Today, Dove is launching Real Virtual Beauty, a series of actions supported by partners across the gaming industry, including Epic Games’ Unreal Engine’s education team and Women in Games, to shatter beauty stereotypes and equip the next generation of young creators and players with the tools to build self-esteem and body confidence.
For over 60 years, Dove has been committed to creating a positive experience of beauty for women and girls – working to shatter the harmful beauty ideals that impact the body confidence and self-esteem of women and girls daily. The Dove Self-Esteem Project has reached more than 82M young people across 150 countries through its academically accredited programmes. Now, with a growing number of women and girls playing video games than ever before, Dove is bringing this commitment to create a more inclusive virtual world.
Dove is starting where intervention is most urgently needed with the launch of a Real Beauty in Games Training – a unique training and accreditation course developed in partnership with Centre for Appearance Research (CAR) and industry experts. Through the training, Dove is inviting game creators to help reflect the diversity we see in everyday life, and to avoid contributing to stereotypes and biases in design. Participants who have completed the course will have the opportunity to showcase their final works through the launch of an online “Real Virtual Beauty” character art collection – curated by Dove and available on Epic Games’ Art Station platform – helping raise the standard for the authentic, diverse and inclusive representation of women and girls across the games world.
In parallel, using a public health intervention model, the Dove Self-Esteem Project is equipping the next generation of creators and players with the tools to build self-esteem and body confidence through the launch of SuperU Story, the world’s first Roblox experience – in partnership with Toya – designed to deliver self-esteem education.
Fun fact: 1.3 billion women and girls make up half of the global games community, with 65% playing video games before the age of 10. New research from Dove – co-published with Women in Games, an international organisation striving for equity and parity for all women and girls in games, and the Centre for Appearance Research (CAR) – reveals that the games industry still reflects narrow beauty standards, making many women and girls feel underrepresented, negatively impacting their self-esteem:
As part of Dove’s ongoing commitment to portraying inclusive beauty, the brand will offer a series of grants and awards to the best Real Virtual Beauty avatar designer, helping fund and expand their work with the opportunity to be featured in some of the industry’s biggest video games.
Part of Dove’s ambition to transform games into a positive space is to see more games experiences that not only entertain, but also inspire and educate the younger generation.
Introducing SuperU Story, the world’s first experience on Roblox, developed by female founded and led games studio Toya, specifically designed to help young girls combat negative self-esteem and build body confidence through a first of its kind virtual experience that encourages users to be their true selves instead of aspiring to stereotypes and unrealistic beauty ideals. Entirely free and available to visit now, the experience is an extension of the Dove Self Esteem Project – the world’s largest provider of self-esteem education. SuperU Story was also incepted with the Dove Youth Board, and validated by psychological experts from the Centre for Appearance Research – an academic institution that focuses on the role appearance and body image plays in people’s lives.

It Seems That Samsung May Have Another Battery Fiasco On Its Hands
Posted in Commentary with tags Samsung on September 27, 2022 by itnerdRemember the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 fiasco? The one where phones were literally exploding all over the place due to swelling batteries and Samsung had to take every one of them back? Well, it might be happening again.
YouTuber Mrwhosetheboss has posted a video that shows that some Samsung smartphones are suffering from a swollen battery issue. He noted his S6 (2015), Note 8 (2017) and S10 (2019) all had swollen batteries. So he tweeted about it. Samsung saw that tweet and asked him to send the phones for examination. And that’s the last he heard from Samsung as they’ve gone silent for 50 days. Thus the need for him to make a video:
And it appears that he’s not the only one who’s noted this:
JerryRigEveryting offers this commentary:
This is not a good look for Samsung and it will be interesting to see how or if they respond to this. In the meantime, if you have a Samsung phone hiding in a desk drawer or a storage locker someplace, you might want to check on it. I say that because when lithium comes into contact with air, it creates a very violent reaction that can burn your house down. Thus this is a non-trivial situation that you might want to take seriously until all the facts are known.
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