Barbie, Computer Engineer; K T Bradford, Toy Connoisseur

By On February 12, 2010 · 5 Comments · In Fun Stuff, Product, Tech Events

computerengineerbarbieBarbie is a Computer Engineer and I’m covering a toy convention — has the world turned upside down!? Not quite. Not yet, anyway.

Thanks to all of you who answered my call (and a bunch of other techy, geeky, engineer-y women out there) Mattel was so overwhelmed with votes for Barbie as Computer Engineer that they made her alongside the historic 125th career: News Anchor. I think computer techs are far more awesome than news people, unless that newsperson is Rachel Maddow. But I digress.

Computer Engineer Barbie comes with a laptop, smartphone, Bluetooth headset and a fancy bag to carry her laptop in. Awesome, right? No pink cable, though. Boo. Her shirt has binary code on it, though!

Over at LAPTOP’s blog we’re asking folks to tell us what notebook you think Barbie is carrying. To write that post I had to research pink laptops. And I discovered that there’s such a thing as the Pink Laptop Blog. Yes.

Anyway, I will get a chance to see this doll in person soon as I’m covering ToyFair for the magazine. Usually we go there in search of tech toys but I think a profile of this Barbie is in order, don’t you? I’m actually looking forward to the fair a lot. I still love toys and I’m looking forward to seeing what crazy shapes USB drives are coming in this year.

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  • http://tansyrr.com Tansy Rayner Roberts

    Oh I hope computer engineer Barbie makes it to Australia, I want one for my five year old! I have been complaining for the last three years at the lack of a career Barbie to give her.

  • janetl

    I’m pleased — I’m one of those “computer engineers” who voted and posted about this. I’m also suspicious. While I didn’t go to the trouble myself, engineers have automation tools to swamp an online vote like this. ;^)

    • http://matthewdaly.dreamwidth.org/ Matthew Daly

      According to other reports, computer engineer did get the most votes, but Mattel declared that news anchor was “the girls’ choice”. I’d be inclined to call shenanigans on the notion that this was ever intended to be a fair election (where is Jimmy Carter when we really need him?), but we got a pretty good result.

      • K T Bradford

        I’m actually inclined to agree. A couple of people raised a red flag with that poll and said that it might not have even been counting votes at all. That coupled with the ability to vote as many times as you wanted…

        I think maybe they’d already decided on Anchor Woman but wanted to use the vote for publicity. But when they saw how many people posted encouraging folks to vote for computer engineer they figured they couldn’t get away with not having the choice win some way. I really doubt there’s a dedicated association of news anchors out there that campaigned as hard as geeks did.

  • http://matthewdaly.dreamwidth.org/ Matthew Daly

    This might be only the second time that I’ve ever said this, but I like Barbie’s outfit and hair here. It seems like a fair tradeoff between glamor and “geek chic”.

    One quibble I’d have you pass along (if you agree) is that her vest doesn’t have pockets and her leggings probably wouldn’t either. I’m assuming that even fashion-conscious geeks need someplace to keep their pens and thumbdrives.