Exterior of video clip activity websites’ comment sections, the most fucked up issues on the web took place to me on Stardoll (or on other dress up games web-sites like GirlsGoGames.com and DressUpGames.com), launched in 2004.
Stardoll continue to exists as some shell of its previous self, as far as I can convey to. Its entrance webpage is primarily populated with paper dolls uploaded close to 2011, all around the time I made use of it most passionately. At that time, it was an online community centered around movie star gown up online games. Actually the BarbieGirls website collaborated with Stardoll and prompt end users be part of it once it shut down.
The volume of paper dolls uploaded was impressive even to me, a child with no knowledge of why and how computers turned on. You could style everyone from Evanescence frontwoman Amy Lee to conservationist Dian Fossey, and outdoors of costume up online games, there ended up make up online games, browsing plazas populated by genuine, groundbreaking 2000’s fashion brands like Vivienne Tam, Italian luxurious brand Miss out on Sixty, and DKNY. There ended up also constrained-version “tribute” outlets to recognized and, at the time, up-and-coming fashion greats, like Giambattista Valli, Roberto Cavalli, and Lanvin, all of which informed my like, understanding, and criticism of trend right now.
But like BarbieGirls, Stardoll evidently perpetuated a hugely distinct strategy of womanhood and of what a fantastic, paper doll-deserving girl was. Skinny, white, very interested in buying. And its community, which I mostly engaged with via desire-primarily based forums you could sign up for, was filled with drama and, at minimum on my close, lies. The moment I instructed people I experienced a boyfriend who looked specifically like Stefan from The Vampire Diaries besides he was in a wheelchair. I also wrote Twilight fanfiction inspired by the 2008 Anna Faris film The Property Bunny. It was fucked up and I did fucked up factors. Currently being 13 is hard.