In the past two years, American Girl dolls have experienced something of a renaissance, with the iconic toys getting a movie after the success of Barbie and becoming the backbone of memes like “We need an American Girl doll who X.”
Some of these American Girl dolls have been hyper-specific, like one who “got kicked in the head at Warped Tour while surviving off of a singular chicken nugget and a dream.” But it’s unlikely anyone has ever asked for an American Girl doll that’s been caked in mold, and God knows what else.
Yet, TikToker Katie (@katieslib) made this startling discovery in a video that has now amassed 3.3 million views. “If you’ve ever owned a American Girl doll, please listen up,” she said. “I thought that I was keeping mine safely secured in my basement somewhere.”
Then, the camera panned to the doll, which had thick green and white grime all over its face and body. “She has not been safely secured,” Katie repeated. “I feel bad.” In the comments section, viewers were in a state of shock over what happened to the doll. “I gasped,” one revealed. “Wait, no, I’m confused. How does this even happen?” another asked. “Is it water damage? Mold? Minor case of demonic possession?”
@katieslib ⚠️JUMP SCARE WARNING ⚠️ wait bc help #americangirldolls #basements ♬ original sound – Katie
All three of these explanations seem equally likely, but in subsequent videos, Katie continued to struggle to get the doll clean. In a further follow-up, Katie gave more details on the doll’s storage situation, as she showed the damp wall and box the doll was kept in.
“So basically, it’s a really old basement, and like, it’s all made of rocks,” she said. “The rainwater literally come down there and just like trickle down, so the box was pushed up against the wall, which I didn’t know that it was in a box over here.”
“The water like definitely leaked in,” she continued. “It was on a pallet, but like, it doesn’t help with the rainwater trickling down the rocks over there. So it definitely got in.”
@katieslib Replying to @Gracefulbumblebee ♬ original sound – Katie
While many commenters expressed worry about the extent of the doll’s mold problem, Reddit suggests that this issue is actually quite common, with numerous users describing similar issues on the r/americangirl subreddit.
A lot of the information on how to clean the mold off these dolls was unclear and conflicting, but on a dedicated website called “Fix My AG Doll,” one post suggests that the stuffing should be removed to prevent mold and that the best way to clean these dolls is with baking soda and a Magic Eraser.
The Daily Dot reached out to Katie and American Girl via email for more information.
The internet is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here to get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.