Hi, Barbie! This is Journalist Barbie reporting live from MWC in Barcelona, Spain, about the best day ever.
It turns out we, the Barbies, are getting our own phone. It’s pink and sparkly and it has our name on it. The Barbie Flip Phone will be made by HMD — the company responsible for breathing new life into Nokia phones — as the first in a series of brand partnerships it plans to announce over the coming year.
Read more: Best Phone to Buy for 2024
HMD is collaborating with Mattel on our phone, which should be available this summer. We don’t know exactly what it’ll look like at this stage, but it promises to embody the vintage chic of our brand heritage, which as you all know stretches back to 1959.
We also know that the device will be a flip phone that’ll offer an updated-feature-phone experience, rather than a smartphone experience. This is in line with HMD’s commitment to encourage us to jump on the digital-detox trend. The company says that with the Barbie Flip Phone, it’s providing a new option to Gen Z and millennial phone users who are increasingly looking for ways to stay connected while protecting their peace by spending less time on social media.
The last year has seen so many Barbie brand partnerships that it feels impossible to keep track of them all. From Xbox to Airbnb, products and services are desperate to flaunt our name. It’s very flattering, but at the same time we’re being used to sell an awful lot of stuff — stuff that not everyone needs.
Bearing this in mind, I can’t keep out the big thoughts, like: Is the Barbie Phone in some way commodifying our resistance to doomscrolling? Is there a contradiction in HMD touting sustainability as a core company value while at the same time trying to capitalize on a potentially lucrative merchandising partnership that may well feed into the rampant consumerism that’s harming the Earth?
I don’t have all the answers. As Journalist Barbie, I’m just here to…
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