Does anyone else find this disgusting and offensive?

[Daze]

what innapropriate message? it just says that catching the tea makes you more slim, and more pretty. it doesn't say being slim or pretty is good, nor does it say the opposite. that is something that you decide. it doesn't tell you any reasoning behind the slimness or prettiness, it is just portrayed as a side effect of catching the tea.

What else are you going to do with the tea but drink it? You don't have to see them drinking it to know they are.

It is just like many other commercials, especially women's hygiene products - you don't see the woman using the product, sometimes you can't even see the product but you know what the product is and how it is used.

Even in your way of looking at it -

it doesn't tell you any reasoning behind the slimness or prettiness, it is just portrayed as a side effect of catching the tea.

that would still be false advertising, which was another point I made. Nothing is going to make you prettier by catching it from the sky (taking your literal meaning).

[thelilbear]

I was interested in the gender trends here, so I did a little impromptu survey of this thread. First, let me say there was a lot more girls than boys responding, so take from it what you will.
I also did not include those who did not have a gender listed, or those who responded to a post that wasn't necessarily about the game (like the debate about whether soda is bad for you or not).
______________________________________
Basically, this was my count and the results:
27 Girls total
25 found it offensive (roughly 93%)
2 did not find it offensive (roughly 7 %)


7 Boys total
3 found it offensive (roughly 43%)
4 did not find it offensive (roughly 57%)
_______________________________

I find it interesting that even though there were more girls who responded, there was still a greater number of boys (2 girls vs 4 boys) who did not find it offensive. As unscientific as this may be, I think it shows that weight issues still pertain mostly to women, and society buts much more pressure on women to be thin. Therefore when we see something like this, we are much more likely to take offense. I think many of us realize how weight issues affected us growing up, so we are quick to defend the younger generation who might be more susceptible to this type of advertising.
Along those lines, the fact that more women were moved to respond to this topic can also prove that this weight is a more sensitive subject to women.
Too bad we're not in the reneissance days, when being voluptuous meant you were healthy

Again, a disclaimer: This is just an impromptu survey, please do not attack me on it's validity! i know it is not scientific!!

[Penguin]

Guys in case you didnt notice TNT removed the game.

[Daze]

Guys in case you didnt notice TNT removed the game.

Yes, we did notice....

[happytin]

Just to round this off...hopefully...

Let's hope TNT learned a lesson from this. Everyone who voiced their opinions to TNT regarding the game, well done. Whatever any of us think about it, the internet is about sharing knowledge and opinions.

On another note...the Nimmo shouldn't be taken off. Meditation isn't reserved just for those of us who are Buddhist. Meditation is a proven and recognised relaxation technique followed by a large number of people regardless of religion.

[Katy]

Too bad we're not in the reneissance days, when being voluptuous meant you were healthy

Actually, it meant you were wealthy... you had the luxury of enough food and inactivity to put on weight. Presently, we live in a society with an abundance of food and leisure time, so even the poorest people can get fat. So the pendulum has swung the other way, and it is those who have the money for pricey health food and gym memberships, and the time to put into exercising, who are considered most attractive. Notice that the "most attractive" people in our society, especially the women, are actually underweight. It's a standard that most people won't be able to achieve even if they do eat right and exercise.

[matchbow]

you can look for other meanings, i'm not against that. and you can talk about what you found to be the hidden meanings, there's nothing wrong with that. but that which you find is always an opinion, unless it is the literal meaning, which is what i took from it. what was being done is that the non-literal inferences are being used as facts (eg. they're telling us to drink the tea since it will make us slimmer and prettier, and that is bad). what i say may seem insane, but it is factual, taken literally from the source.

Your response isn't insane, you have a very logical response to this. I see exactly where you are coming from. But I don't think you can say this is what the ad literally says, so we shouldn't take offense.
Granted, when one looks at the wording closely, it does not state that slim equals pretty. BUT even looking at it literally, you cannot say what the advertisers meant for people to see in it. Not everyone in the world takes things literally, so to get your point across as an advertiser, you need to be aware how people look at ads and what they may infer, whether it is your intention or not.

I don't think you can consider it a "hidden" meaning, since it is pretty easy to infer, based on the number of people who see it.

And for another literal example, if someone smurf you off, and a friend said, "Just kill them," would you kill them? If you look at the sentence literally, and not take into consideration your friend's tone of voice or stance or anything that would be subjective, all you have is the literal words. So do you do it? Is your defense "Well, Judge, he told me to kill him, and I took it literally."

I'm not arguing that what you are saying is taken literally from the source, I'm just saying there are other factors to determine how people will view the game.

referring to the killing example, that's a terrible example. the friend told me to do something. whether or not i do it is another thing enturely, and has nothing to do with how the order was said. i better example would be if the friend said the person deserved to be killed. then you could take into account all factors and weigh them accordingly to get an answer. but things like this almost always are highly opinion based, since they are difficult to measure quantitatively. on the other hand, you can measure the colour of the grass with the hex values, so it can be measured quantitatively.
granted there are other factors that determine how others see it. so others will have different opinions. what i've said is my opinion and the fair portion of my responses have been to defend my opinion from the vast majority of people who think otherwise.

you can look for other meanings, i'm not against that. and you can talk about what you found to be the hidden meanings, there's nothing wrong with that. but that which you find is always an opinion, unless it is the literal meaning, which is what i took from it. what was being done is that the non-literal inferences are being used as facts (eg. they're telling us to drink the tea since it will make us slimmer and prettier, and that is bad). what i say may seem insane, but it is factual, taken literally from the source.

Actually, what you say is an opinion. You may take the game literally, but that doesn't make your opinion factual. For example, if you take a metaphor literally, that doesn't mean the statement is factually correct. "She's a tea-catching machine!" doesn't mean that she is literally a machine, so taking the "facts" from the literal source is useless. Though I guess it's just my opinion, that could actually mean she is a machine. That catches tea.

I realize, though, that nothing I say will change your opinions and you will continue to complain that women are complaining too much about this. Didn't mean to offend you by being offended.

she is not a tea-catching machine. she is a digitally engineered graphical representation of a human female, with similarly engineered objects resembling bottles of Le Tea moving in a downwards direction directly towards the former. and these bottles cease to render after reaching so far down in the graphical representation of the female. that is fairly factual, taken as directly from the source as i can with my present knowledge.
though yes, my opinion remains an opinion. though it is based on my interpretation of the facts, i must remember that the opinions of others are also so. regardless of whether or not the interpretations are literal. literal interpretations are probably just as factual as less literal interpretations, but they probably just stretch the facts a bit less. so again, my opinion is not fact, despite what was previously stated
i'm not offended by your being offended. where have i complained that women are complaining too much? i stated my opinion in my first post: that the game, like everything in life, is what you make of it. every subsequent post has been in defence of my opinion.

what innapropriate message? it just says that catching the tea makes you more slim, and more pretty. it doesn't say being slim or pretty is good, nor does it say the opposite. that is something that you decide. it doesn't tell you any reasoning behind the slimness or prettiness, it is just portrayed as a side effect of catching the tea.

What else are you going to do with the tea but drink it? You don't have to see them drinking it to know they are.

It is just like many other commercials, especially women's hygiene products - you don't see the woman using the product, sometimes you can't even see the product but you know what the product is and how it is used.

Even in your way of looking at it -

it doesn't tell you any reasoning behind the slimness or prettiness, it is just portrayed as a side effect of catching the tea.

that would still be false advertising, which was another point I made. Nothing is going to make you prettier by catching it from the sky (taking your literal meaning).

literally, i don't think it's false advertsing either. that it was a side effect is probably untrue. the girls became slimmer and prettier after the tea fell on them, but though the events coincided, they are not necessarily related.
yes, it's fairly obvious that they probably drink it, and that it probably is the cause for the changes in appearance, but when taken literally, it is not. it is just random stuff happening from no reason.

[kimiko_00]

If you play the game now, you'll see the title was changed to "Catch le tea" (instead of "le tea: Slimmer and Prettier"), and the girls now only change from unhappy to happy. I'm not sure which of the original three (skinny, normal, slightly overweight) images they used though.

Catch le tea

(You can still get neopoints from playing the game and sending a challenge card)

[Catgrrrrrrl]

Update:

The girls are now mostly normal looking throughout the game not changing shape or getting their hair messed up. The only difference in the way they look is the look on their face. They aren't too happy when you let soda fall on them now.

That commercial is hilarious. I don't know if it was the same one you guys were talking about. It's the raspberry commercial. It isn't offensive really, just incredibly cheesy.

[Green Lady of the knoll]

I am glad to hear TNT reworked the game. I think it's just better to avoid things like this. It is amazing what little things can contribute to a negative self image, and I think the new choice of actions for the game is SO much better.


As an aside to bgryph, I was not trying to imply size 12 was too big, I didn't realize it came across that way. When I first saw the game and how the size of the girls correlated to their less kept hair styles my first thought was about how it would make my little sister feel. She looked beautiful in her prom dress as a size 12 and I happen to know that several of the boys in their group thought so too. But I know how she feels about her size, I thought the same way as a size 10, 12 and 14 (Ironically now that I am too pregnant to see my feet I am for the first time happy with my size, I love feeling my daughter kick!) I go shopping with my sister and I watch her cry because she hates her weight, I try to tell her how pretty her size is and how jealous my size 2 friend is of her, my size 2 friend tries to tell her the same thing. But she can't see it, and until she realizes that she doesn't have any fat on her, its her imagination, she is susceptible to things like this game. I would have been 5 years ago. today no, but when I was younger I would have added it to my list of what people thought of me, the fat size 10, 12, or 14. There is plenty out there to make any girl insecure, just the other girls at school can be enough, I just didn't want to see neopets be one more place that added to an insecure girl's insecurity. Oh, and I read a study saying that the average American woman is a size 14 which my Doc also feels is a healthy weight for the average woman's height and bone structure.

[Sugarinii]

It took me a while to figure out what to say to this, which is why I'm posting kinda late.

I almost feel that as a size 0 I don't really have much of a 'right' to post in this thread...

*Does it anyways*

The first time I played the game I wasn't actually paying any attention, and I thought nothing of how the girls changed. Granted, it was 4 in the morning.

Benladesh and I were chatting on MSN the next day and I came across this thread, showed it to him, and he played the game and immediately thought it was disgusting.

And I didn't get it. At first I wasn't bothered by the game at all, which was cause for concern. I've had three eating disorders myself, and I've seen plenty of other girls struggle with them. I've always been stick-thin but I still, of course, feel pressure to be thinner.

I had this weird niggling feeling whilst reading through the thread, and slowly I started to become offended by the game.

What bothers is me is that I wasn't bothered. What does it say if we get so much of this type of messaging, when it becomes so normal and common and everyday, that we don't think anything of it?

I find that a bit troubling.

Anyways, I'm glad TNT changed the game. There are six-year-old girls that play Neopets and they don't need to have that already being driven into their heads. Did anyone see that episode of Oprah where there was an eight-year-old girl who wanted to go on a diet because she thought she was fat? When I was eight I thought nothing of my looks! I put on some leggings and a sweatshirt and pretended I was a horse.

I feel as if there are lines that are crossed more often than not, and that can be what leads to such upset. This game was definately crossing the line. But then again, where is the line, exactly?

[Cranberry]

I'm not going to comment on this, other than to say that anyone who thinks the people who are offended by the game are being ridiculous should read this. I stumbled across it today -- it's a review of four books on eating disorders, with details about the author of each book, and it shows just how easily tiny things can push girls into thinking they're fat and developing an eating disorder. I'm glad the game was changed.

[Daze]

I am glad that TNT heeded the feedback and changed the game.

I find nothing wrong with the new game.

[cslewislover]

On another note...the Nimmo shouldn't be taken off. Meditation isn't reserved just for those of us who are Buddhist. Meditation is a proven and recognised relaxation technique followed by a large number of people regardless of religion.

Meditation is fine and people meditate in different positions. The Nimmo is posed in a very obvious Eastern Religion way; you don't see any other pets with obvious signs that conjure up a specific religion.

[Alex]

The new version scares me. They're almost too happy xD