Day 286 (The Barbie Standard)

Things I Learned In 2009

#4. There are women who actually want to be Barbies.

If you consider yourself a "Barbie" anything, you might not want to read this.


Still here? OK. I gave you fair warning.

I hope you got some Kevlar.



There is a alarming trend spreading like wildfire throughout the female gender. No one quite knows where it started, but what I can do is show you it's biggest offender:




This here is the 'Harajuku Barbie' herself, Nicki Minaj.

First off, let's see exactly what a Barbie is:

Barbie is a fashion doll manufactured by the American toy-company Mattel, Inc. and launched in March 1959. American businesswoman Ruth Handler (1916-2002) is credited with the creation of the doll using a German doll called Bild Lilli as her 'inspiration'.

So, it's a toy. A children's toy at that. But what makes a grown woman want to be a children's toy?

Barbie syndrome is a term used to loosely describe the desire to have a physical appearance and lifestyle representative of the infamous Barbie doll. It is most often associated with pre-teen and adolescent females but is applicable to any age group. Usually it is female youth that will attempt because it is associated with puberty and the awkward stages. The child will want to look her best and most beautiful to males and believes in looking beautiful like Barbie, though Barbie has radical body proportions. Someone afflicted with Barbie syndrome strives for an unattainable body type.

Barbie syndrome, huh? So, let's get this right. Grown women, all around the country (and world) are calling themselves Barbies. They want to be fashionistas, have the body type, and pretty much attract any man they can. But let's look at Barbie's proportions:

A standard Barbie doll is 11.5 inches tall, giving a height of 5 feet 9 inches at 1/6 scale. Barbie's vital statistics have been estimated at 36 inches (chest), 18 inches (waist) and 33 inches (hips). According to research by the University Central Hospital in Helsinki, Finland, she would lack the 17 to 22 percent body fat required for a woman to menstruate. In 1965, Slumber Party Barbie came with a book entitled How to Lose Weight which advised: "Don't eat." The doll also came with pink bathroom scales reading 110 lbs., which would be around 35 lbs. underweight for a woman 5 feet 9 inches tall.

So, let's get THIS straight. Women want to be called a piece of plastic that is underweight with proportions that are not only damaging to health, but nigh unobtainable?

That's sickening.

Every day, I log into Facebook, and I see ANOTHER woman calling herself a Barbie. I get on Twitter, and it's @BarbieBlahBlah or whatever their screen name is. I see a group of women falling failing for another trend, one that won't last. Just yesterday, I was in line and I saw a woman with a "Barbie" tattoo on her arm.

Women, you've got to be smarter than this. You're walking around perpetuating a subculture that is being led by THAT Queen Bee above. While everybody has their own subculture that they belong to, please, think smarter about being led around by a woman who really isn't what she says she is.

Being a Barbie means some things, but not what you think. If you're a Barbie; you're an airhead, you're plastic, malnourished, you can't menstruate, and you're constantly walking around looking for Ken, and that guy has no genitalia at all. You're not real. You're a figment of a woman's imagination and I can guarantee you that she didn't imagine this. Hell, she's not imagining anything; she's dead. What makes her figment worse is, she basically STOLE this idea from someone else. Not only are you not real, but you're not even original!

How about from now on, I want women to say they are WOMEN, not little plastic toys. You Barbies out there can try to dress this up any way you can; say that it represents power for a woman, or the ability to have what you want. Let me ask you a question: when did a Barbie ever have a job that didn't involve her bust? Hell, her little sisters Skipper and Stacy had real jobs. What the hell does Barbie do for a living? Eat and throw up? Wait for Ken to come home with that money so she can go buy her "Barbie Mansion"? Drive around in her Corvette and burn up gas all day? I've NEVER seen a Doctor Barbie, Real Estate Barbie, Lawyer Barbie, etc. But they had a Baywatch Barbie in a swimsuit. They had a Stewardess Barbie with the outfit so ridiculous that they took her off the shelves the next year. Is this REALLY the image you want to pass along to your children and nieces and cousins?

You really want to be fake? The second you come in contact with a little heat, you melt. Nothing about you is real, yet you want to be taken seriously. That defies all logic.

But by all means, who am I to stop you? I'm just an ordinary dude. Laughing at you along with the rest of the world.



Stop being plastic.

*shots fired*