A new doll hoping to promote individuality has consumed the toy market with its realistic body structure and comical, yet slightly creepy, add-ons.
“Normal Barbie,” released by toy creator Nickolay Lamm, looks like an average teenage girl with a little more meat around her plastic bones than your typical Barbie doll. She was made based on “human body proportions to promote realistic beauty standards," according to the website.
“I wanted to show that reality is cool,” Lamm told TIME. “And a lot of toys make kids go into fantasy, but why don’t they show real life is cool?”
The doll is successful in capturing the “average” looks of a teen, and is equipped with moveable joints and a wardrobe popular for the masses.
“She looks like a real person,” a second-grader reacting to the doll says in the latest viral video.
In a separate sticker pack, doll lovers can buy glasses, moles and freckles to customize their girl. This reminds girls that everyone is unique with different features and marks that differentiate us from any other girl (or doll) on the street (or shelf).
However, the doll pushes this realness to a strange level with add-on stickers for acne, scars, cuts and bruises. The idea behind the addition is a cute one, reminding kids that things like acne happen as we grow with age and there’s nothing to be embarrassed about, but it also makes playing with dolls a much less innocent pastime. More than anything, kids should be having fun with dolls.
The doll also goes overboard with stickers that resemble cellulite and stretch marks, something most kids don’t really know about until later in life.
“Unleashing a doll with stretch marks on the Internet is basically asking for trouble,” TIME reporter Laura Stampler said.
The doll itself, in terms of proportions and make, seems really authentic and stands out from every other size-0 Barbie doll lining the shelves of toy stores, pretending to make a difference in the toy world.
Children may appreciate the cuts, bruises and scratches on stickers because these are the boo-boo’s most kids under 10 are use to seeing on their own body. But the stretch marks and the mosquito bites are just a little too strange to be feasibly used during playtime.
The doll comes at pretty penny for parents, starting at $25.00 for the “exclusive first addition”, not to mention all of the extra costs for the worldly clothing packs and body blemish stickers.
The doll was a crowdfunding effort produced by Lamm who responded to a call from an audience asking, “When are we going to get a realistic looking doll?” Now a doll like that is here — albeit a somewhat creepy one — but the momentum needs to keep moving forward with encouragement that individuality doesn’t come from just looks, but from personality, too.
Toy makers are on the right path to normalizing dolls through changing skin color and body structure. Dolls aren’t just skinny blonde replicas of what we wish we looked like. These toys are becoming mirror images of who we are happy to be.
Reach the columnist at rsmouse@asu.edu or follow her on Twitter @BeccaSmouse
Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
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