Sleazy lifestyle games website for tweens.

A new website was launched in the UK shortly before Christmas aimed at the ‘tweens’ called My Minx and already it has attracted over 20,000 members, some as young as seven years old. Originally billed as ”Barbie meets Chanel”  the games’ creators also made Miss Bimbo, which has over two million members and has been criticsed for encouraging young girls to give their characters diet pills and ‘boob jobs’.

The site allows the children to play a game in which they create a virtual avatar and then act out certain life style options including; being a stipper, a dog handler or adopting children from overseas (coincidently these adopted children come from Cambodia, Ethiopia and Malawi with names such as Pax, Maddox, Sahara and David and bear a striking resemblence to the adopted children of Madonna and Angelina Jolie).

Clubbing, binge drinking and one night stands are the norm. Players design their own saucy lingerie brands and handbag ranges as they compete to create the most stylish minx, competing to be crowned the ‘minx of minxes’ in the game. The use of condoms and the morning after pill are also options as the minxes hit the town in “Style City” with the sole purpose of attracting casual partners, the more the better it seems with each players IQ increasing as they use more condoms.

Recently journalist Kim MacDonald spent some time on the site creating ‘Kasma Booty’ a cartoon avatar in the online game. Her trip to the plastic surgeon gave her avatar enhanced breasts and poutier lips. The happiness level on her profile page automatically adjusted from 86 per cent to 100 per cent following surgery.

Macdonald’s comment was ”If I had a daughter, she would not be allowed anywhere near My Minx.”

Tweens are using Twitter and MySpace to spread the word about this sordid virtual world.

Dr Michael Carr-Gregg, author of Real Wired Child and Generation Next speaker, said parents need to develop a “digital spine” by putting an end to inappropriate online activities. He is counselling a growing number of children with what he calls ”problematic net behaviour”.

An Edith Cowan University child psychologist and cyber expert, Julian Dooley, said websites such as these were bad for children’s self-esteem, and created negative impressions about women.

”This sort of site sexualises women, which can create negative body images, low self-esteem and unhealthy ideas about women’s roles in society in terms of sexual behaviour,” said Dr Dooley, the scientific director of ECU’s Cyber-bullying and Child Health Promotion Research Centre.

”The extent to which exposure to this sort of content affects their offline behaviour remains to be seen, but what is clear from other areas of research is that this sort of highly sexualised content creates unhealthy attitudes about sexual behaviour and intimate relationships. For example, it may lead to expectations that you need to be well-endowed or wear skimpy clothes to be popular”.

Andy Hibberd, spokesman for parents’ rights group Parentkind, said: “It is sending out all the wrong messages and the only reason its creators have made it is to make money. ‘They are exploiting children for profit. Children’s innocence is very precious and should be protected for as long as possible”.

Writer Helen splarn,  Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha

Source: Daily Mail UK. Read more here.