Do you measure a Kardashian as “how long something lasts” or “how long it holds your attention”? There’s been a little confusion on the Net over the past couple of weeks about that.

Ethan Zuckerman, blogger and activist, came up with the very useful idea of the Kardashian as a unit – although its usefulness does depend a little on things like gender and orientation. As Zuckerman noted in My heart’s in Accra, “Conceptually, the Kardashian is the amount of global attention Kim Kardashian commands across all media over the space of a day.” In objective fashion, Zuckerman goes on to say he “think(s) of the Kardashian as a unit of perspective.”

The unit has, however, been misrepresented as “72 days of marriage,” which is the length of time the lady behind the name stayed married. Neither is that what was intended, nor it useful as a unit of perspective.

We’re clarifying because it’s easy to get confused: Google “kardashian unit” and you’ll get all the wrong info...