Barbie Literati

A reflection, an immersive Barbie World, & a Contest

I’ve always been obsessed with the Barbie website. Peak internet. I have a core memory of designing a dreamhouse on one of the games on the website, different from the computer game (cd rom I THINK) where I could give a more 3D Barbie a makeover and send her to some party

I remember choosing wooden floors and a beach-y window, thinking how exotic it felt compared to my carpeted life in Kansas.

I was a Barbie girl alright, but I was a computer Barbie girl the second I was back in my room and could sit down at my desk. There is a moment in G00D G1RL inspired by a memory on my drive to compete in Miss Teen USA.

I was going into the gas station to change. As I came out of the bathroom, seventeen and all dolled up, this woman looked at me and goes “you look like a Barbie.”

This made me giddy, at seventeen. Barbie was beautiful, glamorous, American, and a week or so later, I’d go onto win Miss Teen USA. When I returned to Kansas later that year for my homecoming, my state director got me a giant cake built around a Barbie made to look like me.

Now, I live in New York. I wake up every day excited to put on a new outfit. I have wooden floors, even though I don’t have a beach view ( I don’t enjoy driving enough to live in California (yet)).

I write. I also work in tech. Something about getting a PC at 5 and spending hours in front of it will make you work in tech. I run a digital (and irl) community. Every time I redesign the Hot Literati website, I am always thinking of the Barbie website.

Barbie sort of taught me that I could do anything I wanted to do, be anyone I wanted to be.

And now, at 24, I am finally going to an irl Barbie dreamhouse, or rather the Barbie Streamhouse ₊✩‧

₊˚౨ৎ˚₊✩‧₊ powered by Verizon₊✩‧₊˚౨ৎ˚₊✩‧₊

(Verizon, I'm basically Barbie Literati, can I have my own streamhouse? If you can make it rent controlled I'll have my wedding in your FiDi Office and let page 6 take a picutre of me taking a picture of my wedding cake with a Verizon powered iPhone).

Barbie has wifi.

So do you.

You can be anything.

You can make anything.

Welcome to the 21st century.

The streamhouse is powered by Verizon. It will be interactive, and I’m going to a private press preview before it opens ( it will be open to the public Dec 12-15).

HOT LITERATI BARBIE CONTEST

I’m looking for one reader to come with me.

I’ll be picking a winner December 4th at 8pm ET.

TO ENTER:

Write a >500 word reflection on your relationship to Barbie. Use the hashtag #barbieliterati so we can find it!

(must be a paid subscriber to win)

Hot Literati is supported by you all. Upgrade to a paid sub to help (and to unlock a bunch of cool chatter and community)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING. SO GRATEFUL FOR EACH AND EVERY ONE OF U