Video games are supposed to let us temporarily escape from all the pressures and problems we face in the real world. But a new Facebook game called It Girl only perpetuates the pressures young women experience every day.
Created by a booming game company called CrowdStar, the game has gained 9,209,776 monthly active users since its debut in September 2010. This may be good for business, but this means there are millions of girls out there getting twisted messages about how to be successful.
“The purpose of the game is to become the It Girl, the most stylish person at cool events around the world, surrounded by the biggest clique,” according to CrowdStar’s website. That statement alone could bring back a flood of memories of not being cool enough to be in the in-crowd in high school. For those of you feel like you’re drowning already, just wait. There’s more.
The beginning of the game starts off fairly innocently. Players are given an avatar and must create a look for her by giving her a hairstyle, doing her makeup, and so on (keep in mind; the avatars look like size zero supermodels.) Then she is dropped off in Union Square, New York with nothing to do but go shopping, party, and have “showdowns” with other girls. Sounds pretty easy right?
By completing specific quests, players can move to higher levels in the game. These quests are often completed by “winning” parties. You may be wondering, “How does one win a party?” That’s simple, really: win the required number of showdowns.
Picture this. You get invited to a big party on campus this Friday night and the dress code is “Night Life.” What’s the first thing you do? In It Girl world, you have to make sure you have enough money, confidence points, and energy points. The avatars are paid money every hour, but they never have to go to work. They have to have money to have confidence because they gain confidence points by either buying a life coach or buying beauty products. They also must have money to have energy, because everyone knows the only way to gain energy is to go to the café and buy a latte. Apparently espresso is a girl’s best friend.
So, with a latte in hand, you go into the city and go shopping for the best nightlife outfit you can find. If you were living the It Girl life, your first step to winning a showdown would be complete. The first part of winning a party is your “hotness” number. Each article of clothing your avatar buys is assigned a number of hotness points. The higher your number, the more likely you are to win a showdown.
After you have your outfit picked out, you have to decide who you’re going to go out with. A large groups of friends is requires for this game because in the world of It Girl, two just isn’t good enough. In order to enhance the chances of winning a showdown you need to have a big clique. The more friends you have, the more likely you are to beat the girls at the party.
Now you’re at the party, you’ve got a bunch of your friends with you, you look hot, but you had to sell some of your old clothes to afford your new outfit. In a showdown, the third factor is a bigger closet bonus. The fuller your closet is, the better you’ll do in a showdown.
Finally, once all of these necessary steps are taken care of, it’s time for the showdown. Once your avatar is at a party, there are about ten other girls there and usually about the same number of guys. When you click on the girl you want to showdown with, the crowd gathers around you and the two of you stand there and strike poses until you each receive a score, calculated by the factors listed above.The score represents the amount of confidence each girl has gained in this fashion faceoff. But guess what, the numbers are always negative! What a bummer, right? No matter who wins, both girls need a confidence boost afterwards.
Sometimes we might feel like we need a confidence boost and a jolt of energy after a long day of classes, work, homework, clubs, sports, roommates, boyfriends, girlfriends, professors, and the list goes on! Walking around Philadelphia, and especially Temple’s campus, it’s hard not to compare yourself to the girls you pass by. It can be really intimidating.
This game is telling its 9 million players that they need to be pretty, popular, and rich in order to be successful. And not only that, but she has to be prettier, richer, and have more friends than the girl standing next to her. CrowdStar’s It Girl perpetuates the mean girl stigma young girls are pressured into, and everything that is attached to it.
Temple girls will be more successful than any It Girl :)
Check out the link to see more about It Girl:
http://www.facebook.com/crowdstarsitgirl