Cast your mind far back, to a stupid website that managed to make newspapers, radio and even BBC news the week of the 24th of March.
Lots has happened since then, but I’m still fuming. The website in question was missbimbo.com, an online stat-building game where you make sure your skinny blonde character is the most fashionable sexy Paris-Hiltony girl ever. Sounds like fun right?
Ok well maybe not. There are way more exciting things out there on the vast internet, and for missbimbo.com to be boasting a mere 3,000 players only days after major news coverage proves it.

But boredom aside - and it is very, very boring - lets get back to the root of the scandal. The problem was not that Miss Bimbo is in fact, a complete stereotype of the average blonde skinny Hollywood socialite, (after all, Paris Hilton really has to get on our nerves for us to be screaming for blood), but that children as “young as nine” had been able to access the site. This was then followed by hoards of interfering parents, internet watchdogs and the fucking Daily Mail all joining hands to stop this outrageous corruption.
Just to give you a taste, in case you’ve forgotten, the game works by ‘winning challenges’, like buying a new hairstyle - blonde is recommended - or whatever. Most controversially, boob jobs, and diet pills are also on the list. Therefore, “Miss Bimbo promotes extreme dieting and plastic surgery!”, “Miss Bimbo fuels pressure felt by young people”, “Burn creators of Miss Bimbo alive!”. Ok, not the last one, but you get the gist of it.

They do have a point, I suppose. It’s not really a positive thing to crave massive boobs and a 10 inch waist. However, although Barbie’s certainly a pretty skinny blonde thing, she’s never been addicted to TrimLife pills. She can still be skinny and blonde though, that’s alright. It’s fine to have the traditional unattainable image of beauty, as long as dear old Barbie doesn’t admit to a boob-job or feeling pressured by society to yack up every meal she eats or whatever. Likewise, Bratz may be the most appallingly “sassy” little things, but they don’t openly proclaim to have collagen implants in their trout-pouts.

The deciding factor here is mostly about if the methods you used to get looking the way you do: diet pills no, compulsive exercise and rigorous diet yes. The main problem is this hit and miss attitude of pretty much everyone involved in the media shitstorm.

Why, oh why, are they targeting such a bland, obvious ineffectual little website as a cause of all the problems that are ongoing with the young girls these days? As if it has had any lasting impact, whatsoever? The fact that it can be accessed by girls “as young as nine” is almost as irrelevant. Is nine how old you have to be to click a mouse? I can think of much worse things that can be accessed by nine year olds. Miss Bimbo doesn’t even come close.
Even putting the internet to one side for a moment, the idea that in order to be attractive you have to conform to the image dispersed by the media is hardly a new one.

When you sign up, it says that the idea weight is 127lbs and that the ideal height is a “slinky 5′ 6″. If you’re not this, you may feel a little dejected for about half a second. Realistically, it doesn’t cut to the core half as much as the completely inescapable torrent of magazine covers, actresses, models, and so on. A silly cartoon of a ‘bimbo’ doesn’t really measure up. The fact that you can give her a boobjob has little or nothing to do with it.
No matter where you turn, inevitably, you’re confronted with images of the way you should look. Demonising a silly website isn’t going to stop humanity’s vanity. Nor should we try. The bandwagon of the slim, clear-skinned and tall as an ideal is unstoppable, and besides, you’d only end up stigmatising another image of society. How on earth can you justify all the column inches and airtime devoted to this topic when you consider ‘The Swan’. Why not censor the beloved ‘America’s Next Top Model’? What about the fanciful size 0s of ‘The OC’? How about burning Heat magazine in a big fiery ball? (I, for one, would in be first in line.) The list is endless; there’s no escape.

So what’s there to be done? If girls as young as “nine to sixteen” are the ones at risk from this website, what about a little reassurance from parents that this is all a bit of fun and not to be taken seriously. And to be fair, if Miss Bimbo is going to have your pre-teen begging you for boob-job money, there was probably something wrong to begin with.

Sadly, and perhaps most damningly, the main issue at hand here is the vulnerability of girls to these ideas. The out-cry over this website was tremendous, mostly because deep down inside, everyone knows that as a gender, somehow it’s gotten to this. Aside from a lucky few, virtually no woman is safe from the aggressive neurosis of self-doubt and body issues caused by the Western world’s obsession with beauty. Miss Bimbo is just another brick in that wall.

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