If you’ve taken a leisurely scroll through Instagram lately, you might have noticed your favourite celebrities’ legs looking even longer than usual.
One would be forgiven for assuming these stretched-out limbs are the result of some wacky Hollywood surgery trend – stranger things have happened, after all.
However, the real culprit here is none other than… Barbie.
Yes, your beloved doll is getting all the credit for Instagram’s latest pose du jour, which involves standing oh-so-daintily on one’s tiptoes as if wearing an invisible stiletto.
The list of celebrities who’ve adopted the Barbie feet pose reads like the rundown for a Victoria’s Secret fashion show: Bella Hadid, Chanel Iman, Victoria Justice, various Kardashian/Jenners, plus countless \”influencers\”.
The appeal of the pose is obvious: it makes one’s legs appear much longer than they naturally are, minus the dreaded foot burn associated with wearing heels.
One downside, of course, is that standing like a plastic doll poses an issue for the more balance-challenged among us.
The solution, as demonstrated by several Barbie feet adopters, is to keep one foot planted flat on the ground while having the other en pointe.
If even that sounds like a broken nose waiting to happen, the pose also works when sitting – ideally, on the edge of a private yacht sailing through Greece.
Now the Barbie feet pose has been named and shamed, we guarantee you won’t be able to un-see it.
It follows in the fine tradition of posing epidemics – sorry, “trends” – embraced by Instagram stars in the name of likes.
The hall of fame includes ‘fingermouthing’, which involves dangling one’s fingers seductively in front of one’s pouting mouth, ostensibly to draw attention to the lips.
Then came ‘Bambi pose’ – that is, sitting with one’s legs folded sweetly underneath like a baby deer. Even animated fawns can be trend-setters, you know.
However, these all pale in comparison to the ‘plandid’, in which the subject poses oh-so candidly as if a professional photographer simply stumbled upon them gazing pensively into a sunset.
Guess your stock-standard selfie just won’t cut the mustard any more.
This content was originally published here.