Valeria Lukyanova

About

Valeria Lukyanova is a Moldavian-Ukrainian model who has been nicknamed the “human Barbie” for her pursuit of a doll-like appearance through heavy use of makeup and plastic surgery.

Online History

On February 22nd, 2008, Lukyanova began uploading short monologue videos via her YouTube^[10] channel. In the next six years, the channel garnered upwards of 31 million video views and 63,000 subscribers. On September 26th, 2010, Lukyanova launched her personal Facebook^[2] page, gathering over 35,000 followers over the next four years.

No Lenses, No Makeup

On April 7th, 2012, Lukyanova broke out into international fame after she uploaded a video titled “no lenses, no makeup” in which she shows her face at a close-up range purportedly without wearing any makeup (shown below). The video quickly went viral across the Russian social networking site VK, as well as on the English-speaking web, amassing upwards of 2.9 million views and 2,100 comments within two years. As of April 2014, Lukyanova’s Twitter feed has accumulated over 13,300 followers.

Feud With “Real Life Ken”

On November 1st, 2012, The Huffington Post^[6] reported that American entrepreneur Justin Jedlica (a.k.a. “human Ken doll”) criticized Lukyanova for using makeup rather than cosmetic surgeries to achieve her doll-like appearance. On January 31st, 2013, Lukyanova and Jedlica met for the first time in an episode of the news program Inside Edition (shown below).

GQ Interview

On April 7th, 2014, the men’s interest magazine GQ^[3] published an interview with Lukyanova, in which she claimed “race-mixing” was responsible for the rise in cosmetic surgery procedures in the Western world. She also revealed that she was “against feminism” and that the idea of marriage and children made her feel “revulsion.”

Human Dolls

Lukyanova is often photographed with models Dominika Kjosa^[4] (shown below, left) and Anastasia Shpagina^[8] known as the “Human Anime Girl” (shown below, right). On August 31st, 2012, a Facebook^[9] page titled “Human Dolls” was launched, featuring photographs of models wearing makeup and outfits resembling Lukyanova’s “living doll” aesthetic.

Reputation

On April 22nd, 2012, the Taiwanese Animators, (formerly known as Next Media Animations) uploaded a video mocking Lukyanova’s cosmetic surgery and rising fame on the Internet (shown below, left). That same day, the women’s interest blog Jezebel^[11] published an article about Lukyanova, speculating that many of the model’s photographs had been photoshopped. On November 13th, YouTuber VegetarianChuck uploaded a video featuring a series of photographs showing Lukyanova before and after her purported cosmetic surgeries (shown below). In two years, the videos garnered more than 5.8 million and 1.48 million views respectively.

On December 28th, 2013, VICE released a documentary about Lukyanova titled “Space Barbie,” in which she claims to be a spiritual guru named “Amatue” who wishes to enlighten the world with her physical beauty (shown below). She goes on to reveal that she experienced many encounters with spiritual beings as a teenager and that she lived previous lives on other planets.

On February 28th, 2014, Redditor lexyjayla submitted a photo of Lukyanova to the /r/WTF^[5] subreddit, where it received upwards of 7,600 up votes and 700 comments in the first month (shown below).

Barbie Syndrome

“Barbie Syndrome” refers to the pursuit of the body proportions and general appearance of the Barbie brand of fashion dolls.^[13]

Personal Life

Lukyanova was born on August 23rd, 1985 in Tiraspol, Moldavian SSR of the former Soviet Union. She later moved to Odessa, Ukraine and married Ukrainian entrepreneur Dmitry Shkrabov. In February 2014, Lukyanova claimed she would attempt the dietary practice breatharianism,^[12] which involves subsisting on light and air without any food or water.^[1]