Sad Shocking Story Behind Real-Life Barbie & Her Boyfriend
Pressing unrealistic beauty standards of Human Barbie.
Since the 2000s the Barbie doll by Mattel has been the face of pop-culture trends and styles. It has survived changes in fashion and beauty trends and to this day remains one of the biggest brands marketed to children, especially girls all over the world.
For the majority of us, Barbie is just a seemingly harmless toy whose only distinction from other toys is timeless. For others however, Barbie is not just a childhood memory or an old favorite doll long forgotten.
For some, Barbie is almost a lifestyle and a model to shape them by. Don’t believe that someone could give this much importance to a piece of plastic? Well then, you’re gonna want to keep reading because this is about to get interesting.
Meet Valeria, the Woman Who “Naturally” Resembles a Barbie Doll
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Valeria Lukyanova, who claims that her doll-like figure and looks are natural and not achieved through surgeries, currently lives in Ukraine and is of Nordic origin with Russian roots.
On many accounts all she has done is deny her very obvious surgeries and to date has only acknowledged one surgery; breast enhancement. At 38 years, she is a picture in thick blond hair, long legs, a cinched, ultra-slim waist, and a 34E bra size. She also wears blue contact lenses to hide her green eyes.
Watch Out Though! The Barbie Doesn’t Like Being Called a Barbie!
Valeria gained popularity through Instagram and while one may argue that she must have carefully planned and executed her own rise to fame, this real-life Barbie herself claims that she had no intention of going viral.
She will swear that her looks are natural and only enhanced by an extensive make-up routine but will never admit to having forged herself into a body that conveniently fits every beauty standard in the book. She has also many a time clarified that she does not fancy being dubbed a Barbie and describes herself as just a classy girl.
While it is futile to deny that the body shape of the Barbie doll was created specifically to cater to the male gaze and to men’s fantasies, Valeria herself admits that she never intended to attract men.
Having had a Goth past as seen from pictures from her teenage years, Valeria has numerous stories of successfully steering men away from herself. In one interview, she retold a story from her teenage years where she accidentally scratched a guy’s hand with her spiked Gothic bracelets when he tried to hold hers.
The Real Reason behind Valeria’s Transformation
Sources cite that Valeria moved to Ukraine’s port city of Odesa in the early years of her life, and many feminists and psychologists believe this could have been the main reason for her transformation.
In Odesa, sex and marriage agencies work at large and brokers run rampant to try to find an ideal wife for a typical Western husband. The media portrays an unrealistic image of women and who they are expected to be and the public eats it up. Marriage is amongst the many expectations that weigh women down and women are raised to excel at two things, marriage, and motherhood.
Feminists believe it makes perfect sense that Valeria should have wanted to become exactly like a Barbie doll that is marketed to many young girls as the perfect version of a woman.
It seems fitting that living in such an environment would have affected her and given her an overwhelming urge to physically and mentally mold herself into the person she is expected to be.
One feminist has even quoted that Valeria might just be exactly what men dream about.
Guess What? There Exists A Real-Life Ken Too!
As shocking of a fact as it might come as, there does exist a man who has undergone numerous surgeries to become a real-life Ken.
Justin Jedlica, a Slovak-American man has admitted to having undergone a staggering 190 cosmetic enhancements as of 2012 to look exactly like a Ken doll. His procedures cost him $800,000 and he started this journey at the ripe age of 18.
Although he claims that surgeries are an art, a small peep into his childhood and the media he consumed growing up will expose how surgeries were more of a metal corruption in Jedlica’s case.
He grew up watching shows and programs that portrayed cosmetic surgeries and enhancements as the epitome of wealthy lifestyles and throughout his teen years, he sought to emulate them.
Saddistic Effect of Media on Body Image
Though both Valeria and Jedlica have lived in different cultures and grown up in different environments, one thing that was consistent in both their childhoods and early years was media and societal expectations.
Both of them were subject to inhumane, physically impossible, and mentally disastrous expectations which if maintained could lead to lasting side effects.
And of course, both of them made the decisions to rise up to these expectations and fulfill them and the results stand before us all; two alienated individuals who are a stark contrast to human reality.
Will we ever get out of this cycle?
This featured story conveys the limits to which humans can go to be acceptable in the eyes of other people. Or in their case some may argue that they went under the knife for their own happiness.
The real question is; ‘ Why seeking beauty is the plausible cause of their happiness involving such risks?’ Out of many reasons, it is definitive that social pressures and unrealistic standards lead people to such steps.
In my opinion, contararay to how the society defines beauty; these two people are the embodiment of perfection and class from the outside until you take a look inside and stumble upon the real reason of their being.
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