By: Jessica Griggs ~Campus News Editor~

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you can’t help but keep up with the Kardashians, regardless of how much you probably “can’t stand” them.

However, the general public’s so-called hatred for the family who’s famous for doing nothing only arises from the fact that the Kardashians are a reflection of ourselves and how we live.

Scroll through any Facebook newsfeed, and it won’t take long to find a lengthy post updating everyone on the arbitrary details of someone’s ordinary life. Susan got engaged at IHOP, Jimmy thanked Obama for his inability to drive in dangerous weather conditions and another cat video.

The girl who sits in front of me in class watches at least five Tasty videos every day as if she’ll ever actually try to make those recipes.

The Kardashians aren’t much different from the average Facebook user they just get paid to be as obnoxious as most of us already are. They post selfies and family photos, pictures from their last vacation to some tropical destination, and their progress after a particularly large amount of weight loss. Sound familiar?

Today everything is online, status updates are forms of expression and likes are validation, and the Kardashians have been smart enough to capitalize on our culture’s obsession with documenting our lives on social media.

“Keeping Up with the Kardashians” has been on television since 2007 and has outlived fad media like “Jersey Shore” and the “Twilight” craze. A show lasting that long doesn’t happen as a result of the stars not doing anything to further their popularity, and it definitely hasn’t stuck around because of a leaked sex tape.

If they’re famous for living their lives outrageously, it’s because we encourage it and wish we could be them.

It’s jealousy that we harbor for the Kardashians, and as a result we forget that they are real people with real thoughts, feelings and goals. They’re extremely family oriented, and they take care of each other when hard times fall on them.

For example, when Lamar Odom, Khloé Kardashian’s estranged husband, fell into a coma after a long and tragic downward spiral with drugs, the whole family was there to support him despite his separation from the youngest Kardashian sister.

Numerous rumors began circulating as soon as they arrived claiming that the family had brought a camera crew to document the situation for their reality show. Many are eager to believe that the vapid, materialistic image of the Kardashians is all there is to them, and although the camera crew rumors were quickly debunked, the media’s willingness to jump on any chance at bashing the Kardashians and our willingness to believe it, even when the life of one of their loved ones is hanging in the balance, shows just how little we value them as human beings.

Despite what most people seem to think, the Kardashians are obviously effective businesspeople. If they weren’t, the Kardashian-Jenner family wouldn’t have a combined net worth of more than $300 million, less than half of which comes from their numerous reality television shows.

That type of business prowess would normally garner at least some respect from most people even if the businessperson isn’t particularly well-liked, but the Kardashians rarely receive any respect from the general public because on the outside it looks as if they haven’t done anything to deserve it.

On the outside, it looks as if they became famous for doing things we do daily and get significantly less attention for them.

The Kardashians aren’t for everyone, and there’s no reason they should try to be. If you don’t find them fascinatingly entertaining like my roommates and I do, that’s fine.

It’s also okay to disagree with the majority of their choices, whether it be the names they pick for their children or the amount of money they spend on cosmetic surgery, but hating them because of their fame and their ability to capitalize on it is useless and unfair.