Real Men Don't Use Zwinkey--But They Love Her

I am a real man. I love the Chicago Bears. Walter Payton is my hero. I like dirt on uniforms and spiral passes. When George Carlin intones the differences between football and baseball, I associate myself with the gridiron, military sounding words and self images of football, even though I still love baseball.

I am strong. I am invincible. I think I love Zwinkey.

Who is Zwinkey, you might ask. Well, she is the girl that gazes with doe-like eyes from the ads at the side of your computer screen. She is a cutout doll, a dream of a drawing much in the tradition of Betty or Veronica, but you can change her hair style, earrings, jewelry, and clothing by clicking on the item you would like to see her acquire. She is a modern day Betty Boop, a cute, attractive girl.

She is an advertisement for a toolbar, avatars, cute cursor icons, smileys that can sing and dance and play percussion, screen savers, animations, greeting cards, and a search box.

Zwinkey is free.

Manly types like myself hate to admit things like this, but today, after weeks of resistance and self denial, I finally succumbed to the temptation. I moved my cursor over to Zwinkey's ad and with one click changed her from a blond to a brown haired girl, gave her earrings, changed her blouse.

And what happened?

Naturally, a pop up ad appeared, telling of all of Zwinkey's free features. Her makers let you know up front that they make their money on clicks you might make after using the Zwinkey search box.

There is no adware. There is no spyware. Let's hope they're correct. I have no reason not to believe them.

And, heaven forbid, Zwinkey has a male friend, a cutout, metro sexual veritable Ken doll of a character that-oh, excuse me, I must be jealous.

I refuse to download Zwinkey. Doing so would mess too much with my hard earned tough image. I even wonder, why would little Zwinkey appear on my screen as I search through google for economic or military news, for facts about politics or global warming. Maybe the computer knows that I'm not as manly as I seem.

I do know one thing. If they ever let Zwinkey change her fingernail polish, I can get my wife to download her.