Barbie Liberation Organization

The Barbie Liberation Organization, or BLO, are a group of artists and activists involved in culture jamming. Self described as "an underground network of creative activists," the group gained notoriety in 1993 after switching voice boxes in talking G.I. Joes and Barbie dolls. They resurfaced in August 2023, claiming to be the toy giant Mattel in order to announce a new collection of MyCeliaBarbie EcoWarrior Edition Archived 2023-08-02 at the Wayback Machine compostable dolls, and a corporate wide move to plastic free toy production. The group is currently active.^[1]

In their first campaign the BLO performed "surgery" on a reported 300–500 dolls from retail and returned them to shelves, an action they refer to as shopgiving. Thus, Teen Talk Barbie dolls would say phrases such as "Vengeance is mine", while G.I. Joe dolls would say phrases such as "The beach is the place for summer!"^[2] Two leading members of the BLO, Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos, would go on to found the culture jamming and political action group The Yes Men.

In the 2023 action, actress Daryl Hannah, posing as a spokesperson for Mattel introduced the collection of biodegradable dolls and announced in a short video that the company would stop using plastic by 2030.^[3] This was one of several videos produced by Yellow Dot Studios as part of the BLO's campaign to leverage the publicity surrounding the launch of the Barbie film to shine a light on the costs to society posed by our overwhelming use of plastics.