I haven’t done a quick Friday thoughts post in a while so here goes it.

65 Million Reasons to Pay Attention to the Kardashians

The Kardashians made 65 million dollars last year to which everyone responds “DOING WHAT?”

I think the Hollywood Reporter’s article on the Kardashian clan answers that question well.  The Kardashian talent–mainly a talent of their mom Kris–is branding, marketing, and choosing opportunities wisely.

These days, the Kardashians are ubiquitous. Their book, Kardashian Konfidential, has been on the New York Times best-seller list since December (275,000 copies have shipped). Kim’s eponymous fragrance was Sephora’s top seller last year, and a new fragrance, Unbreakable by Khloe and Lamar, launched Feb. 12. In the summer, the sisters will unveil a new lifestyle collection with in-store shops at Sears. (The Sears deal is one of their most lucrative projects to date, along with QuickTrim diet supplements and Kim’s eponymous fragrance.)

Although it’s interesting to observe how the wheels of stardom turn, those three things are important to everyone in every stage of their career. And as the job market becomes even stiffer, the books, seminars, blog posts and the like that address personal brands and selling yourself to employers have multiplied exponentially.

Even on a smaller scale there’s always debate about whether the right person has achieved success. “Right” meaning the person with the most talent. I’m sure you can look around your work place and see a variety of people who have succeeded despite a serious dearth of talent. What the Kardashian clan has done is nothing new; however, the tools are evolving and I find it pretty fascinating.

Is There Something to All the “Iyanla Vanzant is Crazy” Talk? I Mean Besides Her Saying It Herself

There was a key moment in the first part of the conversation between Oprah and Iyanla Vanzant where Oprah asked Vanzant why she approached their business meeting 11 years ago the way she did. Vanzant’s response “There’s some crazy a pill can’t fix.”

Apparently, that comment and Vanzant’s perceived erratic behavior on the show has led people to really run away with this crazy label.

I don’t like it.

I mentioned in my post yesterday that I have taught Crucial Conversations for quite a few years. And even when not teaching, working in politics and government, I’ve observed a great many tense confrontations. I didn’t find Vanzant’s interaction with Oprah to be strange in the least especially given the size of Oprah’s audience, the time gap between their last conversation and this one, and the internal conflict Vanzant must have had in terms of deciding how to “handle” Oprah on live television on her own turf.

If you’ve never seen YOURSELF in the midst of a tense interaction with another person–especially in a business setting, I would tread lightly on using the word “crazy” to describe Vanzant’s behavior. Just something to think about.

For the record, I took Vanzant’s comment about being too crazy to be fixed by a pill to mean that some of her issues were deeper than even she could understand or address at the time.

Monique is Still Very Very Very Loud and Unnatural

One of the things that really annoys me about people who are famous for one thing is that it makes it so much easier for them to get to do the next thing. And even if they’re not good at the next thing, they still get to do it because, you know, well, they’re famous.

Monique is about as bad a show host as it gets. And it bothers me that she’s the only black late night talk show host and in order to see some of our favorite stars that aren’t covered in the mainstream, we have to endure her over serious, supremely emphasized speech patterns and screaming.

Was that a rant? Cause I don’t rant. But since it kind of seems like a rant, I’m going to stop there.

Lil Kim Needs To Fire Everyone Around Her and Educate Herself on Modern Technology

This week everyone’s favorite Mattel knockoff released a diss (I can’t believe I’m 28 and I just wrote the word DISS) mixtape  charging $10 for downloads. The cover art was some sort of anime crap that depicted the aftermath of her murdering up and coming rapper Nicki Minaj. For those of you who pay no attention to such things, Lil Kim is angry at Nicki Minaj because she believes Nicki has stolen her image and hasn’t credited her appropriately.

Unfortunately, Lil Kim is a terrible rapper when she has to write herself. While I was over on Dlisted getting my monthly dose of extreme fuckery, I listened to one of Lil Kim’s songs and not only were the lyrics terrible but she’s now rapping in her natural high pitched voice which sounds very unpleasant. But this is a media blog and that’s besides the point.

The real issue here is that newer (younger) artists like Nicki Minaj have leveraged social media and modern techniques to get their careers started right. Lil Kim is making a bevy of mistakes:

1. No one charges for mixtapes (especially ones that aren’t even mixed!) Mixtapes are a way for artists to get creative and use beats they’d normally have to pay for the license to use. It’s a way for them to promote their music. If you want to charge $10 for something you put the work in to create a complete album and sell it on itunes. NO ONE, and I mean NO ONE should be ignorant of these facts.

2. You can’t just make shit up anymore. Lil Kim stated that she sold 113K copies of her mixtape in 28 hours. We live in the world where quality artists don’t even sell that much. And blogger @robo3k confirmed with Paypal that there is a $3000 limit to how much money you can receive on paypal in day. Other bloggers revealed that Kim’s mixtape site had only gotten 23K clicks (not downloads). For those of you who have blogs or other new media goals, it’s really important that you learn at least the basics of analytics.

The saddest mistake:

3. One of the worst things Kim ever did is not educate herself on business matters. Before going to prison a few years ago, Kim was not aware of her financial expenditures and it’s probably a safe guess that while the Notorious B.I.G. was alive she probably didn’t pay much attention to the contracts she signed.

But Kim is not in her 20s anymore. As a 35 year old woman, it’s time for her to take a step back and educate herself on the decisions that she makes. There’s a lesson in this for us all. Ever feel like you go through life making decisions on auto pilot? Think about it.

Instead of writing diss tracks, Kim should have been using her free time pursuing ways of understanding this new-fangled thing we refer to as the internet, and seeking out advice from her celebrity friends who have been in the business a long time on how the business has evolved.

But the biggest thing she needs to do is figure out what to do besides rap. Not a lot of space in entertainment for a  35 year old who only REALLY had one huge album and has since destroyed her best asset–her looks. Kim needs a 2nd act. And that act probably needs to include student loans.