So my Mom is one of those people who never UNCHECKS the “Would you like to receive updates on blah blah blah??” box 

and never CHECKS the “To STOP receiving updates on blah blah blah” box either. 

Needless to say she is always getting miscellaneous  catalogs in the mail and it’ll be anything from Chadwick’s to Highlights. 

I benefit in her carelessness by getting all the kids stuff to pass along to my 6 year old daughter. 

Well, I see my mom yesterday and she hands me this catalog called ‘My Twinn’. 

At first it appears to be an American Girl type thing but as I look closer, I notice a striking resemblance between the little girl on the cover and her ‘Twinn’ doll… 

First thing out of my mouth? “Creepy.” 

Second thing? “What the fuck???” 

Now, I sort of knew such a thing existed but to see page after page of these little girls holding dolls with matching hair color, hairstyle, even the face shape matched (down to the last fucking freckle!!) was a bit unnerving. 

They advertise the doll as a BFF and of course you can buy matching EVERYTHING for your real kid. Now I’m not gonna go in to the whole thing about dolls and girls and gender roles and all that shit because frankly, I will be writing a fucking novel over here and besides, dolls and girls have gone hand in hand since the beginning of time.

What I DO want to go in to is why are we promoting the notion that your “BFF” should look like your fucking TWIN?!?!? 

Are we asking little girls (who are already PUMMELED with notions on how they should look ) to look for friendship based solely in the outward likeness of others to themselves?? 

That it is unlikely they will find friendship in diversity? 

I sat and stared at this catalog for a while…..

“Maybe I’m taking this whole thing out to lunch..” I thought, and I tried to consider the other side of the coin… 

Could it be innocent after all? 

Could this ploy be in fact a reaffirmation for young girls to 

love themselves — freckles, no freckles, carrot tops or curly girlies, blue eyed or not? 

Maybe this was a great way to show a young girl that being confident and loving yourself was ‘like totally cool’. 

Soooo I decided to ask the expert. 

The target audience. 

The demographic in question… 

My very own 6 year old daughter. 

“Hey,” I said, 

“Take a look at this catalog and tell me what you think.” 

Lifting her head up from her snack, she looked quickly at the cover and began to thumb through it, stopping momentarily to study the girl/doll similarities. 

“I’ve seen these Twinn dolls before” she says. 

“SOOO?” I say, “What do you think??” 

She popped the last pretzel in her mouth, looked at me and said:

 

“Totally creepy mom”.