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It's hard to think of three women who get more attention than Kim, Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian. The three women seem to appear on every other tabloid cover thanks to their constantly evolving story lines that include everything from births to marriage to divorces to butt x-rays.
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But can too much attention be a bad thing? On our most recent list of the Most Overexposed Celebrities, Kim ranks No. 1, Kourtney ranks eighth and Khloe ranks 10th. The list was compiled by E-Poll Research, of Encino, Calif., which ranks more than 6,600 celebrities based on 46 factors.
E-Poll CEO Gerry Philpott points out that overexposure is not always a terrible thing.
"A decade ago being overexposed was the kiss of death," says Philpott. "But today it's necessary to fuel reality TV."
Reality stars like the Kardashians depend on overexposure to drive their business. They want to be in the spotlight constantly to get people to watch their shows and ultimately buy the products they endorse. In their case, overexposure is paying off. We estimate Kim Kardashian earned $12 million last year, not including what she got paid for her wedding.
Kardashian's short-lived marriage may have been sad (or it may have been set up) but it helped drive ratings on her E! show "Kim and Kourtney Take New York." The premiere episode of the show was a ratings hit, drawing 3.2 million viewers.
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Kim scored a 65% overexposed rating in E-Poll's survey, which means 65% of respondents say they think Kim is overexposed. The average overexposed ranking for all celebrities is 5%. Ties on this list were broken by E-Scores, which measure a celebrity's "marketing effectiveness" by combining awareness, appeal and other factors.
"If you want to be a serious movie actress maybe you don't want high overexposed numbers, but if you're going to be a successful reality star, you need those numbers," says Philpott.
In the last five years Lindsay Lohan, who ranks second on our list, has become known more for her court appearances than for any acting work. Her recent stint on "Saturday Night Live" didn't really help turn things around, nor did her well-publicized probation, which is likely at an end. But she's far from done. A scheduled guest slot on an upcoming episode of "Glee" is a promising start to turning around her career, and playing Elizabeth Taylor in a television movie won't hurt either. That's exactly the kind of overexposure Lohan needs right now.
Most of the celebrities on the list come from the world of reality television. Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi ranks third with a 64% rating. It seems like Polizzi's 15 minutes of fame should have been up an hour ago, but the diminutive Jersey Girl finds a way to stay in the headlines. She recently garnered tons of attention when she announced that she is pregnant. And the TV work keeps rolling in for Snooki. Her Jersey Shore spin-off show with Jenni "JWoww" Farley recently finished filming.
Snooki's "Jersey Shore" roommate Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino also lands on our list in seventh place with a 56% overexposed rating. Sorrentino in one of only two men on the list. The other is Levi Johnston, who ranks ninth with a 51% overexposed rating.
Johnston seems like someone who no longer gets a lot of press. But Philpott says that there are some people who get so extremely overexposed that even when their moment of fame has passed, survey respondents still say the faded stars are burned into their memories, and not in a pleasant way.
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Fourth-ranked Nadya "Octomom" Suleman also falls into that category. Despite rarely being seen in the press any more, Suleman earns a 62% overexposed ratings.
Two people whose 15 minutes really have passed: Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag. The couple (best known for playing the villains on "The Hills" and seeking out press attention for anything and everything after the show ended) may no longer be overexposed but they are also no longer famous. For reality stars like Pratt and Montag to stay relevant, they need that overexposure.
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