Players can dye and change their hairstyles, battle each other in fashion challenges, visit a psychologist and even get breast implants. Diet pills used to be available to players as well, but the game’s developers have removed them due to an outcry from the media.

I’ve only been playing “Miss Bimbo” for a few days, but already I can’t believe that it exists and that it is targeted at pre-teens.

When I first read about the online game in the Onion’s tolerability index, I thought it was a joke. But sure enough, it is real and quite scary. Based on the extremely popular French game Ma Bimbo, “Miss Bimbo” is targeted at girls as young as nine; players are given an avatar, a “bimbo,” and 1000 bimbo dollars.

The “bimbo” makes Barbie look like a healthy woman. She has a surprisingly large chest and an otherwise pre-pubescent physique.

She begins the game wearing a white bra and panties, and players have the option of buying her low-cut tops, skimpy shorts, revealing dresses and lingerie. She can also be completely undressed, but no worries: the avatar is free of nipples and genitalia.

Keep her happy by feeding her vegetables, water and soy milk. But watch out – give her steak and fries and she’ll gain weight and become unhappy.

Build up her IQ by playing sudoku, (your bimbo starts with an IQ of 70, the borderline IQ for mental retardation,) and her attitude by playing the game French Kissing, where you try to kiss as many boys as possible in a set period of time.

In order to level up, players are charged with finding her hip outfits, keeping her weight at a slim 127 pounds, renting an apartment and finding a boyfriend, among other things. Players can dye and change their hairstyles, battle each other in fashion challenges, visit a psychologist and even get breast implants. At one point, diet pills were available, although the game developers have removed them due to an outcry from the media.

All these things require the use of bimbo dollars, which is where a lot of the controversy has risen. Players begin with some money and can earn up to 50 bimbo dollars in various games in the game, but once they run out, they must purchase more through text messages or Paypal.

Bimbos on the site are registered as a mixture of males and females, though females outweigh the males. Ages on profiles range from nine to 93.

In UWM Post tests of the game, players can register as young as 13, with nothing more than an email address and an advisory to tell their parents. When we attempted to register as a player 12 or younger, we were required to enter a “parent’s” email address (so that Miss Bimbo could inform him/her of our activities), yet our “parent” never received the email. Since there really are no restrictions on how you can register, there’s no way of knowing how old or what gender the players of Miss Bimbo are.

The game was released in February and already has parents concerned, and rightly so. It emphasizes the importance of beauty (more specifically the kind of beauty that involves large fake breasts and skimpy clothes), and presents girls with an unrealistic body image. PhonepayPlus is investigating “Miss Bimbo” in the UK, where it was developed, due to claims that it “exploits children’s naivety and contains content that parents would feel unsuitable for children,” according to the UK Times Online.

Nicolas Jacquart, the game’s 23-year-old designer, told the Telegraph: "The game is structured in such a way that it simply mirrors real life in a tongue-in-cheek way. It is harmless fun." That may be what he had intended, but when you look at the end product, that statement is hard to swallow.

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