Other examples of these sharp memes are more politically resonating. A meme account whose Instagram handle is a bawdy play on “Kit Kittredge” posted a viral image after Roe v. Wade fell, highlighting the states where the American Girl doll from the Nixon era Julie in 1974 may have had more access to abortion than they do today.
Lydia Burns, who is 24 and runs that account, told me that when she grew up in Kentucky, American Girl dolls were considered uptight and that some people in her church were boycotting them. In 2005, conservative groups were angry because the American Girl brand was supporting a charity called Girls Inc the American Family Association claimed it was “a pro-abortion, pro-lesbian advocacy group.” Burns said her mother is a feminist who stuck with the American Girl dolls and allowed her daughter to continue playing with them despite the backlash. The books and the dolls, Burns said, “exposed me to ideas about girls who don’t look like me and a series of histories” that involved cultural and political conflict, and offered perspectives she didn’t necessarily get in school.
On some level, what these adult creators do is like what my kids did with their doll hospital: run through the disturbing news of the day with their doll icons. This is something enthusiasts have always done with American Girl dolls, said Nina Diamond, a professor emeritus in the department of marketing at DePaul University and the lead author of a 2009 Journal of Marketing article titled “American Girl and the Brand Gestalt: closing the loop around socio-cultural brand research† In it, she and her co-authors wrote:
Meanings associated with these iconic brands serve to allay the perceived tensions between societal ideals and people’s everyday experiences, addressing a nation’s concerns through myths or stories that influence the way people think about themselves and their lives.
Diamond describes American Girl as one of the most successful “open source” brands, meaning that all members – children, their parents, journalists, cultural commentators – contribute to and remix American Girls’ meaning in the world. And, by extension, add a little bit to the image—and ambition—that real American girls and women have of ourselves.
Tara bush, an associate professor of history at Center College, gave a class in which she showed students the dolls as a “vehicle for teaching” and consuming “historical stories.” Strauch told me that one of the students’ projects was to create a historical doll story. A college girl made an American Girl doll that lived through 9/11 and discovered her sexuality at the same time. “Those of us who grew up with them are still trying to use them to make sense of the world, putting our thoughts and ideals in their mouths in fun and subversive ways,” Strauch told me.
Memes are not a substitute for actual advocacy or action. They’re an escape that makes me feel a little better about raising my kids in a time that can often feel anti-girl, anti-woman, and even anti-humanity. Burns doesn’t just have an American Girl Instagram account; she also works with student organizers to create real change. The two women who run @hellicity_merriman met while working in politics. These women, who are all in their twenties, communicate that even when life feels apocalyptic, both laughter and change are possible. As my colleague Valeriya Safronova said an article about these memes†
Each statue represents the American Girl dolls surviving highly stressful, sometimes catastrophic events. Within the world of these memes, there’s nothing the world won’t throw at an American Girl doll, and there’s nothing she can’t do. She, a representation of countless girls’ childhoods, can succeed where others have failed.
There’s a can-do attitude to the memes, one I’m already seeing in my oldest daughter. She’s only 9, and every time she learns something terrible about the world, she reacts with outrage and a desire to urgently change it. When she saw a headline about the rapid decline of bee populations due to climate change, she cried out earnestly, “We must save all bees!”