Liposuction for Barbie: The Appalling App That Sparked A Twitter Campaign

There is a house that sits dolefully on an Atlantic-battered cliff close to my childhood home. My grandmother used to play in its garden when she was a child, but that grassy lawn is long gone.

Because that's what erosion does. One small wave after another, subtly destroying a child's playground, until one day someone looks up  and wonders how the hell that happened. Erosion is the baby-stepped assassin. But sometimes a vigilant onlooker manages to throw a sandbag in the way of a wave that is intent on doing damage.

And this week's Twitter feed proved just that.

Social media was alive this week with the story of the Twitter account that took a stand. @EverydaySexism started by bringing Apple's delightful "Plastic Surgery for Barbie" app to our attention, which may be one of the most disturbing and sexist apps ever to show it's (liposuctioned) face.

The game was launched last week, aimed at children aged nine and over. It gave users the opportunity to make incisions with a scalpel and perform liposuction. Nice. The overweight Barbie was labeled "ugly" and required a plethora of medical procedures on her "problem areas" to create a slimmer version of her former self. Well, there's a wonderful lesson for young girls to learn.

The description of the game was equally dubious:

"This unfortunate girl has so much extra weight that no diet can help her. In our clinic she can go through a surgery called liposuction that will make her slim and beautiful. We'll need to make small cuts on problem areas and suck out the extra fat. Will you operate her, doctor?"

It is such a manipulative move to use the child-friendly Barbie reference as a hook. The creators of the original blonde plastic bombshell, Mattel, have distanced themselves from the app and have made the following statement:

"At Mattel, we take our commitment to children seriously and work hard to ensure there are no unauthorized uses of our brands that may be unsafe or inappropriate for children"

Google Play had their own version of the game. According to the UK's Independent, the app description on "Plastic Surgery" suggests that it has been installed between 500,000 and 1 million times.

The description of this one is actually bordering on the hilarious, both in its grammar and its content. To be honest, I'd love to go for dinner with Barbara.

“Barbara likes to eat a lot of burgers and chocolates and once she found that she looks ugly. She can’t make it up with situation any additional second. And today plastic surgeon is going to make operation on her body and face in order to return cute Barbara’s look. She is afraid of all of this.”

@EverydaySexism launched a campaign earlier in the week to have the apps removed. It triggered an avalanche of retweets and gained momentum within minutes. It sparked anger and disgust across the Twitter sphere, with both apps being pulled within hours.

This story really made an impression on me, mostly because I wondered what kind of an impression those apps would make on a child.

Sure, it's only an app and there are worse atrocities in the world. But it stood out to me as yet another example, yet another wave that is attacking the right of a woman to own and to appreciate her own body. And to do this without being judged incessantly and held up against a standard that is, at best, unrealistic and at worst, misogynistic.

Add to that a strong undercurrent of erosion of that innocence of childhood, and that's surely an app too far.

Did you see this campaign raging on Twitter? What do you think about these apps and their demise? Tell us in the comments.