I've rewatched the show more recently and noticed some new details, so I've decided to redo my first post on this blog.
Kim is known for saving the world and helping people with things like park cleanups and cats stuck in trees.
But she is also known to put her own desires before her friends, even if it causes them harm.
And that is not something a good person does.
These are not "mistakes" because Kim is doing them intentionally.
And it's not a one-time thing:
Kim forges an application in Ron’s name before she even brings up the idea of working there to him.
When he's upset with her for doing that, she uses the puppy dog pout, which he explicitly states she knows he can't resist, to get him to take the job.
She refuses to be supportive of him or happy for him when he turns out to be good at it, to the point of refusing to do the job at all.
I will give Kim credit for apologizing for her jealousy, but she never apologizes for manipulating him to take the job in the first place.
She forces Ron into a haircut, despite the fact that even her own mother had reservations about it.
When Ron tells her he hates it and why, she feigns sympathy, steals his hat, and runs through the halls yelling that he got a new haircut.
When Ron starts to embrace the new haircut and becomes popular, she hates it. But despite his popularity, he's not a jerk.
He didn't abandon Rufus, Rufus wandered off and Ron gently chastised him for it.
She was only upset because Ron was starting to change into someone who cared about hair care and appearances.
(Which, if that wasn't her goal with the new haircut, then what was her goal?)
She apologizes for saying Ron needed a new haircut, but not for the lengths she went to to force him into one, nor for her contempt for him after he started to embrace the haircut.
At the end, she tries to tell him that it's what's on the inside that counts, but it's very hypocritical since she was the one who wanted him to change in the first place.
Kim locks Ron in the janitor closet, though semi-unintentionally; she wasn't intending to lock him in there, but she did shove him back in when he was trying to leave.
She ignores Wade’s attempts at reaching her, even though Wade never contacts her unless it’s important.
(I will give Kim some leeway here, as a teenage girl deserves one night to herself.)
She also expressed no concern at Ron being missing, nor does she seem to even notice he's missing.
We also have no idea how long Ron spent in that closet, but even just an hour is too long.
(Also, that is a really big janitor's closet. The ones at my high school were closet sized, not room sized.)
When Kim's told the bracelet is armor that grows when she lies, she keeps lying, even though it was probably unnecessary. Her parents and Ron would have been understanding about her wanting to go to a party with her crush.
Her actions led to her destroying Monique's garage door, which probably landed Monique in trouble.
And though Kim does get grounded for lying, she doesn't get in trouble for putting others in danger.
(Probably because Wade's the only one who could confirm that she knew she was putting others in danger.)
She uses the Neural-Compliance Chips on her brothers, after saying that just making them would be unethical.
After an entire episode about how bad they are.
After being a victim of them herself.
It’s meant to be a joke.
This is not the kind of thing anyone should joke about.
Kim thinks telling Ron that he might stand a chance with a girl is "fudging".
At this point, they know so little about Zita that they think her name is Annie.
There's no reason to believe Ron wouldn't stand a chance except for having a low opinion of Ron in general.
They also had their conversation about it while sitting across the table from Ron at Bueno Nacho, so there's a good chance he heard them.
And despite this belief that he doesn't stand a chance, she spends the rest of the episode angrily telling him that there are no rules to try to encourage him to ask her out.
Ron's steps of taking care of Rufus aren't just long because he's an exotic animal, those are also things Ron learned about taking care of Rufus from experience.
He also refers to Rufus as his son in "Mind Games", so Kim's disregard for how to take care of Rufus is extra mean given that Rufus clearly means a lot to Ron.
Not only does Rufus accidentally eat the chip due to Kim's negligence, she doesn't even notice it's missing until Wade tells her it's broadcasting a signal from inside Rufus.
And she lies to Ron about all of it on multiple occasions. I can understand some of them, since she was dealing with an emergency, but this is the kind of thing pet owners like to know about.
Kim and Monique were both arranging “accidental” run-ins with Hirotaka to ask him out, but Kim’s the only one who had Wade track Hirotaka’s movements to do it.
I know Monique couldn’t do that, but the point is, Kim took it to creepy stalker levels for a guy she’s known for less than a week.
(I'm also interested in the fact that Monique was confident she could take Kim in a fight.)
Though Kim and Bonnie both sabotage each other, Kim started it.
She unplugged Bonnie’s alarm clock, supposedly to charge the Kimmunicator, but there was another available outlet that she could’ve used.
She also uses all the hot water in the showers so Bonnie can’t have any, which wouldn’t harm just Bonnie but anyone else who may need to use the showers after Bonnie.
And she refuses to take any of Ron's feelings seriously.
Even if Gil hadn't actually been up to something, Ron was still stuck sharing a cabin with a guy who used to bully him and had attacked him and the squad at some point. He has every right to be uncomfortable with it, but Kim keeps dismissing his feelings because she's too focused on sabotaging Bonnie so she could win a plastic stick that's been painted gold.
Dr. Lurkin apologizes to Ron for not taking him seriously, but Kim doesn't.
Despite getting on Ron's case for cheating in "Naked Genius", which is completely fair, Kim had no problems using her newfound super strength for gym class or cheerleading, which is unfair and hypocritical of her.
Though I agree the "doofy" and "stupido" thing was embarrassing, coupons shouldn't be embarrassing, especially since Kim isn't offering to pay for it herself.
I can understand how the kids' menu thing was embarrassing, especially since Kim wouldn't want to order a kids' meal. However, she should just let Ron order of the kids' menu if he wants to.
The whole plot around getting jobs would have been better if Kim was getting one to pay for dates herself, not to "encourage" Ron to get one to pay for dates.
And then Ron decides Kim deserves better and starts looking for a job himself anyways.
I could understand being upset about not getting to see the designs, but Monique signed an NDA and would be risking not just her job but her future career in the fashion industry if she told Kim. And having Wade check the contract for loopholes is obsessive and could’ve landed them all in legal trouble.
Hassling Monique to break an NDA and trying to get Wade to find a loophole so Monique can tell her is the kind of thing Kim would've gotten fired for.
(Also, there is no way Wade was just given a copy of that NDA, so he's definitely in trouble if Monique ever decides to snitch on him.)
We learn in "A Sitch in Time" that Kim always wanted a little sister, so it's no surprise that she took to Hana immediately.
But Ron's life was changed against his will without warning while he was at school, so a little sympathy would be expected from his girlfriend. Especially since the attic isn't as nice or comfortable as his old bedroom.
When Yori needs Ron's help on a mission, Kim refuses to let him go because she doesn't trust Ron alone with Yori, even though he's never given her any reason to think he'd be disloyal and Yori had requested help from him specifically.
I know they’re criminals who are behind bars, but that doesn’t make it right for Kim to use The Fashionistas’ design without their permission.
Monique didn't know it was The Fashionistas' design, and Rufus is a six-year-old rodent, so he wouldn't know any better.
But Kim did know it was their design.
I know they wanted her to bust them out, and I'm not saying she should, but it doesn't seem right for her to use their design without their permission.
(It's also kind of a disappointment that Kim is wearing a design made by The Fashionistas instead of Monique, her fashionable best friend who helped her put them behind bars in the first place. That would've been so much cooler.)
At no point should Kim and Ron have been trying to get Monique to date Wade.
(A more realistic way of handling that would be to have them tease her about it for a bit, not seriously asking her to consider it.)
Also, Kim didn't actually need to hit Monique with the Cupid Ray just because she "didn't have time" to deal with Monique being upset. She was in a car, she could've driven away.
Because she did, Monique refused to leave Wade's side and ended up on a mission that she would have never gone on if she had been herself at the time.
If this show handled relationships a bit more realistically, people would at least be mad at Kim for her actions, and stay mad. Kim being a hero doesn’t excuse such behavior, nor does her being a teenager.
As an action hero, Kim is great; cool, calm, collected, and always victorious.
But as a person, Kim is controlling, competitive, manipulative, insensitive, and more focused on her own wants than others around her.
And those aren't qualities someone who's meant to be a role model should have.