Miss Bimbo
This will be the first of a new section that we’re trying out that will talk about interesting news developments, the media treatment of said developments, and of course lashings of our own opinions.
Seeing as though I have seen this story reported in most of the day’s national newspapers, and twice on lunchtime telly, I feel that this is a good one to start with.
Miss Bimbo is a ‘virtual fashion game’ that has caused an awful lot of controversy today amongst parents and eating disorder charities. I’m sure most people will have heard something about this by now, but for those that haven’t basically Miss Bimbo is an online social networking game (much in the same vein as Habbo Hotel) that allows the player to create a ‘Bimbo’ and make her the most popular bimbo of all. It seems to at first that this is pretty much The Sims. Follow me after the break…
However, instead of pooing and walking the dog, players can buy ‘Bimbo dollars’ via Paypal and can use these to buy cosmetic surgery, diet pills and clothes in order to make their ‘Bimbo’ the most popular. Anorexia experts are outraged at the site which is aimed at girls aged 9 to 16 as they are concerned with the potentially dangerous messages the site promotes.
Normally, this alarm-about-the-internet story would pass me by, but with a sister in exactly that age bracket, I have to confess I’m a little concerned. I know that at her age I was extremely impressionable; rumours of a local kid being killed whilst playing Power Rangers in the playground I remember vividly put me and my friends off kicking each other in the kidneys at breaktime. However, we soon moved on to Biker Mice From Mars, which often involved running at each other at speed whilst making motorbike noises.
What I’m saying, is that although the thought of my sister desiring plastic surgery after playing Miss Bimbo worries me slightly, I have to say that I’m not concerned that if she plays this game she’ll want to be a waif. Children these days are exposed to such a wide variety of media instructing them to be thin and beautiful if they want to be loved that Miss Bimbo is just one in a very long list of evils. Until models are a normal size, and shops start making clothes I can get my arse into, the image of ‘perfection’ that is being sold to children is not really going to be vastly affected by a game.
There’s a far wider issue here, and although I agree that Miss Bimbo could be dangerous for the extremely impressionable, I do think that we should give children a bit more credit for being far more media savvy than we ever were. The internet and television cannot be demonised as promoting eating disorders when pretty much every other outlet around children is doing the exact same thing. The pressures to look good are prevalent in this world, and its terrible that some children succumb to anorexia or bulimia or other horrible disorders, but it cannot be attributed to one set of factors.
Of course Miss Bimbo probably doesn’t help matters, but I think people need to concentrate on why these kids are so image concerned and address that, rather than directing all their vehement disapproval at the latest craze. Eating disorders amongst children have existed long before, and will still be a problem long after Miss Bimbo is gone, and I think we need to think about that a for a bit. The more you condemn and outlaw something, the more children will want to do it/have a look at the site.
I wonder how many kids (on Easter holidays and watching all of this) will have signed on to Miss Bimbo purely because of the complaints.
