Viva Forever

I signed up for an account at Miss Bimbo almost two weeks ago. I first came to know about the site from an article on Feministing and various other news sources (wiki gives links to a few) and my first reaction was that it sounded like one of the most horrible things in the world. Teaching kids to be bimbos and get plastic surgery and taking diet pills? WTF? A while after that, one bored afternoon, I decided to see what the fuss was about for myself.

Upon registration, I was awestruck by two aspects of the site. Firstly, one of the face-palmingly ironic aim of the game, which was to be the “most intelligent” bimbo… ever. Do these people not know what the word “bimbo” means? Secondly, I was baffled by the fact that the “bimbo” character that you start off with has an IQ of 70 and you need to work your way up from there. That’s… two standard deviations from the norm, i.e. you’ll be in the bottom 3-ish% of the general population in terms of the smarts. Why you are given an almost retarded virtual woman to start off with is a complete mystery.

As for the game play, it’s pretty shitty for a semi-popular virtual game that boasts to have 500-1000+ players at any one time. Many of the pages are incredibly buggy and poorly coded and the mini-games are horribly banal (except for maybe sudoku). Unlike other online games, Miss Bimbo seems to consciously try to limit the amount of time any player would want to spend on the site, as there is little activity that would motivate one to keep playing continuously at any one time.

On your right, is my “Bimbo” as she currently is.

As for the actual complaints and defences for the game? Here’s a couple of things to note:

• The creators of MB had tried to downplay the existence of plastic surgery in the game as being just a minor, “optional” thing. This isn’t true, as one of the actual goals to advance a level actually requires you to perform surgery on your character. Also, boob jobs and face lifts are by far the quickest and biggest ways to boost your “bimbo attitude”, which is a form of status currency in the game.
• The whole fear that “bawww little 10 year olds are playing the game!” is kind of unjustified; I haven’t seen anyone younger than 16 years old play, and usually the age ranges from early to late twenties. But still, doesn’t mean young women aren’t impressionable.
• They’ve gotten rid of the “diet pills” that apparently you could get before to lose weight, but it doesn’t excuse the fact that they have an “ideal” weight for one’s “bimbo”, which is 127lb (about 57kg). Given how the character is relatively tall, that weight is probably lower than what’s normal.
• I’m surprised that no one has complained about the fact that one of the main ways to earn money in this game is from your boyfriend. That’s right, you are more or less obliged to get a boyfriend, who does nothing but pay you daily (for what, who knows) and gives you status. The higher level you are, the “better” the boyfriend you could get, who then gives you more money and more status dollars. Also, to complete goals, you’re constantly asked to break-up with current boyfriends and get newer, better paying ones.
• A number of the goals require a ridiculously high number of “bimbo attitude” points, which is quite difficult to get. One of the main ways to get it is to spend lots of money on changing one’s hair, makeup, getting a tan, body scrubs and of course, plastic surgery.
• One of the daily flash games that gives a small amount of “bimbo attitude” points, involves “french kissing” as many guys as you can in a club.
• While there is a thankfully wide range of clothing you could get for your modelesque bimbo, there is a disturbing amount of clothing that is incredibly revealing and just plain tacky. Also, you’re encouraged to shop as often as possible for clothing, as various goals require you to have a certain amount of clothing. One of the end goals require you to own at least 500 items of clothing.

I play this game for the fact that I like dress-up, virtual games to an extent, though I tend to abandon them after a while (e.g. neopets). Besides the horribly coded site, I have to say that many of the clothing items and the “bimbos” themselves are nice to look at. However, is this a bad game in a general, “people harming” way? I’d err on the side of “yes”. If I were to do a psychological test, and I was tested before and after 20 minutes of game play to rate my self-image/esteem, I’d probably do marginally worse after playing than not because I simply do not look like that character, even though she’s being portrayed as a desirable, modern woman. It’s not a mind-crushing, “I’m going to kill myself now” comparison as obviously this is a game, but it’s still a vaguely negative experience. To my mind, it’s simply not possible to say this is only “harmless fun”, as the sheer amount of focus on artificial and specific appearances and the prevalent ideas that men are to be used as resources really creates a specific image of how women should be/behave. The game never contemplates different types of women, but that only all women want to be cool, hot, talented and intelligent, superficial and heartless.

There really isn’t any reason for me to continue to play, except that it really doesn’t take up much of my time and that the whole “levelling up” system touches on my RPGesque need to improve gaming characters I’ve invested in. Do I recommend it? Not really. If anyone’s curious to try it, feel free, but I hope what I’ve listed is distasteful enough so that you’d give this a miss.

‘Allo. Exams are now over and I’ve been just chilling, not doing too much.

Things I’m doing/planning to do:
- Finish Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell Susanna Clarke. I’m currently in 56 pages into the book, with about 950 pages left and it’s been a delight to read! A fantasy book with a touch of humour, very interestingly written without being convoluted and a clever world set in 1807 England where magic exists. It’s been so long it feels, since I’ve read a book for enjoyment rather than for university.
- Finish Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, read by Stephen Fry. Good time to be knitting while listening.
- Finish Neverwinter Nights 2. :D
- Play Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulation.
- Watch a bunch of anime I downloaded, namely Code Geass, Blood+ and NANA
- Pick up crocheting/knitting again… though bah, it’s going to be the middle of summer so it’ll probably be little things.
- Do something about my sites. =_=
- Maybe meet up with Amanda when she visits for a holiday?
- HAVE FUN! WHOOOOO!

Oh yeah. And finding a job.

And now for the tidbit of the day, “understanding web design”. I’m not a design student, but hey I like reading things relating to the internets and I had a high opinion of a lot of the articles offered by A List Apart (and still do for many of their practical guides to tweaking CSS and layouts). However, their article on understanding web design was incredibly disappointing in how general and vague it is. This thread on metafilter is hilarious and insightful in pointing out the article’s problems, especially this breakdown.

Basically it seems to be saying, good designs are both functional yet distinctive. ORLY???? -_-

Many thanks to Tim for helping me refine this article.
Here’s something that really jumped out at me the past few months, and I’ve noticed it from people both online and offline. It’s the line:

“I know I <insert bad trait> but at least I admit”

There are variations to that but the message is still the same. Here are examples I’ve heard and I paraphrase:

1. From Uni class

“I’m a commerce/law student, I know I’ll probably behave unethically one day, I know I that I’ll probably put profits over moral concerns, but at least I can admit to it”

2. From casual conversation

“I know I’m homophobic, but I at least I’m not hiding it.”

3. Online forums/blogs

“I know I’m immature, I know I’m mean and pick on people, but at least I admit to it, I’ve never denied it.”

I’m not trying to pick on anyone in particular and I may have done the same thing myself without knowing. But… what do such sentiments mean? Such a reply only ever makes sense when someone is asking, “did you KNOW you hold bad opinions?” Once it’s been answered in the affirmative, what role does “… at least I admit it” answers play? Is… it supposed to be a justification? Surely it can’t be that just because they ADMITTED to the bad trait, that makes it okay, right? I’ve been thinking about this over and over again and all that I’ve come up with is that it’s a feeble attempt to distract the audience from focusing on the fact that they just admitted to holding what would be terrible ideologies to the fact that they’re “honest” and “forthcoming” about themselves. But I don’t see how honesty has anything to do with the type of opinions one hold.

A consequence of such an attitude is the internalisation within the actual person of these ideas. These people might have very well convinced themselves “yeah I hold these values, I know other people don’t, but at least I’m honest with myself” with the heavy preoccupation on congratulating themselves on the latter part, the “I’m honest, yay” part, rather than coming to terms with the actual opinion.

I have a feeling that people who hold such ways of thinking might be tempted to retort with “well would you rather I deny I hold these opinions?” But not only does that just gives a false impression that “it’s either this extreme, or this other extreme”, it once again avoids discourse on the actual opinion itself. Your level of honesty is not the issue. The point is, why you think it’s okay to hold these opinions. Whether or not you admit to being homophobic, or unethical, or immature etc, in the end, this isn’t going to reflect how you behave and colour your actions. Whether you admit to such opinions or not isn’t going to change the fact that you’re going to behave homophobically, unethically, immaturely etc. My question is, why is this acceptable?

Let’s take the first example, because no one likes nasty would-be lawyers. It’s almost like he’s saying that he doesn’t need to be ethical just because he’s told everyone he’s not. It’s the same with the other examples, the implication seems to be, yes I admit I have this fault, isn’t it good enough?

The short answer is “no”. The language of self-help, 12-step programs is everywhere nowadays, and everyone knows the famous line “the first step is admitting you have a problem”. You know how people clap and behave sympathetically at AA meetings when someone admits they’re an alcoholic? In such situations though, the assumption is that such honesty is followed by a change in behaviour. People need to be reminded that admitting you have a problem is not the ONLY step, merely the first. The next question we need to ask these people is, “what are you going to do about it?”

This is a response to Rhiannon’s “obligatory WBB disclaimer” for her Webmaster’s Behaving Badly series. Here’s *my* obligatory disclaimer: this isn’t a “OMFG I hate Rhiannon she’s so mean” post. In fact, I think she writes quite well, I enjoy her reviews and opinions, and she’s on my dailies list. But as she said on her disclaimer, “opinions are healthy, and those who are not afraid to display them in an honest, forthright manner deserve to be commended” so here’s my opinion!
Read the rest of this entry »

They kinda are. :P Here’s a bunch that have accumulated recently.

1. Question Time
I’m probably the 23,482nd person to be doing Amanda’s “ask me a question” meme, but I’m not one for being on time. So yeah, I’m just going to quote her directly, with my modifications:

So, in the interest of allowing my readers to learn more about me as a person, rather than me as a blogger, and because I fear nothing, and show everything…ask me a question. Any question you want, no matter how crude, rude, personal (to an extent), irrelevant. I’ll answer them all in tomorrow’s the next entry (and all people who ask a question get plugged).

2. Blog Day Plug Five Blogs You Read Day
As I said, I’m not one for being on time. :P Here’s five blogs that I admire a lot (and read a lot). In no particular order:

• Void Star – Dee likes Batman and comics (amongst other things) and many of her posts are amusing, educational or both. I’ve always found her blog to be awesome in how it’s coded and set out… it’s got all the necessary features of a blog while being kinda also like LJ. Oh and she draws awesome pictures.
• Jing Wen – Amanda’s articulate, funny and is brave enough to post about topics that some might classify as “too much information” (there’s no such thing!). She also almost posts every day. I think we have a winning formula?
• Oxalic – Sabrina uses lots of big words but I don’t think that detracts from her posts, rather it makes her posts more interesting to read. Many of the posts have a hint of dry amusement about them. And she likes Stephen Colbert too, so double yay.
• Infidel – Kudarania plays DDR too! Woot! I find from reading her blogs that we share a surprisingly large number of opinions, like for reviewing and parenting.
• WordFall – I discovered yesterday that Daimira and I have known each other through blogging from about 2002. In fact, she’s one of the people who I felt encouraged to keep blogging back in the days. Though she does most of her general blogging on her LJ (like EVERYBODY I USED TO KNOW -_-), she’s got a new blog that centres around literary stuff. It’s new and looks very promising. I need to read more books.

Honourable mentions: Everyone else on my dailies list… you guys are all on my feed because I like reading your blogs, even if I don’t comment each and every time.