http://www.boycrazy.com/ I just saw a story about this on the news. This company wants to target young girls now to sell “collector’s cards”, just like boys have for years with baseball cards, etc. So they have these line of “boy cards” - Real Life boys, (not teen idols, rock stars, just regular kids) who appear on these collector cards, along with some of their personal stats. Girls collect the cards, exchange the cards. The boys that appear on these cards will do public events where they will meet their “fans” - these pre-teen and teen girls. Apparently these collector cards have already taken off with young girls to a certain extent.
The newscasters that reported this story showed some reservation about this whole concept. I agree with them. What if (not that it would really happen) they have “girl cards” - where boys would collect cards with pictures of teen girls, and trade and exchanged them, and met the girls at special events? Weird. Really weird.
I could go on and on about my feelings about this, but I want to get some other Doper’s responses.
I find it a little disturbing.
But, if I met the criteria (i’m a ways past teen and way beyond pre-teen) I’d be trying my hardest to get on one of those cards. Could you imagine the possibilities of ‘meeting your fans?’
And, maybe the plot to ‘American Pie’ would have had a small change in it.
This does seem to be pretty exploitative of both young girls and the “boys” to be featured on the cards. I hadn’t heard anything about them making public appearances, what, like model of the year or something? I’ll be interested to see if this catches on around here.
Mmmm, I don’t like it. Baseball cards feature athletes who theoretically can be appreciated by boys for their talents. These cards feature boys that girls are supposed to admire for their LOOKS? I don’t see the two as comparable. While boys can look up to and possibly want to emulate the people on their cards, girls are supposed to collect cards of people that …? What? They’d want to date?
This isn’t to say that girls can’t collect baseball cards. Hell, if they like baseball I think it should be encouraged. But if they don’t, then I’d rather see 'em collecting Backstreet Boys cards, or something. At least there’s supposedly something more to them than looks. I don’t see where encouraging superficiality in young girls is a good thing.
“I’ll tell you a secret, baby - maybe you can’t do better - gotta settle for second best” - the Judybats
And of course, I suppose they will all be clean-cut, socially acceptable youths from Suburbia, mostly white but with a dash of minorities thrown in to keep it PC. Just like TV. I mean, look at the types of kids we are trying to pass as “normal”! What’s a kid to think when his or her own family doesn’t have that made for TV sheen? Even the seedy underside of adolescence, which I gather shows like “Freaks and Geeks” are trying to portray, looks the same as everything else on TV (from what I’ve seen of it, which is admittedly not much). The “freaks and geeks” I grew up with were decidedly untelegenic. And now we have this. Just what we freakin’ need. Wake up, America! Does the nation really need another generation of mindless conformists right now? How many Littletons is it going to take?
Sorry, just had to get that out of my system.
-Your non-clean cut, socially unacceptable friend. (So I’m from Suburbia. So sue me.)
An infinite number of rednecks in an infinite number of pickup trucks shooting an infinite number of shotguns at an infinite number of road signs will eventually produce all the world’s great works of literature in Braille.
What if they did make the “girl cards” yosetimebabe? Man, people would be all over them in a second for exploiting and objectifying women. It’s a double-standard, but it’s a pretty common and accepted one nowadays.