The Natasha Doll: When a Viral Trend Became a Global Race Debate.
- 13 hours ago
- 2 min read
By: Siphokazi Magwaza
As of March 2026, the Natasha doll, a stress relief toy resembling a dark-skinned baby, has taken the internet by storm and prompted people to question whether discrimination can ever truly be eradicated from society.
Initially, the trend started as a harmless joke in China on social media when a content creator, whose identity has not been publicly revealed, bought the squishy doll and began making videos where they treated it as their real daughter and named it Natasha. What sparked the violent treatment of the doll from other creators was when the trendsetter accidentally dropped the doll in one of their videos, leaving it severely misshapen. Following this incident, millions of other Chinese content creators purchased the doll for the sole purpose of abusing it and uploaded videos of themselves doing so.
Creators filmed themselves punching, stepping, stabbing, stretching the doll, and even pouring boiling water on it. Due to the texture and the consistency of the rubber that the Natasha is made from, all these violent techniques deformed it beyond repair. Some creators have filmed themselves applying makeup to the doll in an attempt to lighten its original dark complexion, an act many people in Africa and people of African descent in other countries perceived as an insult.
The toy was manufactured in many different skin tones; however, it is only the dark-complexioned one that has gone viral and has been targeted for destruction. This in particular triggered outrage from many Black people all over the world and some Chinese people, with backlash skyrocketing when it was discovered that the lighter dolls were considered by the Chinese as seeming “too human to mistreat without feeling guilt”.
Many people said this trend has normalized racism and the dehumanization of African people. A user on TikTok stated that the doll will “make Chinese people more racist towards Black people than they already are” and further exposed more Chinese websites and videos where they are shown harassing and humiliating black people by making them hold up offensive signs and then ‘smile’ for the camera.
After the widespread criticism, the violent content involving these dolls was removed from social media platforms; the only ones that remain are those made by users expressing their concerns about the trend, and the dolls were banned from school campuses in various regions of the world. The content creator who initially started the Natasha trend has also deleted the videos from their original account.
Although it began as a harmless joke, it eventually turned into something that made millions of people angry and made them feel inferior to the rest of the world. The videos may have been scrubbed from the internet, but the damage has already been done, and many people have confessed to accepting that racism will never end in the world and that Black people will never be considered fully human.
Article edited by: Munei Zoe Mbedzi