Barbara Ferreira is an American model and actress, daughter of Brazilians, and 
known for being a body positivity advocate.
Barbie, her stage name, was born in the Queens neighborhood of NY and later moved to Maywood, NJ.
She attended Hackensack High School and was raised by her mother, Jana Seppe, an aunt, and a grandmother.
She began her career by sending modeling photos to an open casting call for American Apparel. Since then, she has modeled for brands such as Aerie, Adidas, Asos, Forever 21, H&M, Missguided, Diesel, and Target.
With unretouched photos and an interview in a video for Aerie’s campaign, Barbie went viral in 2016. That same year, Time Magazine named her one of the “30 Most Influential Teens of 2016.”
Barbie directed the music video for “So Cool” by Doauni. She starred in all 10 episodes of the Vice series How to Behave, for which she won a Webby Award for Best Personality/Host. She also starred in the Teen Vogue web series Body Part, about body positivity.
Additionally, Barbie played Ella in two episodes of the HBO series Divorce, and is currently among the stars of the HBO series Euphoria, where the 22-year-old actress portrays high school student Katherine Hernandez, a young girl trapped in a world where she not only feels “overweight” and unattractive but also almost invisible, a feeling she admits to being more than 
familiar with.
Despite being intimidating at first, this is how she learned to stop caring about what others thought of her. Although there are few parallels between modeling and webcam work, Ferreira claims that the intense feeling of vulnerability is the same.
To this day, Barbie continues to advocate for that confidence while inspiring her legion of half a million followers on Instagram.
Although both she and her character have found a sense of power in celebrating their bodies and personalities, the actress insists that this doesn’t happen exactly “overnight.” With Kat, she has a horrible moment where her confidence and power are completely stripped away. Finding power in a society obsessed with images is a task in itself. Teenagers are doing this while navigating life and identity, obviously making mistakes that can only be amplified by the constant and sharp attention of social media to every little detail.
In the end, all Barbie hopes for is a bit of empathy for real-life teenagers and even for those who mirror their struggles on screen.
“It took me six years to be in a place where I accept myself, and I’ve grown 
so much. I really hope that people can see that longing. A violent video may come up, you’ll see tragedies constantly bombarded on your phone, you’ll see things you don’t want to see, pornography on the internet, and all this information overload. I think that people growing up in this social media era can really feel for these characters because they are extremely flawed. But the thing is, real people are flawed! So the message in the show is really about compassion, empathy, about seeing where these kids are coming from.”
As for those who consider the show “too sensational” or “indecent,” Barbie has a message: “I think more people need to start listening and putting people behind a camera 
who identify and are part of these communities to tell their stories,” she says. “I certainly hope that Euphoria speaks to everyone. Our characters are all different, but in the media, we are put into these boxes, where she is a curvy girl, she is a trans model, or she is whatever. I hope this show makes people really identify with everyone and know that we are all really similar, and these identities can influence a decision, but it’s not the center of everyone’s world.”
Euphoria premiered on June 16, on HBO.
Source: www.papermag.com (by Jeena Sharma) with information from Wikipedia