Kim Kardashian close-up portrait during an interview

Kim Kardashian

2013celebrity memeclassic

Published September 3, 2026

Kim Kardashian went from Keeping Up with the Kardashians star to one of the internet's most reliable meme generators, spawning viral moments from her 2013 Met Gala 'sofa dress' to the 2022 'get your ass up and work' Variety quote. Her public appearances routinely turn into remix material online, from Oval Office prison reform photos to reaction images pulled from her reality show.

reality tv origin memes celebrity reaction memes scandal memes fashion aesthetic memes reaction memes

Overview

The Kim Kardashian meme catalog is really several distinct formats stapled together under one name. The first bucket is reaction images pulled from Keeping Up with the Kardashians episodes, ugly-crying-face shots and confused-face reactions that get dropped into replies on Twitter and Instagram. The second is the recurring 'sofa dress' comparison from her April 2013 Met Gala appearance, where her floral print gown was widely compared online to grandma's couch upholstery4.

A third bucket is quote-based: the 2022 Variety soundbite 'get your fucking ass up and work' has been used as a stand-in for out-of-touch celebrity advice3. Then there is the visual meme cycle around Kim's political appearances, especially the May 2018 Oval Office photo with President Donald Trump, which Twitter users captioned with jokes about the administration within hours of it going public8.

Underneath all of this is the fact that Kim herself is one of the most-followed people on the internet. She created her Facebook page on January 8, 2009, joined Twitter that March, and launched her Instagram on February 20, 2012, pulling tens of millions of followers on each in a few years3. That combination of massive reach and constant public-facing weirdness is why almost every Kim moment gets remixed.

Origin & Background

Platform
Reddit / Twitter (viral spread)
Creator
Various
Date
2013

Kim Kardashian became a full-time meme subject in 2013, though the groundwork was set earlier with the E! reality series Keeping Up with the Kardashians, which premiered in October 2007 and ran for nine seasons across 126 episodes by August 20143. The first widely-shared meme tied to her image came from the April 2013 Met Gala, where her floral-print dress drew immediate comparisons to sofa upholstery. HuffPost was one of several outlets that ran side-by-side comparisons noting that the number looked like 'something your grandmother might sit on'4.

The format crystallized on May 10, 2013, when Reddit user Curiouslizzie posted a photograph of her boyfriend asleep on a floral couch with the caption 'Caught my boyfriend sleeping with Kim Kardashian' to /r/funny6. The post pulled more than 1,900 votes at 88% upvoted before being archived, and set the template for a wave of couch-comparison jokes.

How It Spread

Kim's meme output kept expanding through the late 2010s. On May 30, 2018, after months of talks with Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, she met President Trump at the White House to advocate for the release of Alice Marie Johnson, a 62-year-old grandmother serving life on a non-violent drug charge3. Trump tweeted a photo of the two in the Oval Office that pulled over 34,000 retweets and 125,000 likes within 24 hours8. Twitter piled on: user @ira riffed on Melania body-double conspiracy theories with 'You are Melania now,' and the New York Post ran the picture on its cover with the headline 'Trump Meets Rump' and dubbed her 'Kim Thong Un.'

In April 2019, Vogue published 'The Awakening of Kim Kardashian West,' revealing that she had begun a four-year law apprenticeship the previous summer with the goal of sitting the California bar in 20221. The announcement drew both mockery ('is kim kardashian really going to pass the bar before me') and defenses pointing to her role in Alice Marie Johnson's eventual release. On June 10, 2019, Kim tweeted a photo introducing her fourth child with Kanye West, named Psalm Ye, and the post drew more than 21,000 retweets and 334,000 likes in a day7. Fans immediately remixed the name into Smash Mouth's 'All Star,' with @KyndraFriend posting 'PSALM BODY ONCE TOLD ME THE WORLD WAS GONNA ROLL YE'3.

The most-quoted Kim meme of the streaming era arrived in March 2022, during a Variety video interview promoting the family's new Hulu series The Kardashians. Kim said, 'I have the best advice for women in business: get your fucking ass up and work. It seems like nobody wants to work these days,' and her sister Kourtney agreed3. The clip was widely mocked online, with users pointing to her upbringing and the 2007 Ray J sex tape as counter-context, and the line was recycled as a caption on posts about tone-deaf celebrity work advice.

Loading tweet...

How to Use This Meme

Most Kim Kardashian memes are reused as ready-made quote or image formats rather than templates you build from scratch. The reaction shots (ugly-cry, confused-face) get dropped into replies when the tone is 'this situation is unhinged.' The 'get your ass up and work' quote is typically pasted over posts about billionaires giving work advice, or over screenshots of workers who inherited money. The 2013 Met Gala 'sofa dress' image is often paired with photos of actual couches for a 'who wore it better' joke.

Frequently Asked Questions