Kim Kardashian's Biggest Regret Is a Photo of Her Nails and, Well, I Want Her Life
Photo: Getty.
If anyone has their Instagram game on lock, it's Kim Kardashian. With her 102 million followers and impeccable dusty pink aesthetic, a scroll through her timeline is like a walk in a glowy, Lumee dream world. But of course, everything's not always as it seems—so when Kim Kardashian revealed her biggest Instagram regret to Patrick Starrr, obviously I was glued to what it could be. But, oof: the answer is both eye-opening about how impossibly high our standards have climbed and kind of a cop-out.
ICYMI, last week Kardashian posted a video of Starrr doing her makeup, here. As happens when you're getting your makeup done, the conversation turned pretty intimate (nothing like someone touching your face to bring down barriers, seriously). After Starrr asked what her biggest Instagram regret is, Kardashian replied that she hates her hands. To which she expanded by revealing, "One of my biggest photo regrets is when I got engaged, I had the shortest nails when I showed my picture. And I was like, ‘Ugh, it would have looked so much better with long nails.’”
On one hand, this comment is deeply relatable. Who hasn't looked back at a college profile picture and wished you'd gone with an outfit that, I don't know, didn't involve a poncho? Everyone has regrets (damn you, ponchos). Add in that the photo is capturing what we've been told by a billion-dollar industry is "supposed to be" a picture-perfect moment—her engagement—and I'm sure thousands of women have felt this exact pressure of wanting to have a mani that meets these standards. But on the other hand: how terrible is a world where even Kim Kardashian doesn't think she's measuring up to expectations?
At this point, we know that social media is skewing our perceptions and more often than not, making everyone feel pretty crappy about not looking like the filtered, Facetuned, "perfect" versions of people coming at us. But if even the woman who literally wrote the book about looking great online—Selfies is nothing if not a masterclass in feeling yourself—doesn't think her engagement photo is good enough, maybe the pressure we're all putting on ourselves is getting out of hand.
But we all kind of suspected that. The thing is that over the past few years, Kardashian's been working on her "woke" image, saying that she designed her makeup line to be inclusive to under-served skin tones, coming out with a strong anti-gun stance, and publicly talking about the importance of her own self-esteem in creating a healthy body image for North. All are undeniably well-intentioned, positive things from a high-profile celebrity. But at the same time, her nails comment underlines the fact that for all the work she does, she's still prescribing to—and thus perpetuating—those impossible ideals by curating her idealized image and calling herself out at the smallest fault.
If her biggest Instagram regret is not having longer nails in a photo—instead of, say, avoiding the whole KKW Beauty lighting controversy or wearing appropriative hairstyles—Kim's priorities seem displaced. And her usual positivity starts to feel a little performative. It's definitely rough that not even Kardashian is happy with herself, but at the same time, she took the photo after being proposed to by Kanye West...with a $1.5 million engagement ring...in the middle of an empty baseball park. Kim, I know you're not without suffering...but your nails look great.
This story originally appeared on Glamour.
More from Glamour:
13 Celebrities Who Have Hot Siblings
34 Times Kate Middleton and Prince William Gave Us Major Relationship Goals
17 Magnificent Engagement Rings Fit for Rock Stars, Royalty, or Real Housewives
Ryan Reynolds Reveals He Fell in Love With Blake Lively While on a Double Date With Someone Else
