It's about me. I mean you. I mean me.

IT BEGAN with a sex tape, and the rest, as the cliché goes, is history. Behold the wonder that is Kim Kardashian. (Pictured left, as if you didn’t know)

“Kim Kardashian can’t sing, act, or dance, but she’s found the role of a lifetime in the fine art of playing herself,” wrote W magazine about the curvaceous celebrity who graces its November edition cover.

The article’s writer, Lynn Hirschberg, continued:

“As a celebrity, Kardashian gives good value: She is the star of a reality show, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, which means she is famous for being herself. On the show, and in life, she has defined that persona as a glamorous It girl who is close to her family, a wealthy but hardworking beauty who is not skinny, a single woman (almost 30!) looking for her soulmate. Kardashian takes her role seriously. She’s willing to reveal her life in all its simple complications to the millions who watch the show; the millions who follow her on Twitter; and the millions who read her blog on her website, asking questions and seeking advice on how to be all things Kim. Like a classic movie star with a knack for new technology, she meets and greets with poise and perfect hair.”

In other words, in summation: It's all about me. I mean you. I mean me.

But frankly, at the end of the day, her shtick is perfectly fine. A girl’s gotta pay the rent. Perhaps less fine: the throngs of female fans – swooning en masse to the West Side Story song “I Feel Pretty” – who long to look (or worse, be) just like her.

Kardashian’s full-bodied buxomness stands out in Hollywood’s sea of slim “stick-women” (as a girlfriend of mine memorably put it). That fact alone endears Karsashian to the gazillions of females obsessed with the do-I-look-fat issue. She’s an “average girl,” one twentysomething told the New York Times. “I like the way she dresses,” said another. “She has an ethnic sex appeal,” said still another. Hundreds of fans mobbed the streets outside a SoHo clothing boutique where the bootylicious celebritrix made a recent star-turn.

That could be me, they all think dreamily. However, what gets lost in translation (pun intended) is this: Kim is unique, girl, and only she can “work it.” If you’re not her, more makeup won’t help.

That said, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with fantasizing, and one can overstate the impact of celebrity-fashion worship on women. Sure, there is a hint of truth in what SoHo Alliance director Sean Sweeney told the Times about Kardashian’s fans: “A generation of classless, tasteless and clueless sheep.” But that description, I think, is way too harsh. By and large, the Karsashian adulation is probably harmless – female obsession with appearance (and its perpetuation by impossibly beautiful celebrities) notwithstanding.

Per the Times, Ms. Kardashian and Snooki are tied at number one on the celebrity brand index. Poor Paris Hilton has dropped to third place. Apparently, even being famous for being nothing has its limitations, at least until the next sex tape release.