Men gather around sports games, women around shops, cafes and young people around music. How about the little girls? Barbies are the strongest connection between little girls, needless to say. I remember myself becoming friends with many other girls in a restaurant just because I liked their princess Barbie more than my pregnant one. Like people following columnists, I was tracking every new Barbie that came up. Nothing was giving me more pleasure than adding one more Pocahontas Barbie or Barbie with a hair saloon to my doll collection. Like houses and cars showing the status now, Barbies showed your interest, your possible toy collection at small ages. Therefore they were the most important medium for girls since it had a gathering power.
But what was the thing in Barbie that showed us whether someone could be our good friend or not? Did the playing manners really introduce us people? When I try to remember what I looked for in Barbie playing, I see that the most significant thing for me was the sharing part. If a girl was voluntarily sharing her Barbie, that girl was starting the game ahead. Other than that, the conversations were important. Girls make the Barbies talk spontaneously; so if the conversation was good, I understood that we had similar interests with that friend. Even though they do not look important at all now, they used to be when I was young since I did not have anything but to worry making friends and having new Barbies.
Last year, the ultimate shoe designer Christian Louboutin and Mattel, the producer of Barbie, worked together and launced three Louboutin Barbies which all had 3 pairs of Christian Louboutin shoes. Since I really like Louboutin shoes, I fell in love with those Barbies and remembered my past. The shoes are so cute and almost the same with the real Louboutins, with the same shoe bags.
Since little girls would not now about Louboutins yet, it looks like Barbie will target adults as well and this time be the medium of collectors.
P.s: While I was checking my Twitter,(like I told you 2 posts ago J ), I saw one of my friends posting a Barbiefoot! It was such a coincidence to find that picture the day I wrote about Barbies for my blog. Now, the guys are added to the target market of this medium as wellJ.
I remember that action figures and toy cars created bonds between kids when I was growing up. I was always most interested in my peers who had the best collections, and we became friends through these plastic objects. It's funny how such inanimate "things" created such lively discussion/bonds.
ReplyDeleteWhy would girls be obsessed with adult-shaped barbies, instead of infant-shaped baby dolls? One can observe such different psychology behind that. Barbies are norms, dreams and dreams of a little girl. They tell her what to become when she is growing up. If you look at how many overwhelming similarities among all barbies (mostly white, rich, extremely thin and tall) you can see them how powerful socializing agents these "inanimate things" are.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! d.