BarbieGirls
BarbieGirls was an online virtual world Mattel booted up in 2007 and shut down in 2011. You could sign up for free or automatically become a VIP member by buying a Barbie-shaped MP3 player with mix-and-match clothes (I think I had this one). Otherwise, VIP membership cost $5.99 a month in 2008
But VIP gave you access to the game’s main function, shopping. Though the game was billed as an innovative, ballooning virtual world for girls, its main draw, at least for me, was buying and putting cute clothes onto my skinny white girl avatar. Interestingly, in 2007, Engadget called the site an MMO for “little nerds in training,” a path to “more ‘mature’ communities such as [World of Warcraft], Second Life.” But most of what I remember about this game is that it was pink. And that I, possibly, at one point, adopted a purse-sized dog.
With my adult brain, I’d call BarbieGirls more “eating disorder in training” than for “little nerds.” But a non-profit team is currently working on bringing a version of the now 11-years-dead site back with more body, race, and gender inclusivity in a project they call Barbie Girls Rewritten. I’m excited to see how (if at all) transitioning a virtual world for girls from its 2011 vision of womanhood to a modern one changes what it looks like.
