Barbie is an interesting toy to me.  A solid role model for girls who does basically everything in the world.
I've loved Barbie since I was a little girl, and then grew up to get into marketing for children's toys. She's such an icon.. a figurehead for the toy fashion doll market for the last 50 years. But heck, there's still been controversies and lawsuits, and even parodies of her and her lifestyle. Guess that speaks to her popularity.
Yeah, anything that spurs on lawsuits is a popular thing.  What's your favorite Barbie?
I like most of them fairly equally. As a kid, I didn't care. I will say, it kind of saddens me that sales have hit a steep decline since 2014, which it's hard to say why. Rise of technology? Maybe because girls are being encouraged to not just play with girl dolls? Either way, I hope the Barbie line sustains itself.
I feel like it could be because of people pushing girls to do more "boy" things in general (including jobs).  They could be not wanting to buy them anymore.  I'm sure they'll still have enough business to stay around, maybe not as big as they used to.
That's an interesting theory. I would agree with parts of it. But either way, there's no denying she had a significant impact on social values because she showed characteristics of female independence, and she idealized an upscale life-style that can be shared with affluent friends. She made people aspire to be more and aim to reach higher success because of how she was depicted.
She definitely had a huge effect on the world.  There's probably a lot of women out there who were inspired by Doctor Barbie or some other kind.
I love the story of her beginning... how Ruth Handler, an American businesswoman, used a German doll to become inspired to make one for her daughter, Barbara. She saw Barbara would use paper dolls and give them adult roles to do, because it was fun for her. So, she wanted to make a doll to fill that need for her daughter. Sweet.