This article is published in number 15 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until April 11, 2023
It’s another beautiful day for the content creationat least according to the blue sky background outside the windows of a dream home, in style mid-century modern, Of Malibu, even if in reality we are in El Segundo. Inside her, seated among a multitude of houseplants, a young woman strikes a pose with her elegant friends. This week we have to shoot a month of content – such is the life of those who deal with beyond 3 million followers on Instagram And TikTok –, so he put together a team to get help. Not far away, her stylist bends over to adjust the angle of one hand while our star influencer smiles patiently, plastically, under a large number of lights. Barbie she is a true professional.
“The movement more subtle can make it look like one doll», comments Zlatan Kusnoor with a sigh that intends to communicate the awareness that yes, it is a doll anyway. Senior creative manager and art director of Mattel, the toy company, falls to oversee Barbie’s social media presence and, today, act as my unofficial chaperone. Looking through his round Iris Apfel glasses, he suggests lifting Barbie’s head a bit to improve her – fictional – eye contact with the camera. Barbie’s photographer, producer and social media manager look on. The costume designer is nearby, with a spare top and skirt, ready, should things take a turn for the worse, to rush to the doll’s head locker.
All a matter of centimeters
Turn to the Barbie production studios it means constantly recalibrating one’s sense of proportion. Here the world shrinks to one-sixth of itself, from its three-room apartment, complete with tiny pink fridge, mini pink espresso machine and sparkling pool, to a whole universe of props and accessories that make life convincing, at least on screen. No detail is overlooked: a miniature pepper is flagged as suspiciously disproportionate; while another Barbie’s surgically precise manicure earns general approval.
It’s kind of like play with Barbie to the next level, serving what is probably the most knowledgeable and glamorous corporate presence on the Internet. On Instagram, with the username @barbiestyleour eternal Californian teenager (and her New York counterpart, Barbie «Brooklyn» Robertsrecently introduced) posts real-life pictures, red carpet appearances and selfies from her workout sessions. On TikTok, the platform on which she debuted in October 2021, Barbie’s videos received 8.8 million likes, try the ASMR (relaxation in response to certain sounds, such as the one obtained by blowing on microphonesed), shows off her amateur pottery skills and invites fans to watch her tidy up a bathroom (already ordered).
Dream life
Like every influencers of success, Barbie has learned to share her own aspirational “life”. with the necessary personality to give a hard time to the somewhat sad imitations of Kardashian-Jenner sisters filling up little girls’ social media feeds. The funniest part is that Barbie – or rather, the dozens of Mattel managers – is personally involved. On Instagram, she boasts of having survived the basic and minimal style of the 2000s; in a video “day in the life” by TikTokreflects on pros and cons of being a doll (pro: «Perfect haircut»; con: «It never grows»).
The ironic aspect of Barbie’s foray into the world of creators is the obvious debt that the current generation of influencers has towards him. Whether or not she was on Instagram, we’ve always lived in the world of Barbie on social media. Consider how the last sixty years – or so – spent changing clothes, adjusting jointed limbs and playing parts from CEO-astronaut-jetsetter-siren-cowgirl they trained us for the daily work of #OOTD posts (outfit of the day), #GRWM videos (cooked with me), and ongoing curation of our lives for public use. Becoming an influencer today means treating yourself and presenting your image as a branded product, or appearing as similar to Barbie as possible.
Think about the influencer/model Yaya in last year’s Palme d’Or-winning film, The triangle of sadness, enthusiastically posing for a photo with a plate of pasta he’ll never eat; or at tiktoker Bella Porch than in his album Dolls (2022) reacts to his fame by singing «Build a Bitch» («the construction of a bitch»). If once the term «Barbie» in pop culture derisively indicated the ditzy blondes and the artificial beautytoday the doll has become one again source of suction. Here then is the latest craze for thinness powered by Ozempicthe decline of the stigma against the plastic surgeryentire global supply chains retooled to meet the demand for fast fashion. The hot girls summer never ends and they say the bimbofication she’s back. And with it also the Barbiecore. Everything seems destined to grow over the course of the year, until it explodes on July 21, when the film Greta Gerwig Barbie will hit theaters. We are a long way from Little Women.
Welcome to Barbieland, where the doll is kicked out for not being perfect enough. The eagerly awaited film by Greta Gerwig arrives in theaters on July 20th. And there is also Dua Lipa, in the role of Barbie Sirena
In the art department, I’m invited to play with a pile of tiny bitten-in chicken wings that they’re preparing for a concept for the Super Bowl. I place them next to a brown paper delivery bag, also tiny, on which a micro receipt is already stapled, which Ken will have to bring to the Barbie party. “It’s really tiny,” explains Olivier Loranger Gagnon, who oversees the footage for TikTok, “but people notice it.”
In the realm of social media
To create a complete service for TikTok you need one team of at least 15 peopleincluding a stop motion animator whom I observe as she laboriously carries a Barbie with pink braids and headphones up a (obviously fake) grassy knoll, a few millimeters at a time. A full day of shooting translates into a 15-30 second video. «They are really small films», explains Kusnoor.