Meaning of Barbiefication | Babel Free

Definitions

A cultural move toward superficiality and a focus on physical attractiveness at the expense of depth and intellect.

derogatory, uncountable

Examples

“On the road toward Barbiefication, we are so taken by artificially plastic standards of beauty that we surgically alter our human characteristics to look like idealized dolls.”

“While the Barbiefication of women of the world is serious business (all puns intended), I want to add that I have seen evidence that the globalization of Barbie has been met with resistance.”

“The official recognition enjoyed by [Geri] Halliwell supposedly marked the ‘Barbiefication of Britain’ and the triumph of superficial ‘plastic’ values.”

“Where Alexander Lebed identifies the enemy of Russian culture as the soap opera, Estonia's Jaan Kaplinski attributes the erosion of Baltic culture to ‘Barbification’ and cultural imports such as dolls, comic strips and cable TV[…].”

“The Estonian poet-politician Jaan Kaplinski has criticised his fellow citizens for their heedless consumerism and what he called the ‘Barbiefication’ of society – a phenomenon that he considers to be more dangerous even than Bolshevism.”

“[W]e must now resist anachronistic legislation and the Barbification of young women, the saddest phenomenon being the identical non-identifiable missing photos of girls and women surgically and cosmetically altered to resemble dolls.”

CEFR level