Tatooed Barbie

I was interested to find that Mattel have launched the 'Totally Stylin' Tattoos Barbie'. They tried to launch a doll that had tattoos in 1999, the 'Butterfly Art Barbie', but had to discontinue that doll because of the number of complaints from parents. It will be interesting to see if, ten years later, the same concerns emerge. Meanwhile, the photographer Diane Amato had already got some insider shots of Barbie's Tattoo Parlour.

Barbie celebrations

Just what Barbie-lovers (or maybe haters?) everywhere have always wanted, jewellery made from hacked-off Barbie body parts. Margaux Lange makes quite mind-boggling jewellery that is now getting talked about in the New York Times. Perhaps she will be invited by Mattel to make a special 50th anniversary medallion or something, given it is Barbie's half-century celebration year. And what a year it promises to be, with a 'House of Barbie' department store due to open in Shanghai (see report here) and a Barbie fashion show during the New York Fashion Week in February.In addition, as Mattel inform their shareholders, Barbie is also to have her own Facebook page - what about a Twitter stream? That way we can get to hear about every move she makes in her 50th year. Mmm - now where did I put that Swiss Army knife...?

Virtual worldz

The virtual world market for young children continues to grow, with the news that Disney have just bought Club Penguin for 350 million dollars(set to be £700m if the site meets targets). In the meantime, check out Webkinz, which requires you to purchase a pet in the 'real' world before you can join the virtual one. A parent writes about his six-year-old son's experience of using it here. A big and growing business - just let's hope the producers begin to offer better fare for girls than the Barbie experience. Scary, then, that the Barbie Girls virtual world will soon be bigger than Second Life in terms of membership...

Children's virtual worlds

I have been observing my 5-, 8- and 9-year-old nieces as they navigate the virtual worlds 'Club Penguin' and 'Barbie Girls'. Interestingly, the social side of this 'social software' appears to take second-place to identity construction and shopping (and therefore needing to earn enough money to shop). Children's play has been embedded within commercialised practices for many years, but this engagement with a virtual labour market is novel. Some parents may no doubt quite like the idea of their children developing a work ethic, but it seems to me that this aspect of these worlds mitigates against more extensive social involvement and further entrenches children in the markets of globalised commodities. For example, the Barbie virtual shopping experience is linked to the 'real'-word purchase of a Barbie MP3 player - once you have purchased that (with 'real' $s, not 'Barbie bucks'), you can buy more, even cooler, things in the online world. I guess what is going on here is little different to some of the adult activity in virtual worlds - this is, as we know, a booming real-word economy. This analysis of virtual (or 'synthetic') world economies draws on Bourdieu's concepts of economic, social and cultural capital, concepts as relevant to these spaces as 'meat-space'. Certainly, an analysis of the interactions of these three forms of capital can help to illuminate much of the current activity in 'Club Penguin' and 'Barbie World' and is informing a current paper I am writing, which I will post here when I set up the appropriate feeder site. It will be interesting to hear about the project Guy is involved in, in which he is working with schools on constructing and using a virtual world - what form of capital becomes of most value in an educationally-orientated virtual world? Virtual cultural capital?