I’m No Bimbo!

Gemma McKenna
Ogra Shinn Fein

There are many games aimed at young children. Many try to teach them how to read or write, while some just encourage out door activity as well as team work.

This latest online game however missbimbo.com did catch my eye and indeed the attention of many parents. You may ask why?

We’ll answer me this young ladies, what goals do you have for yourself? And to young men, what goals do you think your sister or female friends have?

Should we as females aim to simply improve our appearance and want bigger boobs and a millionaire husband....... these are the exact aims of this online game which has some 2 million members, with some as young as nine.

It states on the site the aim is to become the, “hottest, coolest, most famous bimbo in the whole world", and contestants who compete against each other are told to "stop at nothing", even "meds or plastic surgery", to ensure their dolls win.

Children are given a naked virtual character to look after. They compete against other players to earn "bimbo" dollars so they can dress her in sexy outfits and take her clubbing.

They are given missions, including securing plastic surgery at the game's clinic to give their dolls bigger breasts, and they have to keep her at her target weight with diet pills.

What ever happened to beauty being on the inside?

This is what I was always told it wasn’t until 15 that I learnt of makeup and started to even think about fashion… up until then I played happily in the park with clothes my mum picked out for me.

But now a young girls’ innocence and effectively her childhood is being snatched away from her by having to think of “fake tan and breasts implants”.

Isn’t this a step too far... are we not already a society that always constantly talks of weight, diets, looks, plastic surgery?

You only have to life a girl’s magazine or turn on the T.V to be bombarded by photos of skinny celebs... or ways to lose weight or the latest fashion tips.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

I refuse to stand by and let a young girl be told that she needs to improve her appearance to get ‘bimbo points’ and that her ultimate goal should be a ‘millionaire husbands.’

Do the makers of this game not realize that eating disorders are already high amongst young girls? Do they not know that many young women are already obsessed with how they look and always feel pressurised to ‘look good’?

But yet they are encouraging young children to think about how they look and are saying that better appearance wins points.

So does logic not then indicate that young naive children will believe that in order to be popular in society one must look good and even undertake plastic surgery as promoted in the game to do so?

I acknowledge the fact that I live in a materialistic society and I like anyone feel pressurissed to have the latest fashion like any-one and as young women I do also want to “fit in”.

However, I do know what really matters in a person and that isn’t their bra size or the colour of their lip gloss.

If a girl as young as nine is constantly obsessed with how she looks then what will she be like at 15 or even 20?

This is not just a game but something that will influence and shape the mind sights of out future young women.

So I urge you to protect young girls don’t like them be exposed to this game instead nurture their inner beauty so they can flourish and realize what really matters in life….. and it can’t be purchased on a credit card!