A Web site that encourages girls as young as seven to give virtual dolls breast implants and put them on crash diets has caused concern among parents and children's activists.
The Miss Bimbo Web site has attracted widespread condemnation.
The provocatively named "Miss Bimbo" Web site launched in the UK last month and is described as a "virtual fashion game for girls."
Girls are encouraged to compete against each other to become the "hottest, coolest, most famous bimbo in the whole world."
When a girl signs up, they are given a naked virtual character to look after and pitted against other girls to earn "bimbo" dollars so they can dress her in sexy outfits and take her clubbing.
They are told "stop at nothing," even "meds or plastic surgery," to ensure their dolls win.
Users are given missions, including securing plastic surgery at the game's clinic to give their dolls bigger breasts, and they have to keep her at her target weight with diet pills, which cost 100 bimbo dollars.
Breast implants sell at 11,500 bimbo dollars and net the buyer 2,000 bimbo attitudes, making her more popular on the site.
And bagging a billionaire boyfriend is the most desirable way to earn the all important "mula" or bimbo dollars.
Working, it seems, is a bit of a chore in bimbo world.
The site says: "Bimbo dollars is 'the cabbage,' 'bread,' the 'mula' you'll need to buy nice things and to get by in bimbo world. To earn some bimbo cash you will have to (gasp) work or find a boyfriend to be your sugar daddy and hook you up with a phat expense account!"
The advice on feeding the dolls is even more spurious, encouraging them to feed the dolls "every now and then" even though they want to keep their Bimbos "waif thin."
The British version already has nearly 200,000 players, most of whom are girls aged between 7 and 17, according to the Web site.
Although it is free to play, when the contestants run out of virtual dollars they have to send cell phone text messages costing $3 each or use PayPal to top up their accounts.
In France, where "Miss Bimbo's" sister Web site, "Ma Bimbo," was criticized by dieticians and parents when it began last year, one parent threatened the creators with legal action after his daughter ran up a $200 mobile bill sending texts without his knowledge, according to the Times of London newspaper.
Parents' groups are horrified that the game is taking off in Britain, fearing it could send the wrong message about eating disorders and plastic surgery to young girls
Bill Hibberd, of parents' rights group Parentkind, told the Times the game sends a dangerous message to young girls.
He said: "It is one thing if a child recognizes it as a silly and stupid game.
"But the danger is that a nine-year-old fails to appreciate the irony and sees the Bimbo as a cool role model. Then the game becomes a hazard and a menace."
One parent also told The Times the creators were irresponsible. Nick Williams said he was appalled when he saw his daughters Katie, nine, and Sarah, 14, playing the game.
Williams, 42, an accountant, said: "I noticed them looking at possible breast operations and facelifts for their bimbos at the game's plastic surgery clinic.
"Katie is far too young for that kind of thing and it is irresponsible of the site's creators to be leading young girls astray. They are easily influenced at that age as to what is cool."
However, the creators of "Miss Bimbo" claim it is "harmless fun."
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Nicolas Jacquart, the 23-year-old Web designer from Tooting, south London, who created it was quoted in the Daily Mail as saying: "It is not a bad influence for young children. They learn to take care of their bimbos. The missions and goals are morally sound and teach children about the real world."
He added: "The breast operations are just one part of the game and we are not encouraging young girls to have them, just reflecting real life."
To earn some bimbo cash you will have to (gasp) work or find a boyfriend to be your sugar daddy and hook you up with a phat expense account!"
Is there a "prostitution" career path? Or is that the "work"?
Vendetta wrote:Richard Gatling was a pioneer in US national healthcare. On discovering that most soldiers during the American Civil War were dying of disease rather than gunshots, he turned his mind to, rather than providing better sanitary conditions and medical care for troops, creating a machine to make sure they got shot faster.
So... parents leave their kids on the internet unsupervised. Parents let their kids send money-costing text-messages and Paypal transactions... unsupervised.
...and this is the fault of the creator of an obviously facetious game?
Gaian Paradigm: Because not all fantasy has to be childish crap. Ephemeral Pie: Because not all role-playing has to be shallow. My art: Because not all DA users are talentless emo twits. "Phant, quit abusing the He-Wench before he turns you into a caged bitch at a Ren Fair and lets the tourists toss half munched turkey legs at your backside." -Mr. Coffee
I think it's kind of funny really. It's just the latest in a series of parental flipouts that could easily be avoided by paying attention to what their kids do.
Is the game serious, or is it Forumwarz like satire? While I swore I would never overestimate human intelligence again, this sounds too stupid to be true.
I am capable of rearranging the fundamental building blocks of the universe in under six seconds. I shelve physics texts under "Fiction" in my personal library! I am grasping the reigns of the universe's carriage, and every morning get up and shout "Giddy up, boy!" You may never grasp the complexities of what I do, but at least have the courtesy to feign something other than slack-jawed oblivion in my presence. I, sir, am a wizard, and I break more natural laws before breakfast than of which you are even aware!
Oni Koneko Damien wrote:So... parents leave their kids on the internet unsupervised. Parents let their kids send money-costing text-messages and Paypal transactions... unsupervised.
...and this is the fault of the creator of an obviously facetious game?
The parents' being idiots - and that is most assuredly not in doubt - does not absolve the maker of the game of guilt for making something so fucking venomous and marketing it to teenagers-and-down. Players aged "7 to 17", mostly, according to the article.
Molyneux wrote:The parents' being idiots - and that is most assuredly not in doubt - does not absolve the maker of the game of guilt for making something so fucking venomous and marketing it to teenagers-and-down. Players aged "7 to 17", mostly, according to the article.
I never claimed they were guiltless. But exactly how successful would this stuff be if parents PAID ATTENTION to their kids phone and internet habits?
Gaian Paradigm: Because not all fantasy has to be childish crap. Ephemeral Pie: Because not all role-playing has to be shallow. My art: Because not all DA users are talentless emo twits. "Phant, quit abusing the He-Wench before he turns you into a caged bitch at a Ren Fair and lets the tourists toss half munched turkey legs at your backside." -Mr. Coffee
Molyneux wrote:The parents' being idiots - and that is most assuredly not in doubt - does not absolve the maker of the game of guilt for making something so fucking venomous and marketing it to teenagers-and-down. Players aged "7 to 17", mostly, according to the article.
I never claimed they were guiltless. But exactly how successful would this stuff be if parents PAID ATTENTION to their kids phone and internet habits?
When I was in middle school, I used the internet entirely through my school's computers, pretty much unobserved. A bit later than that, all I needed was my library card to have essentially unlimited internet access, again with no real supervision.
Molyneux wrote:When I was in middle school, I used the internet entirely through my school's computers, pretty much unobserved. A bit later than that, all I needed was my library card to have essentially unlimited internet access, again with no real supervision.
And this magically transfers guilt to the makers of this website... how exactly?
At best it shows that it's not just the parents' fault, but the schools' as well for having such poorly monitored internet usage.
Gaian Paradigm: Because not all fantasy has to be childish crap. Ephemeral Pie: Because not all role-playing has to be shallow. My art: Because not all DA users are talentless emo twits. "Phant, quit abusing the He-Wench before he turns you into a caged bitch at a Ren Fair and lets the tourists toss half munched turkey legs at your backside." -Mr. Coffee
Oni Koneko Damien wrote:So... parents leave their kids on the internet unsupervised. Parents let their kids send money-costing text-messages and Paypal transactions... unsupervised.
...and this is the fault of the creator of an obviously facetious game?
The parents' being idiots - and that is most assuredly not in doubt - does not absolve the maker of the game of guilt for making something so fucking venomous and marketing it to teenagers-and-down. Players aged "7 to 17", mostly, according to the article.
The article never says it was marketed to 7-17, the article asserts that is who is using it. It does not follow necessarily that maker is marketing it to the lower limits of that range.
"You know what the problem with Hollywood is. They make shit. Unbelievable. Unremarkable. Shit." - Gabriel Shear, Swordfish
"This statement, in its utterly clueless hubristic stupidity, cannot be improved upon. I merely quote it in admiration of its perfection." - Garibaldi in reply to an incredibly stupid post.
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Whilst the txt message to get 'bimbo dollars' things seems a typical unscrupulous way to separate idiots from their cash, the aspects of the game that seem to be getting people uptight are obviously satire. It's called 'Miss Bimbo' ffs how much more obvious could it possibly be?
"It is not a bad influence for young children. They learn to take care of their bimbos. The missions and goals are morally sound and teach children about the real world."
I'm reminded of the controversy Joe Eszterhas (scriptwriter for 'Showgirls') caused when he claimed 'Showgirls' had a moral message for young men and women, and encouraged those under 17 to sneak into theaters and watch that movie.
Seriously, the creator of the game obviously has NO children-- only a criminally negligent parent would consider a game like that "morally sound."
Those gun nuts do not understand the meaning of "overkill," and will simply use weapon after weapon of mass destruction (WMD) until the monster is dead, or until they run out of weapons.
They have more WMD than there are monsters for us to fight. (More insanity here.)
Oni Koneko Damien wrote:So... parents leave their kids on the internet unsupervised. Parents let their kids send money-costing text-messages and Paypal transactions... unsupervised.
I don't think you get 'Merka, boy. The average 'Merkin citizen is too busy to monitor what their children do, so we need to appropriate the responsibility to da gubment to make surez we'z kidz grows up rights, but we also need to be careful not to let them scientists and intellectual elite inject thar commie atheist agenda into our youngin's heads.
I'm not sure about the specifics of the game (tried accessing the website, but it wouldn't load), but I'd wager it must have a pretty lax (or non-existant) age verification system.
Now, parents and guardians should take care of what children do, but creators of objectionable material should also be responsible enough to slap a rating sticker on the product, and enforce some sort of age verification, both to give parents the information they need to make their own judgement, and to make it harder for kids to circumvent their parent's authority.
I'm completely against mindless censorship (like Wal-Mart not stocking Adult Oriented products, and thus influencing the market), or parents expecting the government to educate their children, but that doesn't mean those producing media have no responsabilities, specially regarding who they target their products to.
