There’s a strange new trend: Young girls are dressing up as real life Barbie dolls.
Staring doe-eyed at the camera, with cupids bow lips and a porcelain complexion Dakota Rose has been hailed a real-life Barbie.
Known to her fans as Kota Koti, she has amassed a global audience with her YouTube fashion and beauty tutorials.
In most of the videos she remains silent while subtitles provide the viewer with a step-by-step guide on how to apply cosmetics, style hair or dress fashionably.
‘I usually prefer something lighter. I would only wear this to a club, night-time event,’ she writes below a 6 minute video demonstrating how to apply ‘nighttime eye make up’.
It is said that Dakota is especially popular across Asia as her sense of style appears to be inspired by the Japanese anime culture, in which big eyes and long straight hair are key features.
Little is known about the teenager but some websites suggest she is aged between 16 and 18 and from the west coast of America.
Despite her growing success, some commentators have warned that she could encourage the sexualization of children.
A Bolivian newspaper, Opinion.com.bo reported: ‘Thousands of girls around the world have shown interest in this girl, wanting to look like her.
‘It is a great risk that girls are being influenced in this way.’
But Dakota is not the only one to have fashioned herself as a living Barbie.
Venus Palermo, known online as Venus Angelic, is a 15-year-old girl who has also taken to the internet detailing how to look like a living doll.
After spending time in Japan and inspired by the craze for Japanese anime she decided to give her image an overhaul on her return to London two years ago.
She now has 78 videos on her official YouTube page – ranging from makeup tutorials and nail art to dancing and her Facebook page boasts over 13,000 fans.
While Venus said. ‘I don’t think that I will ever stop. I think I will grow in my style and just keep doing what I love.’
While the living doll-look is going global, in Asia it has been a long-running trend.
As early as 2010 it was reported that an increasing amount of Japanese women were aspiring to look like dolls, embracing femininity and obliterating sexuality altogether.
Naoko Kamijyo, then 19, told the New York Times: ‘I’m no great beauty, but I love to be made up. I want to change myself, to be unrecognizable. Who wants to go through life just being themselves?’
She reportedly woke up at 5am every morning, spending at least two hours applying false eyelashes, false hair extensions, layers of foundation and other makeup products in a bid to look like a Barbie doll.
A recent poll in Taiwan of 13,000 students revealed nearly half started surfing the internet before the age of seven, and some start as young as three.
It found a correlation between the frequency of online social networking and the level of concern with appearance and self-image.
Sadie Whitelocks
Daily Mail
D_a_t_e____T_a_l_l___w_o_m_e_n___in_our_club.
L_O_O_K____M_Y__N_A_M_E.
real life Barbies! great, 'cause I'm hung like Ken.
So you have nothing then
That "woosh" sound was a joke flying over your head.
venus u r really nice
wow, I saw her on youtube,…cool girl. but she don't look like a normal woman.
Reblogged this on Espacio de MANON.
This is disgusting! Young girls should be happy with the way they are. Whats more scary is that these youtube postings could be tempting to child molesters.
she is pretty but its better to see a lady with her natural beauty….