However, there are some questions worth asking in the midst of this young woman's comprehensively documented ascent to stardom; what is it we're being taught to understand from the information there is concerning Valeria Lukyanova? Are we asking enough of the articles we read? Is our demand for pinata-esque celebrities in fact glossing over a much larger problem, something sinister living just under the surface of a culture preoccupied with image? Perhaps, most importantly of all; who is it that reads these articles, who is it that writes them?

Since November last year, odd interviews and pieces run on Mrs Lukyanova have ranged from the inane to the downright tasteless, and the examination of her has been one of both veneration and vilification. The Huffington Post and Daily Mail both featured details of her squabble with her counterpart; Ken look-alike Justin Jedlica, in which they, more or less pointed out that two people, although they may resemble children's toys, were not actually soul mates upon meeting and found other nearer detestable than spousal material. Well, so far so what.

Following these websites fast became committed to the task of outing her as an imposter. Again, these ranged from Kotuku’s 'Unmasking “the most famous woman” on the Russian Internet' to The Dirty running a story entitled 'the world deserves to know Valeria Lukyanova is a Fraud'. This argument seemed to use as its focus point a kind of benign indignation dedicated to finding out if Lukyanova had used either excessive Photoshop, surgery, or just hours of detailed paintwork on herself to create her image, with each publication reaching a vastly different conclusion as to what was fake or not. The Dirty's evaluation of this was that:

“This girl is the biggest fraud ever… All you people gushing over Valeria Lukyanova are a bunch of morons. This girl is a FRAUD. She had been badly Photoshopping her photos since the beginning of her time online. Her videos aren’t Photoshopped. Does she still look the same? ... Get over it already people.”

In fact, to get a story out of her, numerous pages even backed up their so called points with further pictures and videos, most of them first posted by Valeria herself on her own YouTube channel. They show her applying her makeup, step by step, to give an insight into how she creates her façade, and are all fairly matter of fact, with no real dress up whatsoever (excuse the pun). Although she insists that her only dabble in cosmetic surgery has been her breast implants, no end of bloggers have routed through her websites old posts in an attempt to prove otherwise. Why? Because in some warped way this is what we were supposed to want. It was assumed by almost every columnist that what we needed was exposure to this phenomenon of a girl. And maybe we did, maybe the debate stirred outside the pages of what has been written about her is valid in some way or relevant to how we view image. Or perhaps all we have achieved through scrutinising her in this way is an intrusive and Hitchcockian voyeurism, as shameless as it is predictable.

To break it down; in Mrs Lukyanova we the people have identified a certain otherness in that she is a woman who has tailored herself to resemble a doll. It's an interesting quirk to be sure, but does that make her worthy of ridicule? Moreover, does it really make her any different than a vast majority of the rest of us? Out of the hundreds of thousands of girls who grew up wanting to emulate Barbie figures or who learned makeup techniques from practising on toys we’ve elected this one as one as some sort of scapegoat. When talking about the extremity of her transformation we’re really only referencing a break from normality by degrees. So many of us plaster ourselves with jewellery and adornments on a daily basis to meet standards set by not only ourselves but all of our peers. It’s interesting that we find something so controversial in the young model that warrants pages and pages of merciless discourse, when our own images are so fragile and self-conscious. We have no real right to gawp at her, no matter how much she may crave it.

But this is something we are conditioned into. When faced with a bog-standard week in the world of glossy magazines anyone can get lost in the supposed need to primp and preen, adhere to ridiculous criteria and fall at the feet of those we deem to have met it. On top of the stress caused by our own longing and dissatisfaction with ourselves, when standards such as Lukyanova’s are inevitably not met we pile on resentment, another bi-product of our own insecurities which magazines play up to.

For example, an overview of the front pages of just one weeks’ worth one week of glossy mags ('O.K', 'Heat' and 'Closer') offers tremendously conflicting messages for readers: O.K articles included: “I reveal how you can lose 2 stone the healthy way”, “How Victoria & David (Beckham) conquered the fashion world” and “Michelle Heaton; I was addicted to slimming pills”. Heat offered: “Gaga's weight row with Kelly O explodes”, “Kimberley's surprise new body”, while Closer magazine showed perhaps the least tact of all with headlines such as: “Josie: sex is sizzling now I’m a size 8”, “Love-Split Kelly gains 10lbs from comfort eating pasta & fried chicken” and “Frustrated Posh: 'I wanted to be in THAT ad with Goldenballs!”. You’ll notice that every article is contradictory in its message. We’re presented with fasting luminaries looking fabulous behind Photoshop, and at the same time told that slimming pills will kill us. We’re told that we can get that Pippa Middleton behind and on the next page sold adverts for Lindor chocolates.

We resent Valeria Lukyanova because she seems to have attained the impossible, and so we set ourselves to the task of outing the imperfections in her, imperfections we inevitably find because, surprise surprise, she is all too human. This is the reason there isn’t any shortage of comments calling her freakish or weird looking, some even attack her spiritual beliefs. But we’d all do well to remember that actually, we were the ones who read this garbage. In fact, some of us even wrote it.

But what we sometimes fail to realise is that we aren’t just helpless little cogs in a big corporate machine. In the Blogosphere we are as much the writers of our news as we are the recipicants. It seems unfair to exclusively blame the media, seeing as so many of us are part of it, and all of us can freely comment within it. For this reason it’s hard to mention articles concerning celebrity without drawing in us as readers. We live in a world where anybody can be given a voice in a public forum. We all have an opinion, for better or for worse. Bloggers will blog, and so it goes. Valeria Lukyanova is what she is. She may not be us, but she really isn’t any different. Even if she was, why would you care?

It is and always will be our prerogative to read what we read, to share what we share, to indulge what we indulge. It is ultimately up to us to decide the worth of others, or even our own self-worth as others do likewise. Maybe, just maybe, it's time to think about raising the bar by which we ascribe relevance and value. Perhaps we should aim to contribute something more than facile debates about vapid human qualities no matter how enticingly they may be tailored to our demographic or how well they jive with our own obsession with ourselves. There are plenty of stories to be told, plenty of news to divulge, so why not focus our time on something grander? If we can manage this by doing something absolutely crazy like pushing for reason and insight, or addressing real issues, then we'll raise the standard of debate for not only ourselves, but future participant authors and audiences of discourse worldwide.

The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.