A Ukrainian woman who turned herself into a real-life Barbie has been all over the Internet recently: a twenty-something blond from the Ukrainian city Odessa morphed into a living Barbie with the help of plastic surgery, eyelash extensions and colored contact lenses. She’s posing in pictures as the iconic plastic Barbie doll made by Mattel.

Her doll-like images appear weirdly convincing, although after taking a closer look at her it turns out she is not such a Barbie doll after all: she’s just a regular Eastern European chick, who used some amateur PR tools available in our digital age and magically got her moment of fame, involuntarily fooling Western media, hungry for anything sensational and not bothering to do their research, especially if the subject comes from a foreign country.

It’s interesting to see how taking something as shallow as the Ukrainian Barbie story out of context creates a sensation. A few weird-looking pictures of a 5 ft. 7 inch tall girl with wide empty-looking eyes, a tiny, heavily lipsticked mouth, and fake bust — accompanied by a couple of comments calling her a real-life size doll — became a sensational story that wound up on major media websites, such as ABC news and Business Insider.

The matter has been discussed in all seriousness. “Plastic surgery should not been used to transform oneself into a favorite celebrity or, in this case, a plastic toy,” the President of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons said. “If society expects women to look like that, it is harder for almost any woman to totally resist it, ” said the author of the book “So Sexy So soon: The Next Sexualized Childhood and How Parents Can Protect Their Kids” in an interview on abcnews.com.

Not everyone has looked for depth. Most questioned whether her images had been Photoshop’d, and if they haven’t, what exactly was altered by surgeries. Slim waist? She’s taken a couple of ribs out. Narrow, doll-like chin? Surgically reduced jaw. Breast implants? Well, this is something that Barbie herself doesn’t deny in her videos in which she goes over each detail of her appearance. According to her, getting breast implants is a procedure of the same sort as visiting a dentist. Real-life Barbie explains that slim waist is genetically inherited by women in her family, however, she admits that some creative make up helps to enhance her natural beauty.

According to the Barbie’s social networks profiles, her name is Valeria Lukyanova, she’s in her early twenties, a graduate from Odessa State Academy of Constructions and Architecture. The girl seems to be somewhat confused about her course in life. Barbie-like appearance is only one slice of her rich personality. She blogs, writes songs, is interested in New Age spirituality and is into out-of-body experiences. With the help of her little i-Phone camera, Lukyanova records incoherent video messages and posts them on YouTube. The young lady likes talking about her own beauty and uniqueness, and openly addresses questions of her possible plastic surgeries.

She likes to give advice: her statements are full of wisdom about life, finding the right way to live, not expecting manna falling from heaven, and anti-alcohol philosophies. In her videos she appears, though, as if under the influence of something, with her head leaning towards one shoulder, as if her neck is incapable of staying vertical, her eyes looking above the camera as she’s elucidates.

In her short travel videos she looks pretty much like a provincial tourist from Eastern Europe, wrapped tightly in a spandex dress, wobbling in her stilettos, trying to walk over some ancient ruins among other tourists dressed in shapeless jeans and white sneakers.

Not long ago Traveler’s digest magazine put Russia and Ukraine among the top five countries with the most beautiful women, naming Kyiv home to the world’s most beautiful ladies. Sure, Barbie Lukyanova is a true representative of her land. But with no real interesting story behind that Barbie phenomena the most interesting thing becomes how western media has blown it completely out of proportion and created sensation where none existed.

Spoiler:

Great White wrote:

Asherian Command wrote:

Great White wrote:

Broken link is broken.
Slowly but surely she is a Daemonette and Servant of Slaanesh.
Slowly but surely, Chaos is beginning to grow.

Amaya wrote:I can't honestly say that she isn't anything less than very attractive, but that's not the issue. She doesn't look natural. She looks like a Final Fantasy character brought to life and that isn't a good thing.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:Any pictures of her before the surgery?
I don't like her like this. It looks...unnatural. I don't mind plastic surgery perse, I mean its her body after all.
But hell's bell's that looks disturbing.

Bromsy wrote:I'd hit it.

dogma wrote:Heidi Montag, take 2.

Chowderhead wrote:
Everything about this screams totally unnecessary.

dogma wrote:

Chowderhead wrote:
Everything about this screams totally unnecessary.

If I recall correctly she later got another, larger set of breast implants.

I suppose I can see the buttock augmentation if she was particularly insecure about that, its fairly difficult (and depend on genetics, occasionally impossible) to develop your glutes.