“Greetings people of Earth. I am Amatue, Topiltzin, Pacal Votan, Wiracocha, Tara, Navija. The aim of my life is to come to this planet to help people realise that it is necessary to move from the role of ‘human consumer’ to ‘human demi-god’. I am everything, everything is love, love is God. I am you and you are me.”

If I had a daughter, I wouldn’t buy her a Barbie doll, though I would certainly do a double-take if this was the new advertising line from toy maker, body-image warper and consumerism-pusher Mattel. This would be doubly true if the advertisement was accompanied by an appearance from the pictured young lady
and source of that quote – 28 year-old Ukrainian, Valeria Lukyanova.

Dubbed “The Human Barbie” when some of her photos went viral in 2012 (which you may have seen) she became an overnight sensation for her uncanny resemblance to an inanimate plastic doll. Of course she is not the first person to try and make themselves look this way, though one would have a strong case if arguing that she has been the most successful at it. This is particularly impressive given Munger stated in his 2006 study “Real-life Barbie would be over 7-feet tall, thinner than most anorexics and physically unable to menstruate”. Despite her plastic facade, Valeria herself is not particularly interested in the Barbie connection. Preferring the name ‘Amatue’, which was given to her in a vision from the 21st dimension, she uses her appearance as a PR tool to promote her spiritual philosophies and maintains they are more likely to be listened to coming from a beautiful young woman than some old nun. In fairness, she might have a point there, if a rather shallow one, but to give you a taster of what inspires her philosophies “Only love and joy exist in the place I come from. Beings in our dimension are sexless. We do not have definitions such as husband, wife or children. We are able to look inside any being and see ourselves…we incarnate on this planet to change our past. At the moment I am in my past, I came here to correct things and make my past more perfect.”

Right. So just to be clear: A woman who most closely resembles the symbol of traditional patriarchal femininity and consumerism is a new-age spiritualist who believes she is an alien. What’s that cliche about truth and fiction!?

Valeria was born in Tiraspol, a place where ‘time has stood still since the end of the Soviet Union’ and the second-largest city in Europe’s poorest country, Moldova. She remembers her Father and Grandfather being very strict and began to rebel at the usual age of 13. This manifested itself firstly in the Goth tradition of black hair and clothes contrasting with pale skin, followed by spiky accessories and a contrary, anti-authoritarian attitude. Oddly for someone inclined towards an alternative association, Valeria began to take some small-scale modeling jobs. Through these she learned more about applying makeup and hair dye and began to experiment with a variety of different styles, although according to her she used these skills to try and repel men rather than attract them. She also fiercely denies ever having plastic surgery (aside from a breast augmentation procedure), the veracity of which can be ascertained from the photos below.

The early days of the ‘non-surgical’ evolution, courtesy of GQ

After wedding the wealthy son of a family friend, Valeria’s transformation began to pick up speed. However, she was worried that the mystical abilities she was developing might be something more sinister. Needing reassurance, she sought professional guidance. “I asked myself if everything was alright with my head, I hear voices all the time and see different beings. One day I decided to visit a psychiatrist, I told him everything. He listened to me carefully and said that I was very lucky coming to him, because if it was another doctor I definitely would have been taken to a ‘special place’. But he said ‘I’ve been studying esoterism for years, I can see you’re a psychic, you’re a person with extrasensory abilities’ “. Luckily indeed for Valeria, such incitement persuaded her to continue the undertaking of her true calling as a guide to the unenlightened.

The thing I find most interesting about Lukyanova however, is the jarring juxtaposition of the ideologies she represents. Physically she is a living caricature of male desires – the embodiment of the comic book & manga heroines, anime schoolgirls and photoshopped hyper-vixens that are produced by and served to the male gaze. This realization of the fantastical would be enough in itself to engender an incredulous response from most people, but alongside the elfin features, 18″ waist and 34DD breasts is a set of beliefs that traditionally promote gender equality, or even Celtic-inspired matriarchal social systems. She also shows a remarkably strict adherence to Vegetarianism, even going so far as to announce recently that she is attempting Inedia (fasting in the belief one can ultimately survive without food and in some cases, water).

Of course it’s easy to ridicule or feel sorry for Valeria. She seems to be the perfect poster child for the damaging effects of unattainable beauty standards and eating irregularities I touched on in a previous post. However she has not only managed to turn the male gaze back on itself by hijacking it’s extremes but also rejects the role of the mother (a rarity in the male-dominated Russian society) stating “It’s unacceptable to me, the very idea brings out this deep revulsion in me. Most people have kids to fulfill their own ambitions, not to give anything. They don’t think about what they can give or teach this child, just try to shape her to some weird script, whatever they couldn’t do in life, like being a lawyer or a doctor. Or some woman who’s almost 30 and thinks that no one needs her, she says ‘Oh I’ll have a kid, he’ll love me and be my reason to live’ and then this kid becomes a soccer ball she and her boyfriend will kick back and forth. I’d rather die from torture because the worst thing in the world is to have a family lifestyle”.


Whatever your opinions of Valeria, you have to admit that she has at least pursued her beliefs with an unflinching and dedicated conviction that I dare say most people would love to be to apply to areas of their own lives. As Michael Idov writes after his GQ interview with Lukyanova “It could be that we have misjudged the Human Barbie in a fundamental way. Her steady drift from reality and into the 21st dimension is not about submissiveness, fame or snagging a husband. It could be about finding a way out, however random, bizarre and costly the route appears from the outside. It could be about gaining some measure of freedom”.