Aspen Heights

What is American Girl?

American Girl is a line of 18 inch dolls originally created in 1986 by Pleasant Rowland, founder of Pleasant Company. Rowland started the line hoping to inspire an interest in history in young girls by making dolls and books based on historic periods that they could relate to. The line was a huge success, and after Rowland sold Pleasant Company to Mattel in 1998, the company was renamed to American Girl and it's popularity continued to skyrocket. American Girl hosts many doll lines today, the three major ones being Historicals (dolls with stories set throughout American History), Girls of the Year (limited edition dolls telling contemporary stories), and Just Like You/Truly Me (dolls without narratives).

American Girl has branched out to many mediums to tell their stories and create a community for young girls, such as through their movies, magazines, online games, and books about growing up. The company has received a lot of criticism over the years for many reasons, from their frequent poor handling of their stories about girls of color, to their ever-increasing prices, to the outfit changes of re-released historical dolls. Though the company isn't perfect and would benefit from many changes, this doll line has touched the hearts of many girls and women throughout the years, and continues to inspire learning and creativity in those who enjoy it.

So, What's AGTube?

AGTube, or American Girl YouTube, is a tight-knit community of doll owners that create videos with their American Girl Dolls. These creators make a wide variety of content, some videos being more focused on the company's releases and doll care, while others are based around creating stories for the dolls. The latter of the two is where a wonderful, inspiring inner-community formed. These young girls come together to create a wide variety of videos, including AGSMs (American Girl Stop Motions), AGMVs (American Girl Music Videos), and AG Series, which are live action stories that play out like a television show. The community makes videos on a wide variety of subjects, from the struggles of growing up to fantastical adventures in another world. This group has been around since 2007, and has seen the rise of many different popular creators, such as basilmentos, girloftheyearstudios, mixiepixie7, and of course, AGsmiless.

Okay okay, enough setup. What the heck is Aspen Heights?

Aspen Heights is a fantasy drama AG Series created by AGsmiless, also known as Alexis, in August of 2013. The story follows Elita Carpenter, a foster kid reluctantly attending a boarding school with a secret society that leads her to discover the true history of the school, her family, and herself. This series deals with friendship, warring families, and an overarching theme of the sacrifices we make for love. The series was wildly popular and loved by AGTube, with three of the episodes gathering over 100,000 views each, the most popular sitting at over 200k views.

Aspen Heights touched the hearts of many young girls, and though the series' years-long hiatus suggests we will never see a true end to the show, it continues to inspire many people today. This series has had a profound impact on me, so I've decided to dedicate my small corner of the internet to archiving and remembering it as the charming, heartfelt creative project it was.