The Fame Game: Working Your Way Up the Celebrity Ladder in Kim Kardashian: Hollywood

Abstract

This article examines the simultaneously acclaimed and vilified mobile celebrity game Kim Kardashian: Hollywood ( KK: H). Through an analysis of popular discourse about the game in dialogue with its play experience, this article showcases the ways in which this scrutiny is tied to value judgments about celebrity culture, affective labor, and emerging monetization strategies in games. By exploring the game’s content, mechanics, and economics, I argue that KK: H’s mixed reception is a product of how these make visible celebrity labor and the work of self-branding, intimacy, and engagement in the attentional economy of social media. Through its form and functioning, this game reveals the intensities of women’s work in low-status activities, across play and celebrity culture, and, through this, challenges their devaluation. It is via this simulation of invisible labor, I argue, that KK: H represents an exemplar of what new ludic economies can indicate about the future of digital play.