Lee Dawson, medical director of the Rhodes Farm Clinic, which treats girls aged eight to 18 who have eating disorders, condemned Miss Bimbo as "lethal", predicting that "a lot of children will get caught up with these extremely damaging and appalling messages". Neither denied that Miss Bimbo was designed for children as young as nine instead they insisted that it is not a bad influence on young minds.Īnd yet child experts, doctors and eating disorder specialists have been queuing up to point out that whether or not the Bimbo game is intended to be ironic, irony is lost on little girls, who are much more likely to absorb the instructions as valid advice.Īt nine, a child's over-riding desire is to fit in with the herd, and this game sends out a powerful message that to be size zero, famous and rich is the ultimate goal, whatever must be sacrificed in the quest. "It is just part of the game."Īccording to Mr Jacquart, the game is itself a joke: "It simply mirrors real life in a tongue-in-cheek way." "We are not encouraging girls to have breast operations," Mr Evans explained, rather disingenuously. The website's creators - two young men named Chris Evans and Nicholas Jacquart - have spent the past week touring the television studios defending the game as a bit of harmless fun. Girls can 'buy' the character breast implants and put her on a diet So, for example, when a player reaches skill level seven, she is advised: "After you broke up with your boyfriend, you went on an eating binge! Now it's time to diet."Īt level nine, she should "have a nip and tuck operation for a brand new face" at level 11, secure a breast operation because "big is best" and on level 17, "meet a billionaire on vacation, catch his eye and his love!" She must be provided with modelling jobs, diet pills, breast augmentation - and a fabulously wealthy man who will pay for her expensive tastes. In stark contrast to the fluffy "virtual pets" which became a fad on the internet a few years ago, the Bimbo's needs are not for food, shelter and exercise. She is a teenage mannequin, a "Bimbo" - complete with bunny-girl ears, pouting lips, blank expression and pneumatic breasts. The technology itself may be curse enough for many of today's families - including my own, in which battles with my eight-year-old son over how much time he spends on the computer are now an almost daily event.īut in the case of Miss Bimbo, there is an added toxic twist in the sheer, crashing vacuity of the character the nation's daughtersĪre being encouraged to nurture. The more you play, the higher you climb up a ladder of skills.Īcademic research suggests that it's this setting of simple tasks that hooks in young minds, and accounts for the fact that once children are engrossed in a particular computer game, they never want to quit. The girl who chooses to play on this website is invited to adopt a character and provide for her care by performing online tasks to earn "virtual" money to spend on her charge. Like so many virtual worlds designed to draw in the young, Miss Bimbo calls on the child's instinct to nurture. With a cursory glance at the rules of the "game", parents of today's computer-obsessed youngsters will quickly understand its insidious appeal. Since its UK launch a month ago, the website has attracted more than 200,000 visitors. Miss Bimbo is an online game designed for girls as young as nine, where players are invited to meet the demands of a voracious, virtual teenager whose needs include binge eating and fasting - and plastic surgery. No wonder, then, that the advent of a "Miss Bimbo" website has provoked such an outpouring of parental outrage and anxiety.
In times when young men might be called upon to go to war and women were the guardians of hearth and home, we gave our sons tin soldiers, and our daughters baby dolls. It matters, too, because the games and toys we hand our children are important expressions of our collective values and expectations. Child's play? The Miss Bimbo website is causing controvers圜hild's play matters because it is a rehearsal for adult life.
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