Barbara Julie Dunkelman is the Creative Director and Former Community Manager and Marketing Director for Rooster Teeth, as well as the co-manager of RTX, the host of Always Open, and a voice actress as well as motion capture animator.
Barbara is Canadian. She was born in Montréal (Québec) and later lived in Ottawa (Ontario) with her family from age 8-18. She moved back to Montréal to attend Concordia University in 2007 and graduated from the John Molson School of Business, receiving a Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com.) in Marketing in 2011.
Barbara was a longtime community member of the site and volunteered at the first RTX before being hired full-time on December 12, 2011, after she graduated from school. She moved to Austin (Texas) in 2011.
As of Valentine's Day 2018, she entered a relationship with Achievement Hunter manager, Trevor Collins[1]
Her job entails running contests as well as running Rooster Teeth's Social Media. She is also frequently a contributor on the Rooster Teeth Podcast as well as an actress in RT Shorts, most notably Siri: The Horror Movie. Barbara is a member of Squad Team Force. She also was a main member of the Internet Box Podcast, which she worked on with Michael, Lindsay and Ray before its cancellation.
In the Rooster Teeth series RWBY, she is the voice actress for main character Yang Xiao Long (the Y of the titular team and the elder half-sister of said team's namesake leader). She also voices supporting characters ORF in X-Ray and Vav, Katie Jensen in Red vs. Blue, and Nerris in Camp Camp. Her first role in an anime was as Cosmos from Fairy Tail, which was also her first role as an antagonist (albeit minor, and one who reformed nonetheless); like RWBY, Barbara's work in Fairy Tail is often alongside Achievement Hunter's Michael Jones (Sting Eucliffe).
Outside of Rooster Teeth, Barbara does modeling work on her Onlyfans. She started her account, Bimmy, in January 2021.[2]
On November 23, 2023 announced her engagement to Trevor Collins
Trivia[]
- She frequently makes puns.
- There are six different Animated Adventures, that consists only of bad puns made by Barbara, titled Barbara Pun-kelman, the first of which has over 3 million views.
- Ever since a series of Vines exalted Barbara's comedy with Burnie Burns responding "God dammit, Barb!", this has been a common response to her puns (referenced even in Ten Little Roosters) and even became a T-shirt design.
- This trait carried over to Yang, who hardly puns in the regular show ("I always start my semesters with a Yang!") but earns an entire RWBY Chibi segment dedicated to bad puns, and also has many punny quotes in RWBY: Grimm Eclipse.
- Some of Yang's puns are her using her name in place of a rhyming word, "bang" seeming most common.
- It has been stated that she constantly "flicks the bean."
- She has said her record is 11 times in one day.
- She is Jewish, having been born to a Jewish family, and is the middle child, having one older and one younger brother. She often pokes fun of her heritage during Christmas (since Jews have Hanukkah as their holiday instead), but has photographed herself participating in Christmas parties with her friends nonetheless (notably Arryn Zech).
- She is fluent in English, understands French and Hebrew but speaks only a little (as mentioned in RT Podcast #275 at 56:34)
- She is a natural blonde, although she has dyed her hair occasionally for charity.
- Yang is also blonde, with a serious dislike of having her hair damaged.
- She is right handed.
- Barbara has been friends with Gavin since they started talking on the Rooster Teeth site in 2004. They Skyped nearly weekly and used to joke about how great it would be if they both lived in Austin (Game Time - Burnie and Barb play Dungeon Dashers). They met in person for the first time at the Ramsey's about 7 years later, when Barbara visited Austin on spring break (RT Podcast: Ep. 528 - Apple Complaint Tipz & Trickz). Barbara and Gavin are one of each other's oldest close friends (Always Open: Ep. 74 - Gavin's Second Date Crime).
- Despite popular belief, Barbara has said that she is a naturally introverted person who often struggles with shyness. She's generally quiet in social situations and has to "psyche myself up" to prepare for the attention she gets on conventions. This puts her in stark contrast to her most famous character, Yang Xiao Long, who is outgoing and rambunctious in ways that Barbara herself simply is not.
- She was in a relationship with fellow voice actor and writer, Aaron Marquis, himself a Rooster Teeth employee.
- As of January 2, 2017, she now wears prescription glasses for computer use.
- A long-time fan of Red vs. Blue, since her brothers first showed it to her in their teenage years, Barbara was finally given the chance to write the script for an episode in Season 14. The episode she wrote was "Head Cannon," centering on her favorite character, O'Malley. There she also voices female Donut, a role previously played by Burnie's ex-wife Jordan.
- One of her college creations, a dumb teenager named Jakie Mittens, led Miles Luna to rework a nerdy role he was preparing in Red vs. Blue to fit Barbara. That would be Katie Jensen, a clumsy lieutenant who talks with a lisp similar to how Jakie spoke.
- As of August 23, 2016, she is now a permanent resident of the United States.
- She has said that she has a habit of "clamming up" in social situations, meaning she has periods of time where she goes downright silent in groups of people. This can be seen throughout her appearances in the Podcast or On The Spot, in particular.
- Barbara is a hockey fan, her favorite team being the Ottawa Senators.
- Similar to Arryn Zech, her close friend, Barbara identifies as a feminist, and has spoken out against the treatment women often get while online. On September 9, 2016, she noted on Twitter that she was "proud to be a woman in gaming and entertainment" to reflect that. The next day, she attended a panel event from the women of Fullscreen, and participated in an event panel for the women of Rooster Teeth, many of whom she herself considers "strong, successful, and inspirational women." By the end of the events, she said she left "feeling inspired and motivated," and that she was "proud to be a woman and support other women in this industry."
- She played the main antagonist in Ten Little Roosters, before portraying one of Eleven's protagonists. Notably, her main partner in Eleven is Ryan Haywood, Ten's sole survivor.
- She got her first tattoo from Geoff during "The Tattooist" documentary. It was a small bird-like tattoo, in memory of Monty Oum, creator of RWBY who modeled Yang after her, and his iconic signature.
- She once punched Jack in the crotch, which carried over into RWBY's Yellow Trailer when Yang (Barbara) did this to the ("conveniently" voiced by Jack) thug Junior.
- Jack ended up being Junior's voice because Monty felt like Gavin Free (who originally auditioned for the role) was 'too important'; Gavin ended up as Scarlet David, of the same team as Michael's character Sun.
- In Always Open episode 45, Barbara's Halloween costume was the outfit worn by Britney Spears during her hit song "Hit Me Baby One More Time". She had also dressed up as Harley Quinn (#5, in season 1), Rogue from X-Men (#46), Winifred Sanderson from the 1993 film Hocus Pocus (#47), and even her own RWBY character Yang in the following Halloween (Episode 44, which reunited the main RWBY voice actresses).
- When Barbara announced her Onlyfans, she received immense support from at time current and former Rooster Teeth personnel including Jessica[3], Mimi[4], and Burnie.[5]However, some fans mistakenly thought Barbara’s announcement was that she was leaving the company before watching her video.[6]
Gallery[]
Barbara Dunkelman
Barbara wearing the "Ask Me About My Zombie Plan" shirt
Barbara decked out in achievement hunter apparel
Barbara dressed as her character Yang. The costume was made by Anna Hullum.
Barbara's cartoon in Rooster Teeth Animated Adventures.
Barbara with Rebecca Frasier in 2007
Barbara and her 2 brothers in 1999
Young Barbara
References[]
- ↑ https://twitter.com/bdunkelman/status/963842411964198912
- ↑ https://nerdgeist.com/2021/01/03/barbara-dunkelman-is-coming-to-onlyfans/
- ↑ https://mobile.twitter.com/JessicaVasami/status/1345458333877207045
- ↑ https://mobile.twitter.com/Mimi_Can_Voice/status/1345482704297443328
- ↑ https://archive.ph/Lz23H
- ↑ https://mobile.twitter.com/nico_villasana/status/1345450492030308353 & https://mobile.twitter.com/BLT_001_/status/1345451942638727169 &https://mobile.twitter.com/brokenarrow748/status/1345455011103461376
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