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Twitter love: celebrity romance in the age of social media

By Evelyn Tsitas - posted Tuesday, 15 February 2011


As for the (real life) couple? The Herald Sun's Susie O'Brien says; "Although this love affair is apparently real, it's also doing great things for their careers, and their egos." (Feb 11)

As For Ken and Barbie, they’ve had a tough time with their popularity. They aren’t the hot selling toys they once were. A few years ago, they had a big slump, and Barbie had to endure a lot of plastic surgery when she hit the big 5-0 in 2009, when Mattel celebrated her milestone birthday “by giving the pneumatic blonde a new look, complete with thinner jaw line, almond-shaped eyes and fuller lips.” (www.thaindian.com 25 December 2009).

While every middle aged woman can feel for Barbie, the surgery seems to have worked - sales have increased and she has held onto her new lover, Blaine, who came onto the scene after she and Ken split in 2004. Now it’s Ken’s turn to suffer the midlife crisis - while he had good hair in his youth - long, thick and dark - his dress sense has always been on the camp side of fashionable.  With his 50th birthday this year comes the aggressive marketing campaign to get him back in the public eye and back together with his old flame Barbie.

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Can Ken and Barbie rekindle their passion? They have been through so much together, even if they have found solace in other arms. Maybe they have enough in common to make it work again - toned, hard plastic bodies, white teeth, extensive wardrobes and a love of social media.

Will the romance between Shane and Liz last - to Easter? Do they have enough in common - deep tans, carefully placed highlights, toned bodies and very white teeth, not to mention a love of the spotlight - to make theirs the love story of the decade?

Right now, as you read this, Ken is trying to win Barbie back with billboards in Southern California that read “Barbie, we may be plastic but our love is real."

Warnie couldn't have texted it better himself.

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About the Author

Dr Evelyn Tsitas works at RMIT University and has an extensive background in journalism (10 years at the Herald Sun) and communications. As well as crime fiction and horror, she writes about media, popular culture, parenting and Gothic horror and the arts and society in general. She likes to take her academic research to the mass media and to provoke debate.

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