These days, a lot of things are born from (sometimes not so) humble beginnings in the cyberspace realm. The influence of social media on our culture is impossible to ignore. Beyond Gangnam style and other wacky memes of the moment, there can be influences that extend into the physical world around us. Case in point: Child doll favorite (and highly disproportionate) Barbie will soon have a new friend. Next year Mattel will introduce Bald and Beautiful Barbie, a doll created for children who may be going through cancer treatments or have lost their hair due to alopecia.
Last January, Jane Bingham and Rebecca Sypin started a Facebook page and a petition on Change.org suggesting such a doll be produced, in honor of Sypin’s daughter and Bingham herself, both of whom lost their hair due to cancer treatment. Sypin told MSNBC in January that she thought the bald Barbie would be therapeutic, and would help baldness become “normal.” The campaign has created over 150,000 “likes”.
Mattel at first ignored the request, responding by saying they receive hundreds of requests for different types of Barbie dolls to be produced and then promoted their philanthropic efforts to children’s hospitals. Later, Mattel complied, agreeing to make a bald friend of Barbie. She won’t be available in stores, however. Mattel will instead donate the dolls to hospitals and to the National Alopecia Areata Foundation.
From Mattel’s FB page:
“Through a thoughtful approach, we made the decision not to sell these dolls at retail stores, but rather get the dolls directly into the hands of children who can most benefit from the unique play experience, demonstrating Mattel’s ongoing commitment to encourage play as a respite for children in the hospital and to bring joy to children who need it most.”
More drama was stirred up by the controversial post written by Andrew Becker, the Director of Media at the American Cancer Society, stating “to the extent that this effort is about fighting cancer, we should ask ourselves what it accomplishes, who would benefit, and while we’re at it, how about asking if a bald Barbie could in fact do more harm than good.”
His comment sparked a wrathful upset among supporters. Becker apologized: “When I set out to write, I wanted to raise questions about activism and social media around disease. I did not mean to imply that I or the American Cancer Society believes that sick children are not important.”
I don’t know about more harm than good, but Becker might have another point. How do we measure the benefit of something like the bald Barbie on the fight against cancer? And is a consumer product like the Bald and Beautiful Barbie a form of design for social value or a PR move to placate the masses? Criticisms abound. The influence of a social media campaign forces a company to take action or at least, respond, whether it be in agreement or not. It will be interesting to see what other types of change are created by harnessing that social power—an approach some may already have figured out.
