Barbie Horse Adventures: Riding Camp redefined my identity as a ‘tomboy’

Your favorite color becomes a major deal when you’re seven years old. It’s the first thing new friends at the playground ask you about, it decides which shoes you buy, and, most importantly, it is a litmus test for gender expression. But my favorite color was a conglomerate I dubbed “greenorange,” and I was definitely not passing this test.

As a young queer Gen Z tomboy, I was not fond of the color pink. Those who are sneered at will be regarded with contempt every store’s dreaded Pink Aisle, which seemed to limit what it meant to be a girl. Barbie, as you might expect, was one of the Pink Aisle’s most famous residents. She wasn’t necessarily my mortal enemy, but I didn’t see myself in her the way I did in other characters — she was a girly girl, and I loved bugs and trains and ordering the “boy toy” with Happy Meals.

In many ways I confessed to being afraid of feminineness. The Pink Aisle’s dolls and kitchen sets imposed the patronizing idea that girls were fragile and sensitive and destined for motherhood, while boys were tough and adventurous and could play with anything. It felt as if I was committing to the girlhood, and thereby a life filled with limitations. It made me afraid that, if I wore pink, I’d be seen as nothing more than “like other girls.”

So when I was inducted into gamerhood with a light blue Nintendo DSi, I was baffled by my parents’ decision to include Barbie Horse Adventures: Riding CampI had a list of my first games. It was my first game. I also had just started gaming and wasn’t very good. So when I kept hitting roadblocks, it became my go-to. One of the very first games that I beat was this one, thanks to its intuitive arrows which pointed towards goals. The character customization, gameplay, and my imagination helped me realize that gender roles were meaningless.

Barbie Horse Adventures: Riding Camp follows Barbie on a trip to her family’s stable. The game follows Barbie as she spends a week at her family’s stable. She will learn how to ride horses and help out around the place. It’s such a simple licensed game, but the way it represents Barbie (who I previously viewed as a perfect, one-dimensional girl) felt revolutionary to my outdoorsy 7-year-old self.

The reason this was so important is because it seemed to me that, during my childhood, the world never wanted girls to be outside. During one school assembly that featured a Boy Scout leader discussing the troop’s annual camping trip, I asked if girls could join. Of course the answer was no. Instead of setting up campfires or tents, I had to spend years volunteering in Girl Scouts making blankets.

You can also find out more about the following: Barbie Horse AdventuresWithout being a Boy Scout, I can do all the things that Boy Scouts do (just on a horse). Barbie takes a ride through the forest every day or on a beach. Its minigames feel rugged, too, with Barbie catching fireflies or stargazing or cleaning dirt out of her horse’s hooves. The most surprising minigame becomes available after Barbie’s horse kicks down a wall and she’s asked to repair it. At 7, I remember being amazed. They’re entrusting??? Barbie??? Barbie??? What about a girly-girl?? Barbie was clearly not afraid of anything — she could even get her hands a little dirty!

When these minigames weren’t enough to make Barbie feel relatable, I could bend her to my will through customization and headcanons. I could shun the game’s overwhelmingly pink wardrobe and stick to a black coat. Bug hunting was easier when I ignored girlier games. Even customizing my horse felt defiant in a way — pink was the default color for the horse’s bows and saddle, but I eagerly changed them to green and orange. This Barbie was not at the Roberts Stables to wear pink and prance around — she was there to repair walls and explore the muddy forest and kick up some serious dirt in competitions.

This was initially a way to rebel against the game, but it became part of who Barbie was to me — resilient and versatile — as I grew more comfortable with her femininity. Playing as her became a way for me to explore gendered fashion, almost as if I was trying girliness on like a dress in Barbie’s own DreamHouse wardrobe. While I mostly clung to the game’s black and blue outfits, I’d occasionally try on a hot-pink coat or a salmon vest. It was a way to briefly step into the world of pink in a way that wasn’t committal, which was crucial because committing was a The following are some examples of the best way to get in touch with each other: deal.

The way people present themselves is the first thing they notice., so even the smallest stylistic experiment becomes a definitive branding change on display for the world to see (and criticize) — especially during childhood. It’s especially uncomfortable for people to analyze meaningless traits or clothing items under a gendered microscope when you’re kid in the process of figuring quite literally everything out. Wearing pink once didn’t necessarily mean I was swapping four square in favor of a playground career in playing house — most of the time, it meant nothing other than “I think this jacket looks cool.”

And when I did go through actual phases of feeling pressured to be a “girly girl,” it signaled a change so big it could shift tectonic plates. One thoughtfully observant teacher even penned a poem lamenting a particularly inauthentic pink phase of mine, asking: “What makes a girl turn from orange to pink?”

Barbie Horse AdventuresI could wear pink in a safe environment without being exposed. Due to this, I was able to wear pink without feeling exposed. Barbie Horse AdventuresIt taught me how to represent myself authentically. It was not an outright rejection of Pink Aisle or a complete concession to the expectations of brand femininity. But somewhere between. Eventually, after swapping Barbie’s outfit over and over, I became slightly more comfortable wearing pink in real life, too.

After reclaiming my pink, I was able to see gender in a more nuanced way. Instead of trying to fit into a list of traits that were deemed feminine or masculine, I could choose what experiences to have rather than conforming to stereotypes. I’m now a drummer, game developer, and avid outdoor explorer, all things that the Pink Aisle in the 2000s probably did not want me to be. Others, and especially trans people may find that stepping out of the gender role they were born into can give them a sense of self-confidence or help to understand their identity. All of this is not harmful to anyone, regardless of what recently passed laws would have you believe.

I’m grateful for my experience using Barbie Horse Adventures, I now know that, just like “greenorange” or Barbie herself, gender is multifaceted. I know that I can wear makeup with baggy cargo pants from the men’s section. It’s possible to get your ears pierced while refusing to shave your legs. Hell yeah, my pink shoes can be stuck in mud while on a hike.