The Player with a Thousand Faces

Welcome to the Boom Chicka Wah Wah Rally. Me and my girls, the Lynx Mynxes, are waiting for you here in Miami. But first, you’ve got to prove to us that you’re a player. Take a look around. There are plenty of chances for you to improve your game before I make my mind up. So what are you waiting for? I’ll see you in Miami.

A few months back, DC Comics released a line of titles geared toward young female readers, called “Minx”. There was some discussion about whether “Minx” was the best name for the line, since the word does have sexist connotations, but it also implies a degree of gutsiness, and, maybe, perhaps, it could lose the sexist associations and mean something positive one day.

To everybody who thought this was possible: I’m sorry, but Lynx just fucked it up beyond repair.

Bonus points to anybody who doesn’t either laugh or cry the first time she says “Boom Chicka Wah Wah”.

So you reckon you’re a player? Sexier than a Brazilian bikini line and twice as smooth?

Well if you’re right, you and two mates could be off to Miami to take part in the Lynx Players Boom Chicka Wah Wah Rally, where you’ll have to win over Kelly and her Lynx Mynxes to win the ultimate Lynx Players title. But remember… you’re not a player ’til you’re in the game.

I just finished writing an essay on Joseph Campbell’s monomyth; the theory that there is a common pattern to the great heroic myths across the globe, which resonates at an unconscious level and acts as a psychological rite of passage. As Kelly Brook and numerous interchangeable women in impractical shoes tempt me to see if I’m worthy of the title “Player”, I feel a great yearning within myself. Could lynxplayer.com be my own personal heroic journey? Let’s see…

Stage One: The Ordinary World

It’s 6:44am and I’ve been up all night working. There’s nothing female in my bedroom, unless you count my cat. None of the DVDs I own are porn, which is bad enough, but some of them are even French. My soul clearly feels caged by this existence and I desire to be a Player. Or so I’m told by this website, anyway.

Stage Two: The Call to Adventure

I’m reading Grace’s blog and she mentions the Lynx Mynxes. I have no idea who they are, so I Google them. Oh God, no. Several of them appear on my screen and lament the lack of a player in their life, which seems strange because I always thought that, by definition, Players avoided any kind of personal attachment. Another one says “I like a man to have a bit of a beer belly”… Surely even the sorts of people who enter competitions like this aren’t stupid enough to fall for something that cynical? I mean, they’d have to be, right? Right? ….Right?

Stage Three: Refusal of the Call

I’m tired and I want to go to sleep. Also, one of them says her biggest turn on is confidence, so that’s me fucked.

Stage Four: The Mentor

We’ve been talking about Snoop Dogg over at Sparkle*Matrix, and since he seems to be the leading authority on being a misogynistic scumbag Player, I shall look to his words for guidance.

Can you control your ho? (You got a bitch that won’t do what you say)
You can’t control your ho? (She hardheaded, she just won’t obey)
Can you control your ho? (You’ve got to know what to do, and what to say)
You’ve got to put that bitch in her place, even if it’s slapping her in her face.

I would not could not control my ho up a flight of stairs, I would not could not control my ho balanced on some chairs.

Stage Five: Crossing the Threshold

Can I bring myself to do it? CAN I? Help me, Snoop Dogg!

We do break hos
We don’t fuck with fake hos
Yeah, we make hos
Strip down to they panty hose
Pop your whip, now grab that bitch

His latest tour is called “One Love One Peace”, you know.

Stage Six: Tests, Allies and Enemies

It takes a little work and a lot of play to become the ultimate Lynx Player. Improve your skills and give our Mynx thrills with these naughty little challenges.

Challenge one is “Massage a Mynx”.

The objective is to, uh, hold down the left mouse button and move the hand around her foot until the whole thing turns pink. I’m not sure how this teaches you to be a Player, since it has more in common with fingerpainting than massage. After you colour her whole foot in, she says “I can see you’re not just a pretty face” in… look, calling it a tone of voice is giving it too much credit.

Challenge two is “Bikini Rubdown”.

After untying her bikini “seductively” (ie. you click on it), you’re given some lotion and told to massage her back. I kept trying to draw a smiley face with it, but the control isn’t very precise and this is the best I could manage.

I actually messed this up a few times because you’re told to find “the right amount of lotion”, which I thought meant you had to experiment with different levels on the lotionometer (it really is called that). That’ll teach me to overestimate the intelligence of their target audience. You actually just hold down left click until the lotionometer maxes out, then rotate the cursor slowly around her back for a few seconds until she turns pink again and makes uninterested moaning sounds.

In the amazing year 2007, we have magical boxes that allow us to access the whole of human knowledge from our bedrooms. Alternatively, we can use them to poorly simulate foreplay by dragging a picture of a hand around on top of some looping footage of a swimsuit model. And the whole thing is sponsored by a deodorant company.

If our ancestors could come back from the dead and kill us, they would.

Challenge three is “Eyes off the Prize”. I didn’t get a screenshot because it’s over in about twenty seconds and I had no idea what I was doing. You have to click and drag the screen upwards to stop yourself looking at her boobs while she’s talking to you (about clothing, because she’s a girl!), only I think it’s rigged because I couldn’t get it to work, but they passed me anyway, because “A true player can never resist a sneaky peek!”.

Yyyeeesssss…

Speaking as a single heterosexual male in my early 20s, that was one of the most ridiculously unsexy things in the entire history of time.

Stage Seven: Approaching the Inmost Cave

Having proven that I’m potential Player material, the site asks me to sign up with two of my friends. Joke’s on them, because I don’t have any friends.

Instead, here’s a look at one of the featured teams, “Hotboyz”. One of whom is called Richie, as if to tempt me with the promise that I could one day be a real Lynx Player.

Offensive? This site?

Stage Eight: Supreme Ordeal

If I’m going to enter this competition, then I’m going to have to invent some friends. My barnstorming success satisfying the virtual Lynx Mynx proves I’m more than capable of satisfying three women at once, anyway. Don’t hate on the playa, uh, dawg. Fo shizzle. Word.

On second thought, I really can’t go through with this. Snoop Dogg has one more chance to turn me around, or else I’ll have to accept that I’m not cut out to be a Player.

I knew that you, was a ho back then
And bitch, you’re still one now
You like to bust, nuts in your face
But with that big-ass mouth
You need to shut the fuck up, you talk too much

He was in a kids’ movie about a talking zebra.

Stage Nine: Reward

I’m not entirely sure. I could say “my dignity”, but after you’ve used a mouse cursor to rub virtual feet in order to excite a woman who pre-recorded her half-hearted responses months ago, it’s not like you can take the high ground.

Stage Ten: The Road Back

Every time I press “back”, I get more and more Lynx Mynxes, trying to lure me back with promises of Miami. This isn’t going to work, because Miami just makes me think of this:

YYYYAAAAAAHHHH!!!

Stage Eleven: Resurrection

I’m very tired and feel like complete crap. I am, however, not as pathetic as the Hotboyz, and it’s always nice to have new people to look down on.

Stage Twelve: Return with the Elixir

And the moral of the story is: Fuck you, Lynx.

I actually kind of want to see how this pans out. The thought of three socially inept virgin wannabe pimps trying to seduce bikini models who are contractually obliged not to slap them is bound to generate a few golden moments.

OK, off to bed now. Hopefully things weren’t any more incoherent than normal.