just seen someone criticize the divine comedy by saying that it’s not relatable which is of course incommensurably stupid because relatability should never be the only criterion through which one can judge the validity and quality of a piece of work &c but also. just because you tedious unimaginative losers have never been on a journey to hell and purgatory with your long dead favorite writer doesn’t mean others haven’t. happened to me
I had to Google “dora trampoline lightning” but I found it. This is it. This is the funniest image on the internet. Everyone can go home. It was fun while it lasted.
i know there’s a million articles & videos about this but i have my own viewpoint so i’m doing this for fun xx
1959- first glamour doll
barbie is introduced with stylized proportions, protruding eyelids, pouty lips and an aspirational luxurious look. she has a dramatic hourglass body (which would remain for a long time).
1967- youthful makeover
she’s given a new look with open eyes and an overall softer, younger style. this was short lived.
1971- malibu
thanks to the sun tan craze of the 70s, she sports a new look. including a whole new face - with an open smile for the first time. malibu barbie is likely the most recognizable doll by name, though this specific face didn’t last very long.
1977 - superstar
barbie as everyone knows her is born. her new face is still smiling, but more defined. her new look is flashy and proudly pink. all things that would remain going forward.
1983 - pretty superstar
the formula was set and proved successful, she continued her pink reign. superstar face remained, with larger and brighter eyes.
1991 - fantasy
for the first time, fantasy elements are introduced to the barbie universe. before then, she had remained relatively “realistic”. she still has the same face but her eyes are even bigger. this face remained until the late 90s, giving it a very long run.
1997- “rad” makeover
she gets a new face, which was designed by bob mackie in 1992 and used for collector dolls up until the mid 90s, when it was used for playline. this face has been one of the most used since.
2000 - millennium girl
new face! which was introduced in 1998. she now has almond shaped eyes and defined features. most drastically, she has a whole new body - with a navel for the first time.
2006 - chick flick makeover
barbie is replaced showcasing a new, rounder face and shorter body. this was also short lived.
2009 - fashionista
a return to her 2000 face and body, with added articulation. she has a flashier, sleeker style. that promotional picture specifically is among the most used. this face remained until the mid 2010’s, making it another long run along with the superstar face.
2014 - #relatable
a new face, with tweaked features from the last. though not significantly different. she has rounder eyes again and wears light makeup. the overall look is more low effort and down to earth. this face is the one currently being used as of 2023.
2023 - superstar margot
barbie the movie makes margot robbie the new face, giving her a real person’s features for the first time. the styling of the movie is full of callbacks to iconic moments, mostly from the 70s to the 90s. though this is only for this specific movie, it will likely impact her official playline look going forward.
You know how back in the pre-Internet days, it was nearly impossible to watch a TV series in its entirety because the local affiliate stations would deliberately air the episodes all out of order, then do some sort of statistical sorcery to figure out which particular episodes gave the
advertisers the best return for their dollar and just run those ten or twelve specific episodes in an endless semi-randomised rotation, and that was why every time you channel-surfed across a particular show it always seemed to be the same damn episode?
Twitter’s algorithm is literally the social media equivalent of that.
In middle/high school I put all the music I had on an off-brand mp3 player and would just set it to Shuffle All. I quickly realized the player’s shuffle fuction wasn’t purely random–it was weighted towards my favorite songs (aka the songs with the most plays).
Only I had never chosen those songs. They were just the random few to pop up the first time I shuffled everything, and they started playing more and more frequently as this horribly short-sighted algorithm fed itself bad data, until I was so annoyed at those few songs that I stopped listening entirely.
Anyway a few years later Facebook did the exact same thing with my friends list, siphoning me off from seeing most of my feed because OBVIOUSLY I interacted with them the most, therefore they must be my besties. But really they were just the only people showing up for me to interact with in the first place, until I was down to just a few people I never really talked to from high school, a college prof, and my racist uncle I kept calling out.
And shortly after that, YouTube followed suit, replacing “Subscriptions” with “Recommended” as the default category, and trying to find “things I liked” when it was really just whatever three channels I’d watched last, whatever unrelated viral vid it wanted to push that week, and weird perennials like Whose Line clips or lockpick reviews or YTPs that seem to hibernate for months at a time then return like locusts.
All this to say: the big mysterious algorithms that now run all the major platforms on the internet are never acting in your best interests. They’re just that junky mp3 player’s Shuffle All with a fresh coat of paint, and, to be clear, this is by design. They are VERY good at what they do, which is funneling users into nice predictable pockets of content that advertisers can exploit.
