Real-life Barbie newspaper article?

I was reading the Daily Mail online yesterday minding my own business when this article caught me eye, as a girl who is inspired by Japanese fashion and a lover of doll-ish makeup and hair, an alarm bell rung off in my head. 

This is a bit of a heavy issue in comparison to most of the stuff I write about on my blog, but I was compelled to write this.

For any of you that aren't aware of who Dakota Rose and Venus Palermo are, the two are rising inter-net celebrities who are famed for their doll-like appearances. 

Dakota Rose, or Koti, is a girl residing in Florida whose recently came into light when her blog was discovered by the Korean media. Many people might be familiar with Dakota and her older sister, Kiki Kannibal who was one of the queens of the online "Scene" scene in around 2007. 

Regardless of what the article says, Dakota is probably around 18-19

Polyglot and lover of Japanese idol girl bands, Venus Palermo has gained attention on Youtube for her cute Asian inspired hair and makeup tutorials as well as dance covers. 

14 year old Venus

I started out wanting to write this by basically wanting to say "HERP Y DUZ EVRI1 ASSUME DAT PPL HU LIEK JAPANEZE CULCHA LIEK ANIME" but then my brain went into over-drive and I found myself questioning why the author even brought up the issue of sexualization of young girls and our attitude towards childhood. 

The article goes on to talk about the sudden popularity of these girls, which is all well and good but it goes on to talk about issues relating to sex.

"...an increasing amount of Japanese women were aspiring to look like dolls, embracing femininity and obliterating sexuality altogether"

OK so we've established that wanting to look like a doll has no sexual undertones. But then the article goes on to say: 

"Despite her growing success, some commentators have warned 

that she could  encourage the sexualization of children"

So suddenly in our eyes as members of Western society, wanting to look like a doll or looking young carries sexual connotations?

As a girl who has been interested in Japanese pop-culture since she was a child, I can safely say that neither of the girls draw style inspiration from places that should not be interpreted as sexual [Tumblr trends, Gal, Japanese girl groups and street fashion, anime] and all are in innocent fun. Their interests aren't mainstream and are very niche to most of us. 

Young girls can be easily influenced but in the case of these girl, they have chosen to seek influences from other sources that are not our mainstream media, and yes their interests are niche to most of us and we may not understand why they do what they do, but most girls aren't as resistant to the media as these two. 

With this in mind, this raises a questions:

Shouldn't we be more worried about the young girls in our society
who are easily influenced by our mainstream media?

We are completely aware of the amount of sexual imagery that young girls are being bombarded with every day but what's being done about it and it's damaging effects on young girls?

If our society's attitude towards a look that stresses a doll-like appearance, being cute and "obliterates sexuality"is to interpret it as being something sexual, doesn't that tell you something really twisted about our view? 

Somebody commented on the article, and basically summed up my attitude towards the issue:

"Anyone who thinks this is about sexualization of children is saying 

a lot more about themselves than they are about these girls."

So here is a little quiz I made! 

and if you do want to have sex with her, then

and also DAMN MEDIA YOU SLOW

So what are your guys' feeling towards this issue. How do you feel about it? 

and for any of my girls out there who practice doll-like, Gyaru or Ullzang makeup how do you think this article reflects on you?

There are so many more points that I wanted to make but I would be here all day and I can't stress enough that I am kind of terrible at drawing conclusions when I write articles so if there is anything inconsistent about this entry or doesn't really make sense to you, please let me know.

Edit: Sami reminded me to point out that both of these girls photoshopped and video-edited within inches of their lives.