Culture: Forget it, Jake. It’s… Bimbo City??
Welcome to Miss Bimbo. Enter the exciting world of the first ever, virtual fashion game ! Become the most famous, beautiful, sought after bimbo across the globe!
- Find your own cool place to live.
- Find a fun job to pay for your needs and all the clothes a Bimbo could possibly want.
- Shop for the latest fashions and become the trendsetting bimbo in town !
- Become a socialite and skyrocket to the top of fame and popularity.
- Date that famous hottie you’ve had your eye on and show the Bimbo world the social starlet you are !
- Even resort to meds or plastic surgery. Stop at nothing to become the reigning bimbo !
- Tackle your 104 tasks as quick as possible to become the rising star bimbo !!
Boob jobs, diet pills and boyfriends are the name of the game for many girls joining a new online game that allows users to do whatever it takes to become “the most famous, beautiful, sought-after bimbo across the globe.”
“Miss Bimbo’s” users — who are primarily teenagers but are as young 8 — create virtual characters known as bimbos, dress them, groom them and can even navigate them right onto a plastic surgeon’s operating table.
Launched by business partners Chris Evans and French entrepreneur Nicholas Jacquart two months ago in Great Britain, “Miss Bimbo” has already attracted more than 200,000 users in Britain. The French version, created a year ago, boasts more than 1.2 million users.
Described by Evans as a cross between “Barbie” and “Tamagotchi,” the virtual pet game created in Japan, “Miss Bimbo” hinges on users creating bimbos and then making sure they’re taken care of.
“It’s a virtual reality fashion game,” Evans told ABCNEWS.com. “[Users] create a bimbo, buy her clothes, send her to university and love her and nurture her.”
But it’s the kind of loving and nurturing available in the game that has alarmed many body image experts who charge that the site is sending a bad message to young girls about what it means to be attractive and sexy.
“The fact that the game is encouraging girls to get boob jobs or go to the tanning salon or nab a rich boyfriend to make them more attractive or happier is just a sad awful message,” said Leslie Goldman, the American author of “Locker Room Diaries: The Naked Truth About Women, Body Image.” “It’s a horrible example to set for girls in terms of what is fun and cool and what it means to be a woman.”
I’m sort of on the fence about this. On one hand I can see this as satire and a typical Ponzi scheme. On the other hand, if you read the entire ABC News article, you’ll see that Chris Evans uses the words “in real life” a few times. He’s lying of course. Sitting at a computer and “nurturing” a fictional character (also known as “leveling up” in in fantasy game circles) is not an activity that confers real life lessons.
The byproduct of of our digital revolution is, for some, a loss of autonomy, personal authority, and socialization with family and friends. Digital concepts like Miss Bimbo represent the inevitable culmination of technology and the human desire to become a slave to the pursuit of achievement. Just one more hour and you’ll be a few pegs higher on the leaderboard. All the while, time spent with the shareholders of your life is lost.
I went through this with my father. The thrill of competing on America Online with others for the attention of others led to his estrangement from myself and my mother. That end isn’t inevitable of course. But, what sort of life vest do you throw to someone who is drowning in the belief that maintaining a virtual character is more personal and relevant than taking care of him or herself and those to whom he or she is responsible?
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