Little girls at the dawn of the 20th century played with paper dolls. Throughout the century, celebrity faces and cartoon characters were transferred to the two-dimensional play thing. For one, they can keep a child quiet on a car trip when markers inevitably end up marking up the seats, an MP3 player prevents conversations with their family. It’s not all about fashion – paper dolls help a child develop fine motor skills as well as lend to a sense of “make believe.” ** They make a good donations for family shelters because of that. They are easy to pack up and take with them. **
Paper dolls, except the few directed at adults, don’t exist in the numbers they once did. Now there are a variety of flash-based games that create a similar experience with a mouse click on the internet. While the online dolls skip some motor skills, young kids flex their decision making muscles and adults have fun creating some pretty oddball combos. I know I did.
There’s even a Selena Gomez dress up game. You can dress Selena or Selena and Justin Bieber. I got a kick out of the part where you choose an Oscars or shopping scenario with Justin, but then the third option is “I don’t like Justin!” and a solo Selena appears. A bit celebrity driven, but then again the young Queen Elizabeth, the original Charlie’s Angels and Martha Washington have all have had lives held at the fate of the fashion sense of small hands over the years.
It is hard to say if online paper dolls are more “green.” After all, energy is used to play them on the computer, and I do know that every paper doll my friends had were far from treated as disposable until they were beheaded by a sibling or disintegrated into nothing. Then again, there is less junk around the house if someone plays online paper dolls and loses interest versus stacks of paper and cut out books.
Social media has revolutionized the way non-profit organizations, from large charities to small, grass roots raise funds and spread their messages, and how new supporters discover them. First, there was Myspace, and then Facebook has grown by leaps and bounds in popularly. Other sites such as Razoo and Twitter provide an online presence. You can syndicate some of your feeds to type once, and appear on multiple platforms. However, since not everyone is using just one site anymore, one-time stalwarts and core groups get splintered because they may not always be receiving the message. Sure, some folks receive Facebook updates and e-mails on their phones, but not instantly, or they may forget to check in during a busy time in their lives.
My dad works for a non profit organization, and often they are lucky to have very knowledgeable volunteers who have retired. They now have time for some honest to goodness brainpicking. However, sometimes, in order to pick a brain, he needs to describe what is occurring. He is really at a loss at how to describe something to those giving him tech support. That is when my phone rings. It usually would involve me saying, “No, your computer didn’t develop a mind of its own like Hal 9000. I can probably help, but I would really need to sit in front of the computer and see what you mean.”