Yesterday, the internet got wind of one of the more recent installments in the Barbie literary canon, I Can Be a Computer Engineer. As it turns out, Barbie’s idea of being a computer engineer consists mostly of freaking out and asking Steven and Brian to fix her bad dumb girl code. Fortunately, the awesome backlash has almost made all that head-smashing worth it. Almost.
[Update 11/21 2:10pm: Looks like Mattel has finally pulled the book from Amazon.]
It didn’t take long for #FeministHackerBarbie to start trending on Twitter, and with it came some fantastic reinterpretations (to put it kindly) of the absurdity at hand. We’ve compiled some of the internet’s best responses to the computer engineer Barbie debacle. And if you feel so inspired, show us some of your own Barbie bastardizations down below.
This site lets you create your own, which people have been making in droves. From the extra geeky:
To the extra Steven-bashing:
And then Tumblr got in on the fun:
As did Twitter:
https://twitter.com/embed/status/534578178925150208
https://twitter.com/embed/status/534953994377244672
https://twitter.com/embed/status/535070095425290241
"Music files?" said Barbie. "WTF. Are you 30 or something? Just use Youtube or Spotify like a normal person." pic.twitter.com/8WBPcxao62
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) November 18, 2014
https://twitter.com/embed/status/535123710944874496
The basic building block of any code base… coffee! ;p https://t.co/vBMsgaYH3A pic.twitter.com/dNTkCkLfIr
— Mindless Pixie (@mindless_pixie) November 19, 2014
"Hey!" said the teacher. "I just realized everyone in this well-funded school district is white!" pic.twitter.com/oahkBFLzLr
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) November 18, 2014
https://twitter.com/embed/status/535041148801540096
And as always, the kind people of Amazon have quite a bit to say on the matter themselves. Like this:
And this:
Or even this:
Of course, someone did thankfully create an age-friendly “remix” of the book, which you can download in its entirety here. Because apparently, Matel needs all the help it can get. Just like Barbie.
