Breast implants cost 11,500 bimbo dollars and will score you 2,000 bimbo attitudes

Move over Monopoly! Screw you, Chutes and Ladders! Miss Bimbo is coming to town. And she’s going to teach all of your daughters the importance of being slutty and messing up their body image.
(Photo from http://xanthia.wordpress.com)
The online "virtual fashion game for girls" allows girls to name their own bimbo avatar (I just tried but my nickname, Lolly, was already taken.) If I had been able to join, I’d have been given my very own naked bimbo and a mission: dress her in tight clothing and lingerie (these girls are probably wearing "PINK" and "JUICY" splashed across their behinds to begin with), feed her diet pills and nab her a super-rich boyfriend, STAT. I wonder if they have options like"Go to rehab - 8,000 bimbo points" or "accidentally forget to wear underwear - 2 days of guaranteed publicity!"

According to CNN.com, users are told "stop at nothing," even "meds or plastic surgery," to ensure their dolls win.

So it's like The Sims (from what I here) but way, way more hypersexualized and targeted at an even younger audience.

Here's a sampling of the game's "levels,' from the UK Times Online:

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

The website began in the UK last year and apparently is infiltrating the U.S. Perfect! Another way to screw up our little girls and give them more reasons to think inflated boobs, fake-bake skin and diet pills are the answer to all of life’s ills. As if they don’t have enough being hurled at them already from TV, billboards, magazines, ads, It Girls, their friends, their parents.

I understand that we cant shield our daughters (and sons, for that matter) from all the evils in the world. But really, do we need to purposefully compound the situation by offering up web games full of pink clothing and tanning beds and 100% pure Hoodia? As I understand (still trying to get onto the site...I may try ParisLindsayNicole as my avatar name thi time), Miss Bimbo also offers some positive purchasing options, such as fresh vegetables. But come on...any young girl playing a game like this in the first place is going to get swept up in the craziness and pick diet pills. Even if she does buy some veggies, that's hardly balanced by her frolicking in a virtual world where the ultimate goal is to not work and be supported by a Sugar Daddy. (Speaking of money, it's free to join but eventually the e-money runs out. Don't worry, tho - you can start using a PayPal account or send $3 text messages... one British parent is threatening the (male) creators with a lawsuit after his little girl ran up a $200 cell phone bill sending Miss Bimbo texts, according to the Times of London newspaper).

Sigh...what happened to having a little doggie as a pet?

PS I was just interviewed by ABC News for this - will send a link when it's up.
Here it is!

Comments

This is so funny.

I read about this earlier today. It sounds funny, but in a really awful way. I get that it's supposed to be ironic, but I don't know that many 9 year olds who have mastered irony.

Where are the parents who should be monitoring what their children see and do online? Yes, at first it sounds funny, but look ahead and figure out how this will affect the young girls.

Um. This makes me want to cry. Honestly. I would like to be charitable and assume that it was meant to be tongue-in-cheek...

But when you said "Miss Bimbo also offers some positive purchasing options, such as fresh vegetables. But come on...any young girl playing a game like this in the first place is going to get swept up in the craziness and pick diet pills" I think you pretty much encapsulated the reality of what goes on for so many of these girls. Why do it the slow/hard/healthy way, when you can do it (hah! maybe) the fast/easy/lethal way? That's it in a nutshell...and the game glamorizes it even further.

If this really were intended to point out the horribly body-and-soul destroying nature of the current fashion culture, it might be excusable, or at least less horrible. As it is though...it made me throw up a little.

V.

As the mom of a 1 year old girl, hearing about crap like this gives me a freakin' panic attack. We'll have our work cut out for us to counteract the messages that she'll be inundated with as a pre-teen and teen (and as a kid for that matter...hello, Bratz?). If anyone has any good ideas for how to deprogram her, please post here - we'll need them in about twelve years. By the way - Leslie makes a good point - we should be just as worried about the message that this sends to all the teenage boys out there, too.

I weep for the future.

I kept waiting for you to drop the punchline. But it never came. I actually went to the site to see if it was actually called Miss Bimbo. It is. Who DOES that?? For 8 year-olds. Eeek.

PS> loved your quote in the abc article!!

That is so gross. What can we do to stop the creators of this website? Better yet, stop this sort of wack job thinking!?

I found him on facebook, if you're interested. You can send him a message:

http://www.facebook.com/people/Nicolas_Jacquart/766162836

Alyssa, can you hand me the tissue box?
This is an example of how it's getting worse. People create this kind of stuff because they see a market for it, and this kid has already proven that he has a market in the UK. Now, it's on this side of the pond, and we have to figure out how to squash it.

Stephanie - it's been on this side of the pond for a while, I'm afraid (Bratzz Babies - babies tricked out like hos - was there ever a greater oxymoron?). But I'm totally with you on quashing it. Let's start with not buying our daughters t-shirts that say ridiculous things like "People buy me stuff because I'm cute" (no joke - saw this in target).

Leslie - Heeey! Thanks for the shout-out to my HuffPo article:) It takes me a while but I catch on eventually.

The logical next step is a 'Baby Ho' game where little girls compete for the most desirable street corner in order to move on to employment in the Emperor's Club. The highest level will be a nude Penthouse Magazine photo gig.

Yuck. How did we get to this place?

I couldn't believe this was for real when I first saw it. I find it particularly hilarious that the founder is defending the site for its positive lessons about financial responsibility. Meanwhile one of the objects of the game is to find a rich boyfriend so you don't have to work. Girl power! Their parental verification process is a joke, too. Let's find some angry parents whose daughters have managed to sign up without their knowledge. Hopefully that's the case for most of the kid members, because I would hate to think that there are parents who are actually granting permission for their daughters to be virtual bimbos. Ugh.

We got here the same way we got to kids playing "Grand Theft Auto" and "Mortal Kombat." Raising kids is hard work and a lot of parents either don't have the time or just aren't interested. A great man once said that all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. He was right. I don't believe in censorship at the government level, but parents should be keeping this out of the hands of their kids. And "people buy me stuff because I'm cute" is only cute if you're under age two and you're talking about grandma.

Even if a website is targeted to younger kids shouldn't there parents monitor what they watch? Some people need to take control of what there kids see over the Internet. Then again, don't let them watch television...oh wait what about public schools home school instead. I would like to hope an 8yr doesn't have a computer in there room , but you never know. I do agree breast augmentations and diet pills? Come on. I wanted to see for myself about the website. The ages I saw there were 20+ and a couple of teens. I actually saw a 6yr signed on but it still comes to the easiest and its free thing to do, talking to your kids.

Hmm...That sounds like a disgusting game...however it does remind me of the books " Uglies" and "Pretties" by Scott Westerfeld. I haven't really finished " Pretties" yet, nor have I read " Extras." If you have read them then you should get what I mean.