Miss Bimbo also places an eerie emphasis on boyfriends players are told that men provide a much-needed source of money "just because he loves you." Add in the fact that girls can find out about a number of adults-only topics on the site's message boards, and it might be a good idea to steer teens clear of babysitting their own bimbo. However, the site features a cringeworthy focus on weight - players are told letting their bimbo lose or gain too many pounds could affect her happiness, which isn't a very body-positive message to send teens. Users also need to care for their character by feeding them, potentially encouraging responsibility. For example: Playing games helps girls earn online currency to buy things, but also helps boost their bimbo's IQ. The site could teach girls a few positive lessons in a fun way. If they eat too much chocolate in the game, it is bad for their bimbos’ bodies and their happiness levels compared to if they eat fruit and vegetables, which reinforces positive healthy eating messages.The U.K.-based MISSBIMBO.COM offers users the chance to create a virtual pet-like avatar - a female "bimbo" - and features more than 30 levels, which players can advance through by doing things like changing their bimbo's hairstyle, buying her clothes, and renting her a virtual apartment. He has also issued provocative quotes, like this widely reported statement: “The missions and goals for the bimbos are morally sound and teach children about the real world. We apologise to any players whom this may inconvenience but we feel in light of this weeks proceedings it is the correct action to take.” With his eyes set on other countries, Bimbo developer Jacquart has bowed only a little to media pressure to alter his site - the homepage now includes the message: “As a result of this rather surprising media attention we have decided to remove the option of purchasing diet pills from the game. It has had a steady increase of traffic since January - reaching 1.2 million players as of late March, but it too is starting to drop off.) (The French site, Ma Bimbo, has been around since October 2006 and features a less sexualized drawing on the site’s front page. The cash infusion provides players more “Bimbo dollars” to buy things such as breast implants, tanning sessions and pedicures, all to make them more popular on the site.Ī Frenchman has already sued Miss Bimbo’s French sister site after his daughter ran up a text message bill of $200. Although it is free to register for and play Miss Bimbo, when players run out of virtual currency, they have the option to continue to compete by buying Bimbo text messages at the cost of $2.99. “Frankly, what have kids already absorbed from the media about their own worth and the worth of girls if this site is so popular?”Īnother hot-button issue is the crass commercialism of a site that encourages youngsters to alter physical appearances with artificial and hyper-sexualized alternatives. “Our research shows that representation of girls in media tends toward overvaluing them for their appearance and undervaluing them for their inner character,” Cook told the Los Angeles Times. Parental groups and feminist organizations have piled on with arguments exemplified by Allene Cook, executive director of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media. But this time, instead of boys encouraged to use violence in real life (picked up by playing first-person shooter games), girls playing Miss Bimbo might internalize the game’s competitive diet-pill popping and plastic surgery. Like so many “kids and video games” stories before it, the gist of the arguments against Miss Bimbo was that impressionable young girls might subscribe to the social mores of the game. And others noted that the bare Bimbo that a player starts out with is slender, long-legged and dressed in her skivvies. Breast implants to keep one’s pet Bimbo well endowed ignited further conversation. Of the many charged issues that come with Miss Bimbo game play, it seemed that media pundits were most focused on the diet pills available for purchase to keep one’s Bimbo thin (they have since been removed from the game). A post on the Miss Bimbo homepage cites “unforeseen worldwide interest” as the reason for the site’s inability to load. At the time of writing this story, the game was inoperable. Traffic has since dipped as the press frenzy has died down. Robin Goad, research director of Hitwise in Britain, a company that collects Internet usage data internationally, said British traffic to the site increased a hundredfold between March 22 and 25.
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