Kim's Tasteless Temple Pics Are Not #Blessed

It looks like Kim Kardashian has escaped to Thailand after the controversy over her Vogue cover with Kanye West. The new season of Keeping Up With the Kardashians is filming in Thailand, and Kim has posted a series of tasteless selfies at a Buddhist temple. #OHBROTHER. The series of photos show Kim in a form-fitting white gown posing in front of an idol; inside the temple; and kneeling on the steps, taking off her shoes (which she hashtagged "#etiquette").

Kardashian's treating the temple like her own personal runway and also posed in front of a gold-ornamented structure in couture, which she so boldly hashtagged #enlightenment.

I think it's a safe bet to say that Kim K. is not converting to Buddhism anytime soon, and it feels like her hashtags (#enlightened, #blessed, #etiquette) are making a mockery of the sacred. It rings of when Rihanna was ousted from a mosque in Abu Dhabi for wearing a hijab and claiming that the Muslim women in the background of her photos were "bitches [that] stole her look." The cultural tourism is alive, too, in Kim's Instagrams; regardless of how beautiful she may think the Buddhist temple is, it's a transparent and surface interest. I don't think she's becoming any more enlightened by snapping Instagram photos.

Are Kim's pics ill-intentioned? No, but they're definitely tasteless. It contributes to the devaluation and westernization of Eastern traditions; how many of Kim's fans are gonna rush to Thailand to take their own glam shots in a Buddhist temple? There's a lovely irony in her #enlightenment — she's there filming a reality show, and it's not far-fetched to say that Keeping Up With the Kardashians is the complete and total opposite of the tenets of Buddhism.

The world is not your personal runway, Kim. Though the photos are beautiful, it's a shame that such a place of reflection has become a setpiece for Kim's curves. Perhaps ignorance really is #blessed.

Images: Kim Kardashian/Instagram