The Times Online says:
In the month since it opened the site, which is aimed at girls aged from 9 to 16, has attracted 200,000 members. Players keep a constant watch on the weight, wardrobe, wealth and happiness of their character to create “the coolest, richest and most famous bimbo in the world”. Competing against other children they earn “bimbo dollars” to buy plastic surgery, diet pills, facelifts, lingerie and fashionable nightclub outfits.
The website sparked controversy when it was introduced in France, where it attracted 1.2 million players.
My question is: Do the parents of the girls who play this game condone the messages their daughters get from this website? Or do they not really care and let their children surf where they will?
The Miss Bimbo internet game has attracted prepubescent girls who are told to buy their virtual characters breast enlargement surgery and to keep them “waif thin” with diet pills.
Don't you just love some of the rules?
Users are set targets:
Level 7
After you broke up with your boyfriend you went on an eating binge! Now it’s time to diet . . . Your target weight is less than 132lbs
Level 9
Have a nip and tuck operation for a brand new face. You’ve found work as a plus-size model. To gain those vivacious curves, you need to weigh more than 154lbs
Level 10
Summertime is coming up and bikini weather is upon us. You want to turn heads on the beach don’t you?
Level 11
Bigger is better! Have a breast operation
Level 17
There is a billionaire on vacation . . . You must catch his eye and his love! Good luck
I'm definitely in the camp that believes that a healthy body should be on the slim side but I teach my children that we do this by eating large quantities of healthy, phytonutrient dense foods and exercising, not diet pills. I also stress that good health is the issue, not body size.
I'm glad I homeschool. It makes it so much easier to control the media my children are exposed to. I know it will change as my children grow older, but right now, their peers are all children of mothers I happen to like and whose values I respect.
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5 comments:
As the mom of a 13-year-old girl, that site makes me cringe. I guess media sources promoting garbage values are the rule rather than the exception. :-(
Yikes! I'm glad I have boys! Though I can only imagine there is some equally heinous site for boys to learn how to be a player. Oh wait...they don't need a whole site...they've got media up the yang at their fingertips where girls are portrayed as mere ojects, etc etc. At least my boys have me and their father and our homeschooling family of friends actively shaping them into decent human beings where people are valued for who they are and not what they do or what they wear, etc.
That is truly disgusting.
We don't have a television or buy newspapers or media hype magazines. My girls are only toddlers and still I don't want them exposed to this kind of rubbish.
Just found your blog and I'll be back :)
GROSS!!!!
Makes the Disney Princess stuff seem so innocuous!
Uh, this is me, not Benny. Hehehe. I forgot to log him out and he doesn't normally use this computer!
--Benny's MOTHER
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