How did other people influence the way you played Barbies?

"Commercials generally gave me the idea that I should be playing something similar to "house" with them, but other than that I did what I wanted."


-Monica, 18, African-American, heterosexual female from the USA 

What kind of Barbie accessories did you own?

"I had a castle and a house, and all of the furniture for them. I liked the castle better because my barbies wouldn't quite fit into the house."


-Helena, 15, Persian, heterosexual female from Toronto, Canada 

When did you stop playing with Barbies?

"[P]robably around 12, nobody wanted to play with toys anymore except me. So I couldn't play with them, since my mom wouldn't let me play with them alone. I would just play with legos instead, although I did impose some barbie style playing on my legos at times, building houses, changing clothes and hairs."

-Jordan, 23, Caucasian, bisexual trans-female from France

What kind of Barbie accessories did you own?

"I had a lot of clothes, shoes, and brushes. I had a supermarket, too. But I played with that myself; I didn't have Barbies play. I wasn't interested in cars or the Dream House or stuff like that. I made all of my Barbie houses. The majority of my play consisted of fabricating their environment. I liked to dress them up, make their homes, imagine what kind of person they were. But I didn't act out scenes. Once I'd exhausted my imagined life for them-- I was done. I had to start over or do something else."


-Melinda, 23, multiracial (Hispanic/Caucasian), bisexual female from Indianapolis, IN, USA

What kind of Barbie accessories did you own?

"I owned a lot of Barbie accessories. A bright pink convertible car, some kind of pink Jeep, a two-story Barbie house, a Barbie hot tub, a bike for Barbie, etc. The house was by far my favorite because of all the different scenarios I could act out."


-Glenda, 24, Caucasian, queer female from Connecticut, USA

"My best friend had the Barbie house. That had such a WOW factor!! Later on when we were around 16 an other friend and i started turning them into a creepy kind of deal. Like car crash Barbie. We didn't have much anger in us, but we did both feel, at that age especially, that it wasn't an icon we wanted to measure up to."


-Carly, 24, Caucasian, bisexual, female from the UK