About
Kim Kardashian’s Paper Magazine Cover refers to a photograph of the American reality TV star posing naked for the 2014 winter issue of New York-based indie fashion magazine Paper. Upon its publication, Kardashian’s racy cover photo instantly became a trending topic and prompted a slew of photoshopped parodies on Twitter, Instagram and elsewhere online.
Origin
On November 11th, 2014, Paper Magazine’s Twitter account shared a link to a brief article showcasing two studio photographs of Kim Kardashian, the 34-year-old TV personality and wife of Kanye West, for the cover image of its latest issue, both captioned with the subtitle “Break the Internet / Kim Kardashian” (shown below). In less than 24 hours, the tweet racked up more than 3,200 retweets and 2,500 favorites.
Within the hour, Kim Kardashian also shared one of the cover photos via Instagram, in which she is shown popping a bottle of champagne, with its geyser drawing a perfect arc over her head and being poured into a glass positioned on her buttocks (shown below). Kardashian’s Instagram photo garnered more than 462,000 likes and nearly 15,000 comments.
The cover photographs were commissioned by renowned French graphic designer and photographer Jean-Paul Goude, who sought to recreate his iconic portrait photograph Carolina Beaumont, New York, 1976 originally featured in his 1982 book Jungle Fever (shown below).
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Kanye West’s Response
Later that evening, Kardashian’s husband and celebrity rapper Kanye West retweeted the cover photo in approval using the hashtag #ALLDAY (shown below). In just over 20 hours, West’s tweet accumulated over 60,000 retweets and 68,000 favorites.
Online Reaction
On November 12th, discussions about Kardashian’s racy magazine cover photo flooded Twitter and other social media outlets, soon giving rise to the trending hashtags #BreakTheInternet and #ThingsThatLookLikeKimKardashiansBum, which were mentioned over 42,000 times and 2,500 times, respectively, within the 24-hour period. Meanwhile, dozens of photoshopped parodies based on the cover photograph began to surface on Twitter, Instagram, Reddit and Tumblr.
News Media Coverage
Shortly after Paper Magazine’s unveiling of the cover photo, the story was picked up by virtually all celebrity gossip and entertainment news sites, including Gawker[3], BuzzFeed,[11] Perez Hilton[2], E! Online[5], Daily Mail[4], TMZ[6], MTV[8] and Vanity Fair[7], as well as a number of major U.S. news outlets like TIME Magazine[9][11], The Washington Post[10] and CNN.[13]
Notable Examples
Search Interest
External References
[1]Paper Magazine – INTRODUCINGOURWINTERCOVERSTAR: KIMKARDASHIAN
[2]Perez Hilton – The Internet Reacts To Kim Kardashian’s Bare ASSets On PAPER Magazine With The Most HIGHlarious Memes EVER!
[3]Gawker – Kim Kardashian’s Bare Ass Was Interviewed in This Month’s Paper Magazine
[4]DailyMail – ‘She looks like a centaur’: The Internet parodies Kim Kardashian’s outrageous bare-bottomed magazine cover with hilarious memes
[5]E! Online – Kim Kardashian’s Naked Butt Gets Meme’d; Does Kanye West Approve?
[6]TMZ– Kim Kardashian Ass Photo Last Hurrah Before Getting Pregnant
[7]Vanity Fair – Kim Kardashian “Breaks the Internet” with Nude Magazine Cover
[8]MTV– Kanye West’s Reaction To Kim Kardashian’s Butt Is Exactly What We Expected
[9]TIME– Kim Kardashian’s Butt Is an Empty Promise
[10]Washington Post – Naked Kim Kardashian won’t break the Internet. The Internet would break without naked Kim Kardashian
[11]TIME– Kim Kardashian’s Butt Might Just Break the Internet Today
[12]BuzzFeed – If Kim Kardashian Had Realistic Waistlines
[13]CNN– More Kardashian controversy: from butts to the ‘KKK’
[14]Twitter – Tagged Results for #BreakTheInternet
[15]Twitter – Tagged Results for #ThingsThatLookLikeKimKardashiansBum
[16]Topsy – Tweets Per Day for #BreakTheInternet vs. #KimKardashiansBum vs. #KimKardashiansAss