
- [24:44]
A
And then they made 15 to 18 million from the TV and photo rights.
- [24:51]
B
Yep.
- [24:52]
A
So that's crazy.
- [24:53]
B
Yep.
- [24:53]
A
There were three custom Vera Wayne gowns estimated at 25k each. A ten tier wedding cake for 20k. The invitations were 250k. She wore $2.5 million worth of diamonds and the marriage lasted 72 days.
- [25:09]
B
Yes, it all culminates to that. And the headlines around all of this, we talk a lot about famous for being famous, but if you really break down the definition of it, it's actually notoriety in response to even the shock of numbers like that, like that made headlines, the millions that went into this wedding and then that made Kim more famous. And so there was an investment in risk, actually. They put money into that wedding and then it was subsidized by people that knew that there would be interest in the wedding later.
- [25:38]
A
But also it was this other idea again of like taking something that in our culture is intimate and sacred and this family milestone and bastardizing it for profit. Because it's like, even when you watch that episode, she clearly knows before she walks down the aisle that she should not be marrying this guy. Yes, they're fighting. She doesn't like him. You know, Chris is like, yeah, you don't have to. But it's like, of course she does have to. You know, and it's. They don't care. It's all about getting that bag ultimately.
- [26:06]
B
Yeah, totally. That the model of that wedding really was like, I would say the birth of the influencer economy in a way, because it showed us how it could work. It showed us how these partnerships can work and that life experiences can be subsidized in exchange for promotion.
- [26:20]
A
I think it's clear that they've had a huge effect on the normalization of plastic surgery and culture too. I Mean, they've all talked about their surgeries or they haven't, but we see the before and afters and it's pretty obvious. So, you know, how much do you think that they spend on their bodies each year? Or even, like, I always think about that if I was a Kardashian, like, how often would I be at the surgeon? Like, what sort of tweaks would I be getting? Like, what do you think about their relationship to plastic surgery, too?
- [26:48]
B
That is such an interesting question, because I actually find myself pondering it. The Kardashians and what. The discourse they instigate around plastic surgery is really huge for them and for all of us. It's like this weird synergy they have with the public. Like, the public's curious. They turn their bodies into spectacles. Literally on their bodies. They're telling stories around sexuality and race and class. And, like, we are watching and we are metabolizing it and then talking about it. So that is what has only made them more and more significant. Like, when I look at my content, the videos or analyses I do around plastic surgery, people are interested in. If it comes down to, like, sex, race, plastic surgery, like, those are the things that really grab people. And the lips, you know, case study, the Kylie lip kind of thing, she did this thing that a theorist named Edward Bernays, who I cite a lot in my book, talks about, which is sort of like engineering consent. Like, there was all this mystique and mystic, like, what was going on with these lips? Like, she just went through puberty, now suddenly she's got these big lips. Where did they come from? How did it happen? What does it mean? And so our eyes were on the lips, our minds were on the lips. And then she announces this lip kit. But then we're also learning that there's been this advent of injectables. Now suddenly there's been new approval, regulatory approval of injectables that can do this to your lips. So we simultaneously know we can get lips like Kylie and feel surgically optimized. But really, it's like, as easy as getting them injected. It's cheaper than surgery. But then there's also the lip kit, and we can buy the lip kit from Kylie Jenner. So it's like this weird thing that. That was like a really interesting perfect storm that led to Kylie's just boom in the world. But as far as how much money they personally are sinking into their surgeries, it's like, I bet Kylie could have free lips for the rest of her life if she just Says, you know, the rest of the person's name who did them.
- [28:39]
A
I mean. And Chris mentioned Steve Levine. Exactly. For her facelift. Who now you can't get on. I have a friend who got her neck done with him when she was like, a few ten years ago.
- [28:47]
B
Wow.
- [28:48]
A
When he was just starting and it was like, you know, not that much. And now her neck is worth, you know, 10x that. Totally. Because of the Kris Jenner effect.
- [28:56]
B
Yes. Yes. And so that's what's interesting to me. So the way I look at the Kardashians in this, like, trajectory of scale. Think about that. They're a little bit open about lips when they were obviously, the rest of them, the older adult sisters, doing everything that they could do, but they taught. They're transparent about lips. Now we're in this moment culturally, where more open conversations are happening about bigger and more intrusive interventions, like facelifts, like, full facelift product placement is happening when she drops Steven Levine's name. So I'm of course, curious, like, so did she pay for that surgery? That was like a really embedded, brilliant moment of product placement. And, yeah, everyone wants to work with him, like. And so I don't know. Like, I think that if they drop a name, they're probably getting it for free is my guess.
- [29:41]
A
So, you know, when we first saw them, they didn't have the plastic surgery. They didn't have the good outfits, they didn't have the glam.
- [29:47]
B
Yeah.
- [29:48]
A
And now they've officially crossed into the billionaire class. We see them on Jeff Bezos yacht and at the wedding, and they have these billion dollar companies, and so it's harder to play the relatable girl next door role that they started with. So how do you think that they're pivoting their media strategy to sort of maintain their audience while also being so dis. Disconnected from the average person's financial reality?
- [30:12]
B
I think we can kind of, again, it goes back to, like, looking at this trajectory. I know I keep saying that one thing I learned while studying the Kardashians and their kind of, like, narrative production patterns is that they will kind of like, theme their. Their output to whatever's kind of really alive and in the culture at that time. And whether this is intentional, it's planned, or it's a conversation they're having with us that I can't speak on for sure. I would guess it's sort of like, again, like, they see what's working, so they do more of it. And so when they hit the scene, I found that There was a theme. Most of season one of Keeping up with the Kardashians is sex. It's Girls Gone Wild, Playboy shoot, a lot of, like, they hire an adult entertainer to babysit the Jenner sisters, and they realize that she's an adult entertainer and kick her out. Like, a lot of, like, sex industry stuff. And then in the 2000 and tens, Kim is with Kanye, and we're kind of in the post Obama era. But then now Trump is coming in. Studies show that at that time, identity politics really, like, blew up, and headlines with identity cues were getting more clicks. That's around the same time Kim was doing her cultural appropriation, kind of image production and wearing braids and really stimulating discourse around that. And then if you look at the 2000 and twenties, at that time, class consciousness was really booming. People were really angry. People were inside. People were frustrated with the economy. And that's when the Kardashians did a lot of conspicuous consumption. And so it was just. They kind of theme it to what we're engaging with. And so now they're part of the billionaire class. I don't know that they are even trying to connect to us the way they did back in 2007. I think their understanding is that media is really, like, even more fractured, and their job is to dole out little, like, nuggets that we can kind of take and then have discourse about. Like, we're in an interactive media landscape where our job is to react and, like, do a take and then put that out there. So if they can, like, kind of, like, create a ripple effect online for all of us to participate in, that was a bad metaphor. That works for them and upholds it because they're. They're in their skims, is doing its thing. It's. It's doing quite well. It's working, I guess, actually, the Paris robbery, we can use this example. When I was at the Paris robbery, I was flown there to talk on a documentary about what happened to Kim. So I got to be in the courtroom when she testified against the men that robbed her. It was a very planned media event. She comes in dripping in diamonds, as we know. It was an amazing photo op. She did a great job in the courtroom. Inside the courtroom, she kept saying, like, I'm here because I want to be a lawyer. And this feels like a way to kind of actualize that she did a really good job and testified for, like, four hours. So inside the courtroom, she's kind of speaking to this, trying to manifest this idea of herself as this courtroom Lawyerly woman outside the courtroom. That was the day that the All's Fair trailer dropped that TV show where she plays a lawyer in a Ryan Murphy show. So there was a lot of classic Kardashian narrative layering about this idea of Kim as a lawyer. You would think, and Maybe back in 2016, 10 years ago, that would have worked. It would have been like, whoa, Kim went into the courtroom dripping in diamonds. Like, she did that. And it would be more shocking. Or Certainly in the 60s, it would have been a Life magazine cover, that photo op of her waving, wearing the diamonds. What everyone was talking about that week. I mean, it made a few headlines, and people were like, wow, she did that, the diamonds. But really, it was Kris Jenner's facelift. She debuted her new face around that time, and that was working. That was the discourse. People were making videos, they were analyzing it. They were curious which surgeon did it. At that point, no one knew. They were offended that a woman of her age could look like that. I will say, seeing it in person, it was like a really quite a spectacle. But, like, that worked. We seized that. So I would guess they're okay with that. They put a lot of work into the diamond thing and the imagery, and they needed to do it. But, okay, well, Kris Jenner's face went viral. Like, that's fine. They just need to be alive on the algorithms one way or another. And they know how to kind of like, throw us things to maintain that.
- [34:22]
A
Like, with every other step in their media journey, there was a step after it. But to me, once you reach the billionaire class, that's sort of it. You can't come back from that. So what do you think is next? Like, how do you reinvent from that?
- [34:35]
B
It would be interesting if they kind of did some sort of, like, makeover to a more like, overt altruism, which they did when they were on the up and up. They were like, you know, talking about being, you know, super devout Christians and the idea of, like, donating their money and. But they were donating their money to their church, but they. They were kind of doing that now, not so much. They have made it in the way they always wanted to. I think what I write in my book, and I really came to realize this while I was doing my book research, it's very likely they're going to create an archive, like a living archive, like out in California, the Getty Villa, the Hearst Castle, these physical spaces where important rich people lived that can hold their art or the things they. They collected through their lives.
- [35:22]
A
With Kris Jenner, she's obviously the architect of this empire.
- [35:25]
B
Yeah.
- [35:26]
A
What happens, do you think, to the financial viability and, like, structural integrity of the Kardashian machine when she eventually retires or steps down? Like, who becomes the CEO?
- [35:35]
B
Surely they're going to narrativize the kind of succession process eventually when it gets closer. Like, I'm sure there's plans behind the scenes that we aren't aware of yet, but eventually that will become a storyline. Everyone thinks Kim's like, the heir apparent because Kim has the most visible, like, consolidation of power in the world. But some people I've just chatted with, like, anecdotally have been like, I could see it being Chloe. Chloe's really close to Kris. They've done like, a lot of, like, storyline building around like a sort of big Edie, little Edie thing with the two of them, like in the back.
- [36:09]
A
I could see it being Chloe too.
- [36:10]
B
Yeah, she's dynamic. She's. Yeah, I could see it.
- [36:14]
A
We'll see.
- [36:14]
B
I like that.
- [36:15]
A
Yeah. In regards to the Paris robbery, how do you think that sort of shaped how they present in a rich way in the culture?
- [36:22]
B
Yeah, they tamped it down for a while. And what I found interesting, especially hearing Kim testify about it, and that was a very well written testimony. My whole argument is that the Kardashians are some of the best storytellers of our time. She told the story of. I used to feel very free. I did enjoy nice things. And after this experience, I stopped going out. I was afraid of going out, out at night, and I had to hide all my nice things and I needed to take bodyguards with me everywhere. And to this day, I'm never, you know, people enter, come to my home, and they've got to go through a TSA like, process. And I, they, they did pull back a little bit. And I think what struck me is, like, at that time, people were still trying to feel power over the Kardashians by saying that they weren't that relevant or they weren't that big. And I don't think you can claim that when someone would be. Was a target at that level. Like, it's quite, quite queenly to have to have guards at your door. And that's where Kim landed in the culture. So it was kind of like her arrival where people had to kind of accept, like, okay, Kim Kardashian is a world icon.
- [37:28]
A
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- [40:07]
B
So like one thing I talk a lot about in my book is this Marshall McLuhan, who's a media theorist. This idea of the medium is the message. So his whole thing is like, you don't want to just pay attention to what's on tv. You want to pay attention to the tv, to the screen, to the technology itself that's delivering you your soap opera, whatever. And so I argue that with the Kardashians, the medium is the message, because we're very focused on, like, that wedding was really crazy inexpensive or Kris Jenner got plastic surgery done. But we need to really pay attention to the fact that what we're obsessed with is their bodies. So their bodies are the mediums. And so for one of the most successful Kardashian products to be a brand that compresses the body and shapes the body in whatever way you want it to be shaped, it's so true to the fundamental Kardashian message, in essence. Yeah. I think Kim's butt, I argue, is like her Mickey Mouse ears or her Coke bottle. Like, we know her by her butt. That is her logo. And so it just makes sense. Like, Skims sells that, that, that dream to people.
- [41:06]
A
But, you know, I think that we're going to see, as influencers become even more successful, they're gonna have to be even more billion dollar brands. Like I, Alex Earls will be a billionaire, you know, So I think there's going to be a lot more companies going public basically, that are based on one person, because that's how consumer culture is moving. And Skims is an example of that. Although obviously now they have, like so many different people in the ad campaigns and stuff. It's like, at the core, it's Kim. So I'm just wondering if the Kardashian brand does become sort of beholden to shareholders and a board of directors and like, when you are a public company, you have to release your financials. How do you think that restricts or sort of changes the way they operate in the media?
- [41:44]
B
Well, it's so funny you asked that, because I had a conversation with a journalist. It was actually overall pretty unpleasant conversation, so I haven't posted about it. But someone I was talking to once said, I don't think Skims will ever go public because Kim would want that ownership. And I thought, oh, my God, I've been so certain that they're going to go public because Kim keeps comparing her, you know, skims to, like, Nike and Apple. But I think that's correct. I don't think they'll go public for that reason.
- [42:16]
A
But also right now, companies IPO because they need cash flow. And I think that skims is so cash flow positive that they don't need it.
- [42:23]
B
Yeah, that could be. That makes sense.
- [42:25]
A
But also, it's another example of them being totally fine making money in the most nefarious ways.
- [42:30]
B
They got voted, like, a rating of 0 for transparency.
- [42:33]
A
They don't care.
- [42:34]
B
Yeah. By some, like, watchdog. They don't care. I think.
- [42:39]
A
And actually, we don't even associate them with a charity. Like, it's like, when you think about other celebrities or rich people, you can easily trace back what their impact is. I guess Kim, it is the prison stuff, but that's not like giving money as much as she's just giving her impact.
- [42:54]
B
It's a storyline and it's an archetype, and it's. Yes, totally. For sure. And actually to your point, though, about how that's such an interesting tension, like, the influencer economy has scaled in a way where some. A corporation can be a person.
- [43:05]
A
No, it will be. I'm saying, like, you're gonna see it with Alexander. I also read that the Kardashians have hundreds of trademarks. What do you think that tells us about their wealth building and, like, how they sort of plot for future earnings and where do you see their empires going?
- [43:19]
B
Love that question. So one thing I came across, because my book looks at the history of American media, and I look at different American icons that Kim has referenced. So that includes OJ it includes Marilyn Monroe, I Love Lucy, just a lot of them. Most American icons have been trademarked in some way, and the smartest ones that had the capacity to trademarked for themselves. So this is quite cynical, but during the O.J. trial, O.J. put a trademark out on his name on tons of potential products during the trial.
- [43:54]
A
That's crazy.
- [43:55]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so a lot of these, like, big reference point for the Kardashians have stories around trademarking and trademarking at the right time and the right things. Kris Jenner, I just remembered this today, preparing for our conversation. Kris Jenner trademarked Momager in 2015. The fact that they have trademarked so much planning for the future tells us that part of their strategy is flexibility, knowing that opportunities may come up later that are not available now, but they need to be ready for. And that tells us something about their playbook, I think.
- [44:27]
A
Yeah, yeah. So how do you think about that in terms of, like, the women couldn't get credit cards till 1974. We couldn't have our own businesses till the 80s, like, and now at the, you know, forefront of American culture, are these women business, like, yeah. People.
- [44:43]
B
No, for sure. That is, like, the quandary I think they pose to us when people are like, I don't like how they make me feel. I don't like the Kardashians. People feel like it's really, like, the moral high ground to hate the Kardashians. But then there are some people that are like, yeah, I feel that way, but they are really good businesswomen or. But it is kind of cool. Like, we never. We've never seen a collective of women in the 21st century accumulate this much power. No, it's just. It's. It's something we have to acknowledge.
- [45:12]
A
And also, you have to acknowledge that people might have more money than them, but when you look at billionaires, they want to buy media, they want to buy newspapers. They try so hard to control their narratives. Even if you think about Jeff Bezos with the Met Gala. Because what is more powerful than money is having a platform and having people listen to you. Oh, yeah. And the Kardashians have both. So in a way, they're, like, bigger than, like, a, you know, a Sam Altman or somebody who has so much money. But the media hates them.
- [45:41]
B
Yeah. You know, they're shaping. They have the power to control legacy to some extent. More power than someone that's not doing that kind of thinking and narrativizing. And I argue that the Bezos are looking at the Kardashians playbook for this kind of imagery.
- [45:56]
A
She's trying, Lauren's trying, but it's just so unsuccessful.
- [46:00]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's just.
- [46:01]
A
And I don't know if it would
- [46:02]
B
ever be successful, but it shows the value of that playbook that people are these huge billionaires. The elite are referring to basically what it means to be an influencer and how to do it successfully, to, like, shape images on top of their tech, on top of their wealth. And so, yeah, I think the woman factor. I always say the Kardashians are not going to lead women to true liberation in a radical way, but they are the ultimate definition of what women in power empowerment means. Empowerment is different than liberation, but they are very empowered. And I think there are some people that find them to be empowering. And I get that. I do get that.
- [46:34]
A
Speaking of the next generation, I'm, like, very put off by Northwest. She's obviously making a ton of money. I talk a lot about custodial Roth IRAs and how you could put your children on Payroll. And then you're able to open what's basically a Roth IRA for them. And if you put right now, as of 2026, the limit is $7,500 a year, they've earned income. You can put that into that account. And if you let it grow from 0 to 18 and then you never touch it again after 18, by the time they're 60, it'll be like, you know, tens of billions of tax free dollars.
- [47:12]
B
Wow.
- [47:13]
A
Tax free.
- [47:14]
B
You really are making the public aware of important information.
- [47:17]
A
But, you know, they're so interesting. Cause it's like their kids could basically have been on the payroll from the beginning. Like Northwest, like the filmed. So it's like, you know, Jay Z and Beyonce had Blue I. She had Blue Ivy cry on a song at two days old. She could be paid for that and have a custodial Roth ira. Yeah. So I guess I'm wondering what you. What do you think the next generation of Kardashians will hold? What do you think of them? And like, how do you think that that will shape the culture? Because it's like, is the interest in the kids from the people who are already interested in the Kardashians, or are they getting new fans through the kids? Like, do you know, if you're gen Alpha, are you like, Northwest is cool or are you like, that girl's cooked? And like, I wanna, you know, there's something else that I care about and do I only care about her because she's Kim's daughter?
- [48:03]
B
I mean, I think it's always been a human interest to see how the kids of cultural icons turn out and what's going on with them. Because if you look at the Kennedys, like, my grandparents looked up to the Kennedys. I write about this in my book as well. My mom was interested in JFK Jr. And Carolyn Bassett. Yeah. Like, that was like a, you know, boomer thing. And so I think that that intergenerational kind of like play works on people. But especially now, I do think, because as a culture, there's so much anxiety about money, we are looking at the Nepo babies in a different way. Like, I think that, like, I've just noticed it, that people are just very aware of.
- [48:42]
A
No, it's very disparaging to Nepo babies. But in the same way, there's an obsession with generational wealth.
- [48:47]
B
Yes.
- [48:47]
A
So, like, from a financial literacy side, everyone wants to know how to set their kids up, but then also, if they find out that if you have generational wealth, they immediately write you off.
- [48:55]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like, I think there's a thing of like, is this a good nipple, baby, or a bad one? And like, what's their level of talent? And so that discourse, you let your
- [49:02]
A
kid do that, like northwest with her piercings and like, what do you make of that?
- [49:05]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [49:06]
A
No. So I think how she's playing with
- [49:07]
B
her image, I think they are able to provide that fodder because we have that pre existing interest and that predisposition. I was surprised to see that north seemed unprepared for an interview with a streamer that she did at some point. I'm very careful in how I talk about the kids, but I do think the kids are going to be keeping, again, that kind of network approach to media that the family has always had. They can keep it alive in terms of doing short form videos and doing the TikTok dances and streaming. Like, the kids can do that. But I don't think anyone's gonna be central to culture the way the Kardashians were at the peak of the Instagram era, just because the algorithms have evolved. And so I don't know that they're going to get new fans. I think that it's more that they're going to be accepted as a dynasty.
- [49:53]
A
They're grandfathered in.
- [49:55]
B
Yep.
- [49:55]
A
Yeah. But it's. You're right that it's like they're part of history, but it's not like they're doing anything that's so remarkable.
- [50:00]
B
Someone might do something weird. There might be like a thing that happens. Someone might marry someone, like something.
- [50:04]
A
I think we're going to see some rehab.
- [50:05]
B
There could be. I mean, I think that's. That's like what people are trying to. So there's things like that. I think that just the bigger the family, the more possibility there is for multiple storylines.
- [50:14]
A
So we talked a lot about the Kardashian brand. Let's talk a little bit about yours before we wrap up. A lot of TikTok is about reactions or low level analysis, but you go really deep. So how did you decide that that was your brand and how do you make money off of this platform? Because I know you say you don't monetize your videos, but you got this book deal and how do you supplement your private practice?
- [50:36]
B
Yeah, so I do like to go deep, which is what makes the short form video pretty exhausting. I really don't enjoy it. I'm grateful to TikTok. I'm grateful to my audience for.
- [50:47]
A
No, it's so hard yes, they also. People don't understand how hard it is to get it into a minute, which is all that you want to watch, but like to actually like have a hook and then make it really simple. Like it is so hard.
- [51:00]
B
Yes.
- [51:00]
A
And then you do such a great job of it.
- [51:02]
B
Oh, thank you. I work hard and I will do what I have to do for the sake of my work. And so I will do it. Not actually like that, comfortable in front of cameras. I'm not comfortable with a social media game, but I will do what has to be done because I'm a writer and I want to do it for my writing and that's how it works now. And so I never monetize my videos. I don't make hardly anything from Substack, but there's like, you know, I have a paid subscription thing for Substack.
- [51:26]
A
How much do you make?
- [51:27]
B
I make like 3,000 a year on Substack. I used to make more like 10, but then I stopped posting regularly. So you got to post regularly and, you know, respect your audience and. And really the money I've made from this entire project was the book deal and the book or the writing opportunities I've gotten from it. And there's some publications that pay very well, there's some that don't pay well at all. And I've worked with a few, you know, a range of them. And this really has been more of like a symbolic step towards getting where I want to be as a writer and having opportunities and freedom to write more about what I want to write about. So I really enjoyed applying the philosophy to the Kardashians. I'm passionate about postmodern theory and French theory and media theory, and I had a very generous advance. I had a very unique advance for a first time author and I'm very lucky. I don't want to say six figures. Yeah, yeah. My book, I'm proud of this flex. My book went to auction, so most of the big five.
- [52:20]
A
How many houses were Four?
- [52:23]
B
Four.
- [52:24]
A
And now with the IP from the book, is there other opportunity to like sell it for like a tv? Like what are, you know.
- [52:30]
B
Yeah, those conversations are happening. So we'll see. I mean, I think TV is like unpredictable. Film and tv, it's a whole different animal. But those conversations are happening and I have ideas for my next book and it's gonna be, you know, hopefully scratching a similar itch that my work has been scratching for people, but beyond the Kardashians.
- [52:47]
A
Well, for our final question, mj, what do you think people most frequently misunderstand about the Kardashians.
- [52:54]
B
Probably that they are a metaphor for America and that they're like, highly valuable for understanding how our country works.
- [53:02]
A
Love it.
- [53:02]
B
Yeah.
- [53:03]
A
Well, thank you so much.
- [53:04]
B
Thank you for having me.
- [53:05]
A
Oh, wait, I have one more question. What do you think about her alliance with Trump?
- [53:10]
B
Unsurprising, she and Trump follow a similar playbook. Yeah.
- [53:13]
A
Okay, great. That'll be when we have you back. Great. We'll end on that. Okay, sippers, that is a wrap on our deep dive with mj. Corey, huge thanks to mj, who, yes, has the same name as the Kardashian grandma who just died. RIP for coming on Financial T and just shifting how we look at pop culture and attention and wealth and making something like the Kardashians feel so elevated. I really appreciate it. I feel like I learned so much from her. And as she deconstructed so brilliantly today, analyzing the Kardashians is not superficial. It's actually a masterclass in modern economics. And when you think about it, they use cable TV as the ultimate top of funnel marketing tool and then have pulled off this, this amazing pivot by stopping their sponge on deals and basically taking control of their own cultural power and building these billion dollar juggernauts that they own like Skims and Kylie Cosmetics. And when you actually look at the numbers behind this empire, the scale is insane. Like Kylie Jenner proved the model when her deal with Cody valued kylie cosmetics at 1.2 billion. Then Kim basically took that into the strategy when she turned Skims into this retail powerhouse that just hit a $5 billion valuation. And in her jump into high finance with her private equity firm, Sky Partners, Kim alone is now sitting on an estimated net worth approaching 2 billion. So love them or hate them, the Kardashians have definitely transitioned from influencers to investors. And they are moving markets. And so we got to talk about them. Thank you so much for tuning in. Don't forget to rate and subscribe and review. It really helps the show. And email us at money and Mrs. Dow Jones if you have any questions or you have ideas or we want to hear from you. Stay rich. Class is now in session and the
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