#please can we chat about barbie? i promise i'll be normal.

[magicalgirlagency]

Someone PLEASE ask me about Barbie trivia; I am SO normal about her and her brand, I promise.

EDIT: The beast has been unleashed.

Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts. Meanwhile in real life, the doll was named after Ruth Handler's daughter, Barbara (while Ken was named after Kenneth);

Ruth was Mattel's co-founder, alongside her husband Elliot and their friend Harold "Matt" Matson (the company's name is a junction of the names Matt and Elliot). Of course, the Barbie brand is the most profitable one;

The doll was based on another doll, Bild Lilli, from Germany. It was originally intended for adults, but it became mostly popular with children. When Mattel acquired Lili's rights after a legal fight, the german doll's productions ceased in favor of Barbie;

According to Mattel, Barbie has had over 200 careers, recently including more STEM fields. Each career is created to give the child an option to explore new things and motivate them in pursuing a future passion;

There were several controversies about Barbie's body. Not because of her impossibly curvy silhouette, but also because of her mature looks. Many parents would be unhappy about the fact that the doll had breasts and such;

Other controversy would be the Teen Talk Barbie doll, a toy that would say superficial and vapid "dumb-blonde" phrases such as "Math class is tough!". The Simpsons had an episode referencing this fiasco (Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy, in 1994);

As an addendum, there was a group known as the Barbie Liberation Organization, which its members have secretly modified Barbie dolls' voice boxes into G.I. Joe dolls;

Barbie debuted in 1959, while her boyfriend Ken debuted in 1961. As much as we love to riff on him being Barbie's Trophy Husband/Himbo, he's also got the extensive list of careers, ranging from Olympic Athlete to Doctor;

Barbie has a cousin named Francie, who was marketed as "her modern cousin". She had a "colored" variant, which would later prompt the creation of Christie, the first black doll ever created to not be a derivate of a white doll. Francie also had other two friends, named Casey and Becky;

Speaking of black dolls, there is another one named Brooklyn. Actually, that's her nickname, as her real name is Barbie. She's nicknamed after her birthplace, Brooklyn, NY, to make things less confusing;

Midge was introduced in 1963, and had less makeup than Barbie, after the doll was considered "sexually intimidating", and would be often be discontinued and brought back constantly. Her Happy Family series was the most controversial, as it was the target of many accusations of promoting teen pregnancy;

Midge's boyfriend/husband, Allan, was initially marketed as Ken's best friend in the 60's, but he was also discontinued after rumors of two of them being boyfriends began to spread;

MyScene (unironically, my favourite Barbie doll line) was created to compete with MGA's Bratz, and had many controversies surrounding it that have led into another legal fight, which have caused the Bratz line to be temporarily discontinued;

There was an attempt in a virtual world à la Club Penguin called BarbieGirls.com, and while it was ambitious for its time period (it had a customizable MP3 player!), it has suffered several issues such as a lack of diversity and discrepancies and inaccessibilities per country;

Another addendum to this story, is that there is an actual group of people working on ressurrecting BarbieGirls (known as BarbieGirls Rewritten), making it more diverse and with less microtransactions;

The BCU (Barbie Cinematic Universe) so far has 42 movies, starting with Barbie in The Nutcracker in 2001. Fairytopia was the first movie to not be based on an existent storyline, and spawned its own trilogy (Fairytopia ➡️ Mermadia ➡️ Magic of the Rainbow);