Kourtney Kardashian Is the Smartest One of Them All

Picture this: you are young, beautiful, rich, and famous for being all of the above. Because of these circumstances, your life is on the television now—a commodity that is now easily bought and sold. You are also in Bora Bora, at one of those island resorts where the rooms are on stilts. The water is clear, the man you will be married to for 72 days is holding you in his big strong basketball arms, and he throws you in the water for his amusement, and yours.When you emerge from the water, hair swirling about your shoulders like seaweed, you cry. You were stupid for wearing them into the ocean, but now, my god, the earrings. They are gone, lost to the fathomless sea.

This video clip of Kim Kardashian weeping like a child over the loss of a $75,000 diamond earring is the ur-text for both fans and detractors of Keeping Up With the Kardashians: instantly meme-able, completely ridiculous, but tempered with a quick dose of reality from the actual star of this entire spectacle. Kim may be weeping to her mother about the incalculable loss of her diamond earring, but the real star is Kourtney, my favorite Kardashian, the only one with a lick of sense, who is always willing to clock her sisters for being freaking dumbasses, every single time.

As Kim weeps over this loss, her mother, Kris, consoles her. Kourtney, who is on this family vacation with Mason, her actual child, and Scott Disick, the child that she kept around for longer than was necessary, emerges from her cabana. Mason, a chubby lil’ baby, is balanced on her hip, like a bouncing sack of potatoes. Perhaps the commotion woke Mason up, or maybe, Kourtney had hit capacity for listening to her sister, Kim, whinge on about something as dumb as losing her diamond earring in the ocean off Bora Bora. Maybe Kourtney was angry or at least annoyed that, like clockwork, Kim’s excuse for being upset was that she “works hard.” Or maybe Kourtney was drawing on the deep well of strength and resilience that comes from being the oldest of a pack of sisters who are all really annoying at varying times, and felt that it was necessary to at least attempt to save face.

“Kim, there’s people that are dying,” is a succinct response to any scenario in which the supposed victim’s reaction to any perceived slight is outsized. There are always people that are dying, every day. It is the miracle and the quiet sadness of life. Kourtney didn’t specify who was dying, which would’ve lessened the impact of her statement. She merely acknowledged the process that is being a human being on earth: we are born, we live, we lose diamond earrings in the ocean, and then, eventually, we die. Kourtney understands this innately because she is the brains of the operation. No one in the family will ever be able to keep up with her.

(Updated 3/2/22 with new details)