Update: Miss Bimbo off her diet pills.The boys behind missbimbo.com had second thoughts about the messages they were sending their players:

As a result of this rather surprising media attention we have decided to remove the option of purchasing diet pills from the game. We apologise to any players whom this may inconvenience but we feel in light of this weeks proceedings it is the correct action to take.

Can a Bratz doll represent a strong role model? I’m going with “no,” but would like to hear the arguments.

Relaunched Sweet Valley High books have thinner characters. Thanks to Facebook PEM Fan Juliet Ray. Why would Random House a) even think to do this and b) point it out in a press release?

Celebrating Families attacks consumer culture in the U.K. Psychologists Maye Taylor and Helen Sanderson believe parents are unfairly blamed in the media:

They are getting all the responsibility for what is being claimed as a breakdown in family life and all the experts are telling them they are doing it wrong. We are both psychologists and both parents and we thought we would fight back.”

Good idea!

Yesterday I attended the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits Technology and Communications Conference. It’s the first time I’ve been out of my jammies, off my sofa, and among real people before 1:00 p.m. in more than a year. My greatest concerns were a) whether or not I’d be able to speak coherent English sentences, and b) if real people out in the real world were still wearing pants — or had some other trendy trend taken over business casual?

I gotta get out more.

Beth Kanter was the keynote speaker. I saw her sticker-covered laptop with my own eyes and heard how she won America’s Giving Challenge. She was inspirational and grounded. And she swore like a sailor.

I also met Aaron Landry, who was talking about Web 2.0. terminology. Aaron was one of the first bloggers I read when I started out a year and a half ago. I was delighted when he used this blog (Corporate Babysitter) to illustrate what an RSS reader is, and since he was so kind to me, I will abandon my original plan to review his presentation as if it were a pizza place.* He was terrific.

Next week it’s off to Boston to the CCFC Annual Summit, Consuming Kids: The Sexualization of Children and Other Commercial Calamities (Morgan Spurlock, Jeanne Kilbourne, Juliet Schor, and Enola Aird, to name a few).

Now that I’ve confirmed pants are still in, I think I’m ready.

*A strange craving for pizza, however, did send my family and me to the Franklin Avenue Pizza Luce for dinner.

Thanks to all those who thought of Parents for Ethical Marketing when you heard about Miss Bimbo. For those of you who haven’t been introduced to the online game, you can get a great overview at Hoyden About Town.

Miss Bimbo is, to say the least, horrifying.

All the recent press about Miss Bimbo has led to some pretty sad online discussions — and has made me realize we have so far to go to educate parents and the public about what’s healthy kids.

Some of the comments I’ve read online, which are pretty representative of prevailing attitudes:

Brilliant! By making their website over-the-top ridiculous, they are teaching girls that the behavior required by the game is ridiculous. They are clearly poking fun at “bimbo” behavior, not encouraging it. (via)

Nice theory, but the website really isn’t over-the-top ridiculous. Not when four-year-olds play with Bratz dolls. Not when ten-year-olds wear thong underwear. Not with the amount of money parents and young girls spend on clothing.

I am going to go against the tide here and say that I could see a lot of older girls, in their early to mid-teens, who would play this ironically and for fun. The kinds of girls who hate Paris Hilton and her ilk, and loved watching her go to jail, and there are a lot of those girls. They are the silent majority. At least in my world, they are. (via)

A game based on hating other girls and targeting them for ridicule? Not so noble. And not a trait I’d like to instill in my kids.

Parents who don’t want thier kids to participate in this can do thier job as parents and not let the kid go to the site. Sadly, parents don’t want to take responsibility to raise thier children. (via)

and

Of course its terrible . But people should try being parents instead of blaming web sites or wanting the Gov. or other bodies to raise their children for them,And Yes I sucessfully raised 3 Girls (via)

A child who visits the site does not necessarily have parents who don’t take responsibility. Ever heard of a friend’s house? Or the library?

And it still amazes me that people think vocal parents are bad parents. Doesn’t it make more sense that someone who speaks out about problems in their children’s world is a good parent? 

But you know, I’ve never seen an ad for Miss Bimbo. There are no Miss Bimbo dolls. Or Miss Bimbo stickers, or movies, or fruit snacks. No one’s promoting the Miss Bimbo website in schools. There are no Miss Bimbo coloring books. And no Miss Bimbo theme parks.

Guess there are lots of bimbos to worry about.

Related: Watchdog investigates website that lures girls with plastic surgery and diet

From our friends at Shameless Magazine Blog and from commenter Brianne: turns out the beinggirl.com article on eating-disordered behavior was removed from the U.S. site. But not the Canadian site. And, with more than forty sites, who knows where else it (or something like it) still exists.

Thea at Shameless finds even more reasons to block beinggirl.com at your house.

Receiving an actual response from Procter & Gamble reminds me of the all the organizations I haven’t heard back from. Here’s an update of recent past efforts:

Nationwide Children’s Hospital (re: Abercrombie & Fitch naming rights): nothin’
Girl Scouts of America (re: affiliation with Unilever/Axe): nada
HarperCollins (re: publishing Mackenzie Blue): zero
Target (re: snow angel): zilch
Motion Picture Association of America (on ads for PG-13 movies): *crickets*

Commerical Alert offers us another chance to contact HarperCollins and let them know we’re not so thrilled with their new product-placement/advertising-filled books for tween girls by Tina “parents are tweenabees” Wells.

Unrelated: I did hear back from Northwest Airlines after I filed a complaint on their website. They gave me 5,000 miles, too. Now if they can just get me to Boston on time.

As of Saturday morning, the article promoting eating-disordered behaviors at beinggirl.com had been removed.

Thanks to everyone who blogged about this (especially Rachel, where I first read about it) and to those who took the time to write or to call.

I had received an email from Procter & Gamble after I complained and, as noncommital as it was, at least they responded to me (yes, I’m looking at you, Target):

Thanks for contacting us.

We appreciate your taking the time to let us know how you feel. Please be assured I’m sharing all of your comments with our P&G Management Team.

Thanks again for writing!

P&G Team

Did P & G recognize the error they made by publishing the article? Or did they receive a significant amount of complaints from customers? Does it matter?

As we’ve seen before, some companies do listen. Although I still wouldn’t recommend the site to anyone’s daughter, I give P & G some credit for pulling the article.

Onward and upward!

Some product managers and their creatives were up just a little too late (and possibly smoking just a little too much) reading the latest Four-Year-Old-Girl-Thought-Leader data:

Says here that four-year-old girls love horses.

Yep. And that they love makeup. And princesses.

And tiny little thongs. Heh, heh. And strappy five-inch heels.

Hey! Wait. One. Minute!

Genius! 

I’m waiting for the day when one of them says, Maybe we should give those little girls another option.

“Fashion’s back and it’s got a brand new name… Struts!” 
 
The Struts brand is an attitude and a lifestyle for girls who are on the cutting edge of what’s hot in fashion 
 
Struts combine a girl’s natural fondness of horses and her love for fashion dolls.  
 
Struts will be the new buzz word on the playground – the new word of mouth brand with a sense of hipness – Fashion with a Kick! 

FOUR-YEAR-OLDS, people, do NOT have the attitudes or the lifestyles of adults, are NOT on the cutting edge of what’s hot, are NOT hip, and should NOT be classified as word-of-mouth marketers.

Just writing this post makes me feel like taking a shower. 

Fun details and commentary here, here, here, and here.