
Space Barbie: Real Life Ukrainian Barbie
Valeria Lukyanova became an internet sensation when photos of her doll-like face and impossibly narrow waist went viral, earning her the nickname Space Barbie. This VICE installment of the My Life Online series gets access to her apartment and her circle to ask what is actually behind the image. Lukyanova tells the camera, without irony, that she is a time-traveling spiritual guru sent to save humanity from negativity and superficiality, and that her physical transformation is a deliberate vehicle for that message rather than vanity for its own sake. Interviews with her and people close to her lay out the daily mechanics of maintaining the look, alongside her claims about higher consciousness and self-actualization. The film does not resolve the obvious tension it keeps circling: a woman who says appearance is a distraction from what matters has built her entire platform on an extreme, surgically maintained appearance. It leaves her philosophy and the backlash against her both on screen, unedited into a single verdict.