Meet Dakota Ostrenga. You might know her by her by her online moniker, Dakota Rose. Or in Asia, she's Kotakoti.
In the last few months, she's made a name with her photos and YouTube vids. She's one of those Japan-inspired living dolls. Buzzfeed called her "The Real-Life Barbie".
Earlier this month, she made her debut on Japanese TV, which showed one of her cute YouTube vids. A Japanese talent agency even signed her, saying she's going to be a star in The Land of the Rising Sun.
Everything is breaking Dakota's way. No wonder there are apparently efforts to hide her past, which is anything but doll-like.
A series of videos are circulating on YouTube called "The Real Kotakoti" and seem to show Dakota and her sister calling each homophobic slurs. The videos are from a few years back, and they depict quite a different Dakota than the one who is currently on YouTube demonstrating Final Fantasy hairdos. She's not prim and proper. And she looks more like a rag doll than a porcelain one.
Dakota's sister, Kiki Kannibal, was featured in Rolling Stone last year. Kiki was an internet celebrity—who discovered just how scary and awful internet fame could be.
Like Kiki, Dakota was just a kid with a MySpace account. And in those days, both spent a lot of time online, shooting their mouths off—as evident by these surviving clips. They show Kiki and a very different Dakota. Not only her features look different (fueling online rumors), her demeanor is totally different.
There's lots of footage here; most of it is of Kiki. And, yes, this could be part of some sort of smear campaign. But according to YouTube user Eundunja, Dakota's mother Cathy is supposedly trying to have these clips taken down.
"They're trying extremely hard to attempt to suppress this information and keep the video from getting out because they know it's beginning to spread, and because people are beginning to realize what disgusting, vile people they are," Eundunja wrote.
Look, people change. Sometimes it's their appearance. Sometimes it's the way they act or think. And sometimes they start using YouTube instead of MySpace.