Cheesy video game teaches young girls how to be socialites

Upper East Side Makeover challenges girls to 'get invited to thousands of parties' by exfoliating and hair styling their way to popularity.

Tue, Nov 27 2012 at 2:00 PM

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Screenshot: Upper East Side Makeoer

Parents, are you ready for this? A new video game called Upper East Side Makeover wants to teach your little girls how to be backstabbing socialites.

According to the video game website, Upper East Side Makeover is aimed at girls ages 8-15 who must complete tasks including exfoliation and hair styling to climb the social ladder and "get invited to thousands of parties."

More from the game description:

See if you have the make up colors, the beauty treatments, the jewels and the upper east side outfits in your own dressing, exercise the upper east side makeover on the beautiful model, then try it on yourselves, girls, and you will make sensation everywhere you go with your fancy upper east side look.

What's even more awful about this game is that it was created by a man who has never been to NYC, let alone the upper east side. According to the Huffington Post, Romanian developer Daniel Tamas has said that he got his sense of the area from American pop culture, "music, movies and so on. It's pretty marketed."

Right, because we all know how accurate that portrayal is.

I have nothing against "makeover" games per say, but there is something about this one that feeds into a pop culture stereotype while inaccurately portraying young girls as high-maintenance, popularity-seeking, back stabbers that I find quite troubling.

What do you think?

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