Do you like Barbies? Of course you do. Who doesn’t?
Well, for the price of just a few houses, you can now (finally!) become a Barbie. Yes, transforming into a “human Barbie” is actually a thing. There are bankers and marine biologists and architects and…Barbies. A couple of Kens have surfaced as well. They totally don’t look weird at all, either. Not at all. Nope. I haven’t heard news of any human Skippers yet, but I expect them shortly (not to mention a run on pink Corvettes). And I’m not saying any of this “turn yourself into a living doll” stuff is bad, though it seems—at first glance—to at least be stupid. In actuality, if the trend continues to grow more and more popular, it could end up improving us all.
The most recently publicized human Barbie, 16-year-old Lolita Richi, says that her look is completely natural, though she admits to sometimes wearing a push-up bra and special contacts to enhance the effect. Valeria Lukyanova, the Barbie who rose to fame before Richi and claims to be from another planet (I’m not making that up), has reportedly spent $800,000 to achieve her Barbie-ness. Why someone who can arrive here from another planet would need money to change herself—when she should just be able to utilize some form of advanced technology—is completely beyond me. She is also working to be a Breatharian, though, so I’m guessing you have to take everything she says with a healthy grain of salt. Breatharians, for those of you who don’t know, have the ability to subsist on air and light alone…until they die. What makes them different from us non-Breatharians is that they think they can subsist on air and light alone without dying; and sometimes they even prove this to be true for a while until, you know, it kills them. Valeria can supposedly time-travel too, though, so maybe she’s got a chance.
Now, as a Transhumanist, I’m fine with people modifying themselves however they wish to modify themselves, as long as they’re not hurting anyone. If you would like a different nose or a different smile; if you would like to take advantage of new technologies in order to live longer, learn faster, have stronger bones or even look generally more vampire-esque—then go for it. You may not achieve the happiness you’re seeking, but, then again, you might. Either way, how you choose to upgrade yourself is, I believe, your choice and nobody else’s.
And if, somewhere in the near future, droves of human Barbies—looking all strange on the outside and crazy on the inside—cause yet more average-looking Barbie dolls (the actual toys) to be created, thus driving the unrealistically-proportioned Barbies of years past farther and farther from favor, then the ‘improving’ I mentioned above may be close at hand. For the look of the Barbie, and even the Ken, won’t be so unattainable anymore; girls and boys will pretty much already have that look looking back at them from their own mirrors. Dolls may then be seen even more clearly as mere markers of changing ideas and times—certainly nothing to live your life by. And, with that, Barbie’s work will be done.