Miss Bimbo drives same old stereotypes

If you think outlandish stereotypes of women don't exist in new emerging social media, then you might want to look at Miss Bimbo.

I first spotted this Web site in April when I was writing an essay for an international communications class. My specific essay aimed to cover how women are represented in some aspects of the global media, and through various links and research, I found Miss Bimbo, an insanely popular Web site based in the United Kingdom.

Here's an excerpt from my essay describing the Web site...and just how ludicrous it is:

Miss Bimbo is an “online virtual reality social networking game…where bimbos from around the world can join one another and be proud and happy of bimboland." This company is based in the United Kingdom, and it gets most of its revenue from advertisements. Miss Bimbo, which is very popular in Europe, is so controversial because of how the online game is actually played. Anyone 13 years or older can sign up for an account, and there are more than 700,000 “bimbos” worldwide.

Once people have created their bimbo, they manage the bimbo as if it were a real person. It must be fed, find a job, look for a boyfriend, and accomplish goals to move up levels in the game. The controversy kicks in with the appearance of the bimbos and the accessories. All bimbos are incredibly thin, and once a bimbo is first created, the only clothes available are tiny T-shirts and very short skirts. (I actually registered with the Web site in order to see firsthand how sexist and demeaning the concept was).

In order to keep a bimbo happy, things much be purchased, and some of the more questionable items include breast implants and face lifts. Diet pills used to be an option to keep your bimbo at a designated weight, but they have since been removed due to negative public reaction.

It’s almost overwhelming on where to start criticizing Miss Bimbo first: the actual name, the appearance, the goals, the products, the reinforcements of negative stereotypes of women. This Web site’s average user is 19 years old, so it obviously catering to the pre-teen and teenager crowd—and that is an incredibly influential part of anyone’s life, where identity crises are a commonality. To encourage young girls and women to sign up for this virtual bimbo (which implies stupidity on the part of the female character) in order to look “great” and attain goals of fashion and social excellence does a great injustice to women everywhere.

One of the main creators of the company and Web site, Nicolas Jacquart (a man), said, “It is not a bad influence for young children. They learn to take care of their bimbos. The missions and goals are morally sound and teach children about the real world."

If by "morally sound" he meant "stereotypically insulting," then yes, I’d agree with him. But the fact of the matter is this caters to a young audience, and the images presented only perpetuate the views that women should be tall, skinny, tan objects of sexual desire. For Jacquart to say that Miss Bimbo also teaches “children about the real world” is also incredibly narcissistic and paradoxical. The real world does not have to involve insulting stereotypes of body image and other insecurities. Rather, the real world does involve those things because they are reinforced in global media such as Miss Bimbo. Yes, some parents help out this Web site by allowing their children to demean themselves through shallow and short-lived materialization. But if Miss Bimbo did not promote this shallow image of the real world, then the real world could then change to one of gender equity and to one where women to do not have to have these body image pressures placed upon them.

Video of the Day: Absolutely incredible stop-motion art...using only Post-It Notes.