It's a Barbie World

In the age of TikTok and Instagram, the original lifestyle influencer fulfills her true calling

- By Delia Cai

It's another beautiful day for content creation, at least according to the sky blue backdrop rigged outside the windows of one tasteful midcentury-modern Malibu dream home in particular, though strictly temporally speaking, we’re in El Segundo. Indoors, seated among an embarrassment of houseplants, a young woman strikes a pose with her stylish friends. There’s a month’s worth of content to shoot this week— such is the life of catering to just over 3 million Instagram and TikTok followers—so she’s assembled a team to help. From a few inches away, her stylist leans forward and adjusts the tilt of a hand while our star influencer smiles patiently, plastically, under the crush of lights. Barbie is nothing if not a professional.

“The smallest little movement can make it look like a doll,” says Zlatan Kusnoor with a sigh that says yes, I am aware this is a doll. Kusnoor, a senior creative manager and art director at toy maker Mattel, oversees Barbie’s social media presence and is my unofficial tour guide today. Peering through his round, Apfelian glasses, he suggests lifting Barbie’s head a little to zhuzh up the faux on-camera eye contact. Barbie’s photographer, producer, and social media manager look on. Her wardrobe stylist stands nearby with a backup top and skirt and is at the ready, if things get truly dire, to make a run to the doll head cabinet.