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The headline refers to PAPER magazine’s November 2014 “Break the Internet” cover story and photo spread featuring Kim Kardashian, photographed by Jean-Paul Goude. Kardashian later described the shoot as her choice and as an art project; PAPER’s editors framed it as a deliberate experiment in virality, not a literal attempt to take the internet offline.
What was the PAPER magazine shoot?
PAPER published the Winter 2014 cover story, “Break the Internet: Kim Kardashian,” on November 12, 2014. The original feature credits Jean-Paul Goude for the photography and includes an interview alongside the images. Read the original PAPER feature.
The campaign paired a champagne-glass pose with a separate nude image in the spread. The phrase “Break the Internet” was a provocative campaign slogan, not a claim that the internet literally stopped working.
Why did Kardashian say she posed?
In comments to Australia’s The Project, quoted by PAPER on November 18, 2014, Kardashian said she had discussed doing a nude shoot after pregnancy and chose to work with Goude because she wanted the project to help her feel confident. She emphasized that the choice was personal: “I did it for me.”
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She also said, “As a role model I’m not saying anyone else should do that, but for me it was an art project and it taught me to do what you want to do.” That statement describes her own motivation, rather than advice for other people. PAPER’s report of her comments.
How did PAPER plan and release the images?
PAPER co-founder David Hershkovits later described the feature as part of the magazine’s annual art issue and as a conceptual project about virality, social media, audience, and internet celebrity. Editors initially planned to publish online alongside the magazine’s newsstand appearance. Concern that the images might leak while the print issue was being distributed changed the timing: they released the covers first, then published the full inside images the following evening. Hershkovits’s account in The Guardian.
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In a 2025 retrospective, Kardashian recalled that the nude images were not the original planned shot: after making the champagne-glass pose, she asked Goude to try another image, and they made the nude photographs. This is her later recollection, rather than a contemporaneous production record. PAPER’s 2025 retrospective.
Did it actually “break the internet”?
No literal internet outage is established. The phrase described the campaign’s ambition and the scale of the attention it attracted. Hershkovits wrote that the internet was not literally broken, while reporting that on November 13, 2014—the day after the full story appeared—PAPER’s traffic measured nearly 1% of all US web-browsing activity. That is the co-founder’s account of the publication’s measurement, not an independently audited total-reach figure.
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Hershkovits also reported that Kanye West’s tweet about the cover received 70,000 retweets within a couple of hours. Separately, PAPER co-founder Kim Hastreiter told Digiday that the story generated 5.5 million Google searches between 8 p.m. and midnight. Both are contemporaneous reported figures, not comprehensive independent audits of the campaign’s reach. Digiday’s 2014 interview with Hastreiter.
Hershkovits cautioned that “The thing about popular culture – or ‘virality’ – is that it cannot be fully predicted or manufactured.” His account presents the project as an experiment whose reach exceeded what any slogan alone could guarantee.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why did the images prompt debate?
The response was polarized, drawing both praise and protest. One axis of debate was whether the spread worked as conceptual art about celebrity and social media or primarily as promotional spectacle. Another concerned the balance between Kardashian’s self-presentation and Goude’s authorship as photographer.
Hershkovits recounts that writer Blue Telusma questioned racial undertones in the image and Goude’s visual history. That is an attributed critique, not evidence of a single consensus about the photographs. The story is best understood as both a highly publicized magazine event and an image set that invited competing readings of body autonomy, race, celebrity, and visual authorship.
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Where can you see the original story?
The original PAPER feature is the direct source for the cover story, interview, and photo credits. Its publication identifies the Winter 2014 issue; this article does not verify current stock, condition, or availability of physical copies. Open PAPER’s original feature.
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