Are You Single? Gender In Habbo Hotel

Post number 2 of the day, and I find myself eating cereal out of a cup because I am too lazy to run a load of dishes...Hooray College. Anywho, I digress, I will be looking into Gender and ho it is represented in the tween hell that we call Habbo Hotel. I would just like to reiterate my hate for Habbo by stateing that my root canal may have been more enjoyable than Habbo. Atleast during my root canal they numbed my face, when im in Habbo I feel that I am numbing my brain.

The Gender roles in a tween hell are exactly as you would anticipate, the guys go around and try to find themselves a mate while the girls seem to be waiting for a guy to come ask them out. I feel that Habbo defiantly reinforces the gender roles that we already have in place. The girls feel they need to find a virtual significant other while the guys feel that they need to be the alpha male. I feel that most of the gender roles that are evident in Habbo are ones that are reinforced through the terrible shows that Viacom pollutes VH1,CMT,and MTV with. Many of the Habbo citizens are 16 and under and many of their beliefs are coming from what they see on T.V.

I believe that girls on Habbo are doing nothing but conforming to society, and doing nothing to individualize themselves. Many of the girls ( im using the word girls because it is my belief that 98% of the girls on Habbo are between the ages of 10-16) come across as needy. Earlier today as I was creeping in the hotel I saw girls saying “ Press 444 if you want me.” Basically reinforcing the role that girls need to be with a guy. The girls in Habbo are all just searching for a internet relationship.

The guys on the other hand are all trying to become the alpha male. It seems that they are all starved for attention and must try to one up each other and try to attract the most woman he can. Basically a wolf pack mentality where all other males must submit to the alpha. Another gender norm that takes place in Habbo is what I would like to call the Master Lock Syndrome. There is a saying that refers to the male and female sex life and it goes like this. A key that opens many locks is a master key, but a lock that is opened by many keys is a shitty lock. Basically this is saying, if a male has sex with many woman, he is the alpha, and a girl who has sex with lots of men is undesirable. I feel that this is backed up in Habbo as many guys look for multiple girlfriends and girls seem to try to just search for just one.

In my opinion Habbo is doing nothing but furthering the dominant hegemony of gender roles in society. The reason for this is that many of its users are still to young to understand what they are doing. Nonetheless these roles will carry through their life, and with these roles being reinforced while they are young, unfortunately they will probably stay the same as they get older. What can we do as a society to teach children while they are young the rights and wrongs of gender roles? Is it possible? Or would we have to reconstruct our gender roles as a whole?