Undercover Mom in BarbieGirls, Part 4: Peer pressure to pay up

By Sharon Duke Estroff

Among the cardinal (albeit unfortunate) rules of the schoolyard social jungle is that the more cool, expensive stuff you have, the higher you climb on the food chain. And what kid doesn’t wish to become king or queen of the jungle? Children’s virtual worlds like Barbie Girls understand this fundamental truth about their target audience, so they lay the groundwork for a social caste system by offering privileged paid memberships (i.e. Barbie Girl’s VIP Club) - and let peer pressure take care of the rest.

While I was allowed as a non-paying member to select a single stylish outfit on sign up, purchasing additional attire requires a premium membership. With only the clothes on my back, I couldn’t swap out my wardrobe on the quarter hour like my VIP peers. I couldn’t catwalk the contents of my closet through town - or accessorize with funky jewelry and purses. Instead, I was forced to wear the same lame sundress 24x7, a Barbie Girl social faux pas of the highest order.

I faced similar stresses over my Barbie Girls room, a loft-looking studio apartment with a double bed. Not that my room wasn't nice. The floors were hardwood and my comforter was swanky. But my VIP pals' pads were lavishly furnished from wall to wall and decked out with Jacuzzis, entertainment centers, and indoor hammocks strung between breezy palm trees. I cringed at the prospect of hosting a party in my spare, humble abode. But, alas, it was a non-issue, since subprime citizens such as myself cannot invite guests to their rooms.

Truth be told, the materialistic messaging and pressures I encountered on BarbieGirls weren’t really any different than those that kids face daily in our consumeristic contemporary culture. Yet in this particular virtual-world setting - a societal microcosm populated by mallrats and would-be super models - the overall effect was admittedly more intense.

But here's the sparkly silver lining: BarbieGirls.com provides modern parents with an ideal (albeit unlikely) teaching tool. So sit down with your tween and explore the Web site together. Use the magical hyperbole of Barbie's online world as a launching pad for essential parent-child conversations about marketing and materialism; possessions and popularity; friends and peer pressure; happiness, gratitude, and balance. Help her understand that while glitz, glamor, and fabulous clothes can be cool and lots of fun, our personal worth and value ultimately come from the inside out - and not the other way around.

Related links

Screenshots that show what Sharon means, for example, the difference between BarbieGirls Basic and BarbieGirls VIP at a glance

"Paying for Points" broadens out this picture. It's an analysis of payment and reward systems (and the social hierarchies they create) in virtual worlds, starting with WeeWorld - by analyst and blogger Tim Howgego in the UK .

For an index of the complete Undercover Mom series to date, please click here.

Undercover Mom in BarbieGirls.com, Part 3: To pay or not to pay?

By Sharon Duke Estroff

The vast majority of children’s virtual worlds (and certainly the materialistic pinkpalooza at BarbieGirls.com) are commercial – not public-interest ¬endeavors. So while these Web sites may have excellent intentions in creating safe, kid-friendly online playspaces, they are, at the end of the day, in it for the money, of course.

Some virtual worlds (like Nickelodeon’s Nicktropolis and Pearson Education’s Poptropica) generate profit through paid advertisements. Kids are allowed to play for free, but their fun is laced with overt and covert commercial messaging (i.e. Apple Jacks banners surrounding the screen and playing hockey using M&M candies as pucks, respectively).

Other virtual worlds, like BarbieGirls, employ a pay-to-play model, meaning that cash flow comes not from outside advertisers but from paid memberships. While anybody can open a free BarbieGirls account with limited play capabilities, only those acquiring paid VIP memberships are allowed (to quote directly from the site) “special access to all the hottest stuff!”

Crown jewels: Some sites I’ve visited as Undercover Mom reserve the privilege of clothing one's avatar and furnishing his or her online abode for paid members only. Not so in Barbie Girls, where I was allowed to select a stylish, size 0 outfit ¬– and flooring, wallpaper, and a bed for my loft – from the get-go. Yes, I might have signed up for a free account, but I could strut my virtual stuff about town without feeling like I was donning a scarlet “Non-Member” tiara. For kids who cannot afford to pay (or whose parents refuse to pay) for VIP membership but still want to be included in the fun, this is a significant perk, in my book.

Skeletons in the closet: Although my lack of VIP citizenship may not have been glaringly evident to the masses, it certainly was to me; BarbieGirls dishes out constant reminders to non-members of their subprime status. Sure, I could window shop to my heart’s content – even try on glamorous outfits and accessories – but there was a sales attendant on hand at every store reminding me that I couldn’t buy a darn thing unless I coughed up $5.99 a month. In Paw Pawpalooza, a popular region of BarbieGirls.com, I was denied access to both the Tail-Shakin' Treehouse and the Jungle River Boogie ride. The only place I was welcomed was the Posh Pets shop, where I wasn’t allowed to adopt a pet. A similar caste system ensued in Extreme Dream Park where I could not enter the Sparkle Coaster Place, “a magical land filled with treasures and surprises." I was, however, allowed to enter the Purple Parlor where I could get my fortune told. Once a day. Honestly, If I were a tween girl on BarbieGirls, it wouldn’t have taken me 10 minutes to start badgering my parents to let me become a VIP. [Big pressure to be a VIP doesn't only come from Barbie Girls corporate; get the full scoop in my next installment.]

The bottom line: This week’s Undercover Mom adventure drives home an important reality (for both parent and child) that there is no such thing as a free lunch in kids’ virtual worlds. I asked consumer guru Clark Howard, author of Clark Smart Parents, Clark Smart Kids, if he had any suggestions as to how parents might best handle the pay-to-play dilemma presented by BarbieGirls VIP memberships. He suggested: “Sit down with your child and explain that this Web site wants her to pay money to be there, and that if she would like to use her money – or work it off by doing chores around the house – she can; but she needs to understand that, in choosing the membership they will be giving up X,Y, and Z.” It’s Howard’s hope that Congress will eventually pass a law disallowing such direct marketing to children under 14 years of age.

Related links

Screenshots illustrating Undercover Mom's points about BarbieGirls this week

Paperdolls to avatars: "Girls used to grow up with their dolls; now they are growing up with their avatars," The Guardian reports in an update on virtual worlds in general. It compares kids' and newer grownup virtual worlds with Second Life and explains why VWs, unlike social network sites, actually make money (see also "Virtual economies & kids").

Wired's GeekDad on the virtual world Pixie Hollow: "The game allows users to create a Tinker Bell-like character and then use this fairy to explore the land of Pixie Hollow, buy items at stores, make friends with other pixies, buy items at stores, play games and buy items at stores. While my son has really enjoyed playing another of Disney’s MMOGs, Pirates of the Caribbean Online, playing Pixie Hollow with my daughters has left us feeling a little empty."

For an index of the complete Undercover Mom series to date, please click here.

Undercover Mom in BarbieGirls.com, Part 2: Talking numbers

By Sharon Duke Estroff

This week’s post continues detailing my investigation of Barbie Girls, and the crown jewels and skeletons in the closet that I uncovered there.

Crown jewel: Number-blocking filters
Part of the appeal of children's virtual worlds like BarbieGirls.com exists in their conversational filters, one of the most notable functions of which is weeding out mention of any specific numbers in both written and numeric form (i.e. “7” or “seven”). The driving wisdom, here, is that without numbers, kids cannot reveal personal information such as age, address, and phone number - which could put them at risk of being targeted by an online predator. From a parental perspective, I found this feature both comforting and welcome. Not only does it place a significant barrier between Internet ne’er-do-wells and our children, it also helps to teach kids the difference between safe and unsafe online chat.

Skeleton in the Closet: Kids' own workarounds
But just how effective are these filters? Strictly speaking they get the job done. Every time I tried typing a number in Barbie Girls, a series of nonsensical symbols (i.e. #*#*) would appear in its place. But digital natives can be very clever and creative when it comes to working around Web site safety features. In one virtual world I visited, I witnessed kids asking one another “How many dots are you?” then tapping out the appropriate response with a sequence of periods. On Barbie Girls, a common tactic is using homonyms and rhyming words in place of numbers. I managed to snap a couple of screenshots demonstrating this technique in action during an open party in another Barbie Girls swanky studio apartment. In the first screenshot, PRINCESSCAALAZ is saying “Get it?” “The Number” “Won and Too” (meaning "12"). “Yes,” replies the avatar sitting next to her. Then, in the second screenshot, PRINCESSCAALAZ is stating that she is “the number before,” or 11. At this point, SALOOMY, the girl with the brown legwarmers, announces that she is “mine,” otherwise known as "nine."

Bottom Line: Indeed, BarbieGirls.com’s conversational filters make it exceedingly difficult for kids to spill their essential 411 on the website. Parents should be aware, however, that it is not impossible for children to reveal their essential FOR WON WON on this or any other Web site. As in the real world, children’s virtual-world activity requires ongoing parental supervision and involvement.

More Barbie Girls to come next week! For an index of the complete Undercover Mom series to date, please click here.

Undercover Mom in BarbieGirls.com, Part 1: Romance in the air

By Sharon Duke Estroff

As with every children’s virtual world I’ve visited undercover, I found BarbieGirls.com to have both its crown jewels and its skeletons in the closet.

Crown jewel: Socially acceptable doll play for tweens
When I was growing up, girls played with Barbies well past their 12th birthdays. Today, in contrast, publicly admitting to owning a Barbie Dream House at the age of 12 would equate to middle school social suicide. Not so, however, for her virtual counterpart. BarbieGirls.com is one of the most popular websites in the burgeoning children’s virtual world market. K-Zero virtual world consultancy places it at 15 million unique accounts and skip counting. The vast majority of those accounts belonging to tween girls. This is welcome news considering the widespread concern among child development experts that the KGOY phenomenon (Kids Getting Older Younger) may be cheating millennial kids out of their one and only go round at childhood. BarbieGirls.com has allowed a generation of cool-conscious tweens to stay on the pink bandwagon for just a little longer.

Skeleton in the closet: Questionable conversation
But just because the BarbieGirl.com’s is the classic high-ponytailed pink silhouette doesn’t mean that the play is the same as in yesteryear. The chat and virtual interaction factors have added a completely different dimension to this Barbie world. Because pictures speak a thousand words – and I am frankly speechless after some of the conversations I witnessed – I am going to use screenshots to out this skeleton.

Surprising Barbie Girl Scene #1: I took this screenshot in the Extreme Dreamland palace, where ambience is kitschy Arabian Nights with matching background music. I’d just plopped myself down by the crystal ball when the avatar sitting next to me announced “I am a guys” (the filter disallows “guy” in the singular). Hmm, she/he sure doesn’t look like a guy….

Surprising Barbie Girl Scene #2: Once we’d established that he was of the male species and I of the female, our conversation progressed to the next level. Here is my new guy friend asking me if I’d like to make out. Note that his proposal is presented in separate bubbles to bypass filters that block certain strands of words.

Coming next week: more crown jewels and skeletons oat BarbieGirls.com. For an index of the complete Undercover Mom series to date, please click here.