By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
The Culture and Media Institute (CMI) is warning parents who think the Nickelodeon website is kid-friendly to think again because its homepage links to a sister site that features a variety of racy, sex-focused video games.
CMI’s Alana Goodman reports that children who visit the Nickelodeon site can access a site called AddictingGames.com, which is owned by Nickelodeon’s parent company, Viacom, where they can play raunchy games such as “Naughty Babysitter” and “Perry the Perv.”
“In one game titled ‘Naughty Classroom,’ players take the role of cartoon schoolchildren, and the object is to get the scantily-dressed teacher to reveal her skimpy panties and bra to the class,” Goodman writes. “Players are encouraged to ‘fulfill your ultimate childhood fantasy! Naughty Classroom will leave you begging for more homework!’”
Another game in the “naughty” series, “Naughty Gym Teacher” is just as bad. “These giggly schoolgirls cannot get enough of their hot male gym instructor,” the game describes, “and they will resort to the naughtiest tricks to get what they want!”
Goodman comments: “With widespread concern over teachers sexually abusing children, it’s bizarre that Nickelodeon would partner with a website that seemingly endorses that type of behavior. Also troubling are the lessons that some of the video games seem to teach children – namely, that it’s acceptable to sexually harass women.”
Another game, called “Perry the Perv”, has as it object the ogling of large-busted women in public places without getting caught. “Perry the sneak loves women,” the game describes. “The only problem is that women don’t love Perry. The fact that he’s a peeper on a mission doesn’t help either. So Perry decided, if you can’t beat ‘em, try harder! Help Perry get an eyeful without getting a handful for being the world’s best Serial Peaker!”
“Naughty Park” is another game that features young boys in a playground who use bees, worms and puppies “in sneaky ways to get a hot jogger undressed,” the game describes.
In total, there are 31 games listed in the “naughty” section of the site, none of which have anything more than a tiny icon of a bomb with the fuse lit to serve as a warning of “mature content” in the game.
Nickelodeon has apparently defended its link to the Addicting Games site by noting that a pop-up lets the web-surfer know when they are leaving the Nickelodeon site and going to an outside page.
“But critics argue that the warning message is not enough – and they say that by simply linking to the Addicting Games site, Nick.com is implying that the content is appropriate for children,” Goodman writes. “It’s also easy to see how a young child – or even his parents and supervisors – could mistake Addicting Games as part of the Nick.com site.”
Even worse, when the CMI accessed the page last Friday, the “Leaving Nick.com” banner was quickly replaced by another large banner advertising “Nickelodeon’s AddictingGames Showdown” which the station is planning to air on June 19 and which will attract even more young viewers to the site.
Thankfully, watchdog groups such as the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC), are getting out the word to parents and actively trying to get the link removed from the Nickelodeon site.
Josh Grolin, Associate Director of the CCFC, said his organization has already been successful in getting the link removed from Nickelodeon’s preschooler website, NickJr.com. He says parents aren’t as upset with the content of the website as they are with the fact that Nickelodeon is promoting it to children.
“We’ve heard from parents that since we launched this campaign that they [used to] let their kids play on Addicting Games because it was linked from Nick, and they were no longer going to do it,” said Golin.
Goodman reports that in addition to the CCFC campaign, Good Morning America also ran a feature last December exposing the mature content on the site.
“However, even in the face of this negative publicity, Nickelodeon has still not pulled the link to Addicting Games from its homepage,” she says.
Anyone who wishes to voice their concern to Nickelodeon can do so through the CCFC website
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