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Dating in the Cards
Mix 'em, Match 'em, Swap 'em with
Your Friends
Boy Crazy! Trading Cards
By Lexi Walters
Copyright 2001 by Parents' Press. All rights reserved. First published in the July 2001 print edition of Parents' Press.
A group of giggling 13-year-old girls sits in a circle, their hair in half-pony tails, lips gleaming with hints of gloss. They pass around a deck of purple cards, each taking a handful before passing the deck to the next anxious girl. Inspecting their cards for an impressive trait about the boy whose face stares back up at them, they erupt in conversation.
"I got Ryan!" one girl announces, waving the card at her anxious pals. "He likes junk food, and looks for kindness, beauty, and playfulness in a girl. The card says, 'It might be difficult to keep your eyes on the ball when you're staring into his baby blues!'"
The girls squeal in unison, and one
swoons, pretending to pass out. "He's 22," the girl
continues, "and will always make time for the girls who
ask him out." The girls are intrigued a girl ask a
guy out? Who would pay? Which of them would be brave enough to
do it?
As they begin to hash out the idea of girl-prompted dates, they
forget the cards, leaving them face-down. The logo on the back
sums this group up: Boy Crazy!
Mystery Date, Girl Talk, Dream Phone games for girls date back to the 1960s, proof that going ga-ga for fake heartthrob boys is not a new phenomenon. But boy trading cards? Thank the 1990s for that.
"We wanted to develop a game that
would lure girls into the trading card arena, and so Boy Crazy!
was born," says Lisa Larson, public relations manager for
Boy Crazy!
The cards, which appeared on toy store shelves in 1999, feature
color photos of 363 real guys ages 12 to 22 from across the country.
Beneath the picture are the boy's statistics (such as height
and birthday), favorites, ideal traits in a girl, and a brief
description of his personality. Girls ages 8 to 19 are encouraged
to trade and collect the cards, which run $3 for a pack of nine
cuties. The cards' packages also suggest making up "Guess-who-I-like-the-most?"
games to play in group settings, letting school-aged girls learn
more about their friends' tastes in guys.
"Girls like to look at cute boys," Cara Barouch, a spirited 12-year old from New Jersey, says. While she herself isn't interested in cardboard beaus "They're a little boring," she says she does think that most of the "girly girls" her age would be interested. And with that interest, Boy Crazy! is thriving.
"The kind of success we had in four months, we didn't really expect until a year had gone by," Larson says. "The first print run of cards approximately 10 million were sold within the first four to six months."
Great for Girls
Boy Crazy!'s parent company, Decipher, Inc., pegs the cards as useful tools for girls to gain pre-dating experience with true-to-life boys: "Not some famous star you may never meet," according to their website, BoyCrazy.com, "but a real guy that you may see in school, at the mall, or even next door."
The boys on the cards are in fact chosen at "mall events." After issuing a call for contestants, a panel of staff members and teen girls asks questions of the participating boys and takes photos. There's more information for potential panel members and boys-on-cards at the Boy Crazy! website.
Boy Crazy! founder Cindy Thornburg believes that the cards introduce young girls to the world of dating in an exciting, non-intimidating way. "The whole point is that the girl chooses and doesn't wait to be chosen," Thornburg said in a FoxNews.com interview. "As girls look at the boy's stats and photo, they can decide for themselves what kind of guy is their type. Just like in real life, right?"
Boy #67, 18-year-old Nate from Georgia, certainly thinks so. An aspiring DJ with a knack for painting and writing, Nate is proud of his Boy Crazy! stardom, and all that it stands for. "The whole point of this is so girls can see your average Joe Blow," he says.
Like getting to know a guy by making small talk, the cards let girls probe a guy's personality to see if she's interested. "Boy Crazy! gives them confidence to reach out to someone they find attractive, and then they can progress to actually approaching a crush," Nate adds.
Of course, love-struck girls can't actually go after these hotties. Boy Crazy! doesn't allow the boys' last names or home towns to be printed (either on the cards or on their website) so that over-excited fans don't take their crushes too far. Admirers can send their favorite guys messages via BoyCrazy.com, but the company's higher-ups monitor each e-mail before it gets sent on to the boy. And for his privacy's sake, they never give out a boy's phone number or address. So girls can't really use these cards to score dates, although they can use them to get ready for the real thing.
Florence Rosenthal, a Canadian psychotherapist and counselor in Ottawa, Ontario, sees these cards as a healthy way for girls to explore dating fantasies.
"Most pre-teen and teen girls become interested in boys but may not know what to do about their feelings," Rosenthal says. By imagining and discussing a date with blonde #106, Alex, or Craig, #107 with the cute goatee, she believes that girls are preparing themselves for the romantic relationships that will follow later on.
"The cards put girls in the driver's seat: Instead of waiting to be approached, chosen or invited by their male peers, they get to choose who they feel is right for them and are forced to articulate why," Rosenthal says, taking into consideration the games girls play together with the cards. "And even if most of the time their answer is 'because he's cute,' they're no more superficial than other teenagers and many adults too, for that matter!"
Rachelle Burke, Cara's mom, agrees that the cards do young girls a service. "Adolescent boys have always ogled cute young girls: pin-ups, Miss America contests, etc. Why can't girls be allowed to ogle cute boys?" she asks.
Burke sees Boy Crazy! cards as a "safe and non-offending forum" for young girls to figure out how to work the dating scene. "No one is being grabbed or hooted at. And rather than behaving and feeling as if they have to be 'chosen' by the right boys, this does let girls feel in control."
Keep Those Packs Sealed
But the same people who applaud Boy Crazy! for giving girls boy-choosing opportunities also have issues with the negative messages the cards send.
Burke calls the cards "mindless and shallow" a sentiment that has gained popularity. A 2000 People interview quoted a Georgetown University sociology professor and mom as saying that the game over-sexualizes young girls and plays into stereotypes.
And even Nate admits that the age gap between him and his admirers is a bit disturbing: "Hearing 'sexy' come from 10 to 15-year-old girls kind of makes me bite my lip. But I know they're just learning how to be more open with guys. I'll take it as a compliment and move on."
But these feelings don't run in the family. Nate's brother Trent, a student at Georgia State University who has chosen not to be emblazoned on a card, says that Boy Crazy! makes a mockery of young girls. He laughs at what he calls the "sexist superficiality" that makes the cards so popular.
"The company is giving this country, full of teeny-bop idols and teen-diva-wannabes, just what it wants," he says, and what girls want are boys. But according to Trent, the bright, flashy, "I like girls with a great smile!" cards are simply a hyped-up fad that commercializes and pokes fun at adolescent girls' serious feelings.
Counselor Florence Rosenthal says that even the company's title gives girls a bad name. By calling the cards Boy Crazy!, "It suggests obsessions and trivializes what could be a fun learning experience," she says. "The name is very catchy, though, and girls will latch onto it without being aware that it is poking fun at them."
Girls Will Be Girls
While experts, moms, and girls disagree on whether Boy Crazy! is just for laughs or inviting trouble, all agree that the cards are only an extension of feelings that girls have naturally. Trent says that while he detests Boy Crazy! and the way it feeds into the demands of pop culture, the cards don't egg girls into doing anything they wouldn't ordinarily do.
"It's the same as them longing for some poster boy or some boy-band member," Trent says. "Every girl has her favorite, but it doesn't mean a thing. It's not like anything serious could materialize over this."
Burke, too, knows that if daughter Cara were to pine for the cardboard boys, it wouldn't be something to worry about. "As much as I'd prefer my girls to be thinking about college and world matters, I have a suspicion that what they mostly whisper about with their friends is boys," she says.
"But there is nothing about the natural pitter-patter of hearts when seeing a cutie of the opposite sex that precludes a girl being smart, talented, and successful as well."
And Nate sums up, "It's just a way for girls to come to terms with who they are and what they'll be looking for in a guy. It gives them a chance to see head-on what guys will be like in years to come, instead of the immature snots they go to school with.
"Let the girls have their cards."
Lexi Walters is a student in the magazine journalism department at Drake University and editor of the campus magazine this coming academic year. This is her first story for Parents' Press & Parent.TEEN
| CLICK HERE for the Boy Crazy! website |
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