Market Research Suggests Kim Kardashian Has Hurt Kanye’s Popularity

By: Taren Vaughan

Is Kanye West’s popularity starting to tank? Kanye West has yet to take a break from the scene, even continuing to work on his music during some very tragic times in his life. Though Kanye may not have gone on complete hiatus from his music like some other artists have done, everything he puts out isn’t gold these days as far as his fans are concerned. And to prove that they are not too impressed with his latest work, many of them have refused to buy tickets to his shows as it was said that many of them were not willing to pay the high prices that Kanye was asking for the tickets. The folks over the Grammys must be feeling the same way as Kanye didn’t get the nominations that he was used to getting for the next awards and made it a point to speak his mind about that. Yet and still, his shows still went on with Kanye performing in some very awkward attire that got quite a reaction from audience members. Though his music is not winning his fans over like it once was doing, his personal life has continued to grab their attention as Kanye recently announced that his girlfriend Kim Kardashian was pregnant with their first child. As the reports of the baby news has continued to get Kimye a lot of attention, it didn’t dismiss the rumors that his baby mama Kim was said to be the culprit in Kanye’s career taking a downturn. And according to data from a recent research poll, Kanye West’s popularity has taken a sizeable hit since he got with Kim. And it shows that ‘Ye is not the only boyfriend, or husband, of a Kardashian that has been faced with this very same problem.

Here’s the report from The Huffington Post:

Last week, we asked whether Kanye West’s popularity was at risk of decline, now that girlfriend Kim Kardashian is pregnant with their baby. A so-called “Kardashian curse” sounds silly, of course, but not when real data taken from Nielsen showed a dramatic drop in popularity for the Kardashian sisters’ other boyfriends — Lamar Odom, Reggie Bush and Kris Humphries. We wondered if Yeezy, already a contentious figure, was headed for a similar fate.

Well, now we have our answer. According to data analyzed from E-Poll Market Research, which assigns stars an “E-Score” to measure their marketability, West’s fragile popularity has indeed made a southbound U-turn in the past half year. West first stepped out with his new girlfriend in April 2012. A coincidence? Likely not.

“He was starting to bounce back from [the 2009 VMA incident with Taylor Swift],” E-Poll Senior Director of Marketing and Communications Randy Parker told the Huffington Post. “There does appear to there is some sort of fallback or blowback from him hooking up with Kim. One of the things we measure is an attribute called ‘Overexposed’. We find that people use it as a general way of saying, ‘I’ve had it with you. You’ve just gone a little too far.’ I’m guessing his overexposed score is quite high.”