A few bad apples spoil the bunch. Or, in Dress to Impress’ case, a few phallic hot dogs spoil the runway.
Roblox’s primo dress-up game just added an assortment of Halloween-themed pieces, among which included a novelty hot dog costume and a large pumpkin accessory. One of the neat things about Dress to Impress is the ability to recolour or throw a pattern on just about any part of your outfit: buttons, shoe soles, handbag clasps, and this freedom allows folk to get real creative by transforming some outfits or accessories into totally new things.
It can also, it turns out, be used for devious schemes. In the hot dog and pumpkin’s case, players were whacking some skin-coloured dyes on and adding a pink-tinged hat that made the whole thing look rather, er, phallic. If you’re wondering “why the pumpkin?” I assume it’s something to do with the fact that the Dress to Impress model carries it in two hands while holding it quite low down to their body. Yeah.
Why make a p*n*s when rocket ships look better from r/DressToImpressRoblox
Considering Roblox is supposed to be a kid’s app and all, the situation hasn’t gone down spectacularly. It’s led to the developer completely revoking the ability to recolour the hot dog costume, with the bonus threat to turn the whole car around and remove it along with the pumpkin entirely if people don’t learn how to behave.
“The misuse of the new hotdog costume in Dress to Impress has been noticed,” a tweet from developer Studiozac, which was reposted to Reddit, read. “We will remove the colorable toggles for it and leave it as a plain hotdog costume, if it is still misused we will remove the hotdog and the pumpkin accessory. We want to create a safe and friendly environment for our players and it was not intended to be used this way. Thank you!”
I had a quick dip into Dress to Impress to have a gander for myself—the hot dog costume is regrettably locked in VIP prison, a perk I have yet to stump up my real adult money for. The pumpkin is still around in the peasant’s closet though, and I can confirm that one is at least still re-dyeable. How long that’ll last depends on how much further people will push things, I assume.
It’s not the first time Dress to Impressers have done some questionable things with the game’s attire. I’ve regularly seen people use the vitiligo skins to create stuff like bloodied-up bodies, a thing I’m not entirely sure how I feel about. I recently landed on a YouTube video where people were dressing up as… used toilet paper. Do with that what you will.
Honestly, the most devastating thing to come out of this is the loss of the genuinely good non-phallic creations people were doing. I say this as if I have multiple examples, when really I have one: Sheldon J. freakin’ Plankton.