Greta Gerwig seems to be taking her sweet time in making a Barbie sequel, so one honorary inhabitant of Barbieland has decided to get her own follow-up to the iconic film off the ground. Literally, in fact, as a Sabrina Carpenter lookalike went viral on TikTok after a spot of high street travel went hilariously, humiliatingly awry.
One of the most memorable scenes from Barbie saw Margot Robbie’s plastic heroine rollerblading through a public place, only for her unconventional antics to draw all kinds of attention for the wrong reasons. The unfortunate friend of TikToker @estellegrainger now knows a little something of what that feels like after her jaunt on an electric scooter in the middle of a busy street didn’t go to plan.
“No uber, no problem,” EG captioned her video, which shows her friend attempting to get herself home on a rental e-scooter. Tragically, her ride lasts all of 10 seconds before she swerves straight into a bus stop — hitting it with a loud and sudden thud that is comedic gold — and then tumbles to the floor in a way that is… well, let’s say very demure, very cutesy, very mindful. As one comment put it, “She fell like a Barbie.”
TikTok had a LOT of takeaways from this perfect encapsulation of public humiliation, including the fact that EG’s hysterical laughter throughout makes it 10 times funnier and equally as relatable. “Love the fact that you just laugh instead of helping her,” one person wrote, “you is me!!” Others were tickled by the way the friend’s fall sent out a distress call to every straight male — or Ken, if you will — in the surrounding area. “Every guy in the city running to pick her up!” someone joked, while another hoped that she at least got someone’s number out of this ordeal: “That’s one way to get a man’s attention.”
Most of all, though, folks can’t believe how much this woman/e-scooter crash test dummy looks like a certain sandy-haired superstar. “I thought that was Sabrina Carpenter,” is a comment shared over and over again underneath this video. “I watched this 10 times before realizing this wasn’t Sabrina Carpenter,” another admitted. Maybe there’s a longer version of this video where it turns out Jenna Ortega sabotaged the e-scooter before “Sabrina” got on?
This whole incident is just one more item to add to the wider controversy surrounding e-scooters, which have some conflicting and strict rules of usage across the Atlantic. In the U.K., privately owned e-scooters are illegal in public spaces, but a nationwide rental scheme is in place instead. In the U.S., e-scooters are legal in all states, barring Pennsylvania and Delaware. You also need to have a driver’s license to ride an e-scooter in the U.K. but don’t in the U.S. The legal top speed is set at just 15.5 mph in the U.K. while in the U.S. it’s 30 mph.
So, yes, they’re good for the environment, but they can lead to slow-speed embarrassment, so really, what’s the gain? Maybe all Barbies, honorary or otherwise, should stick to rollerblading.