Dollies and Social Networking: Fun, or Just Wrong?

I'm generally not into social networking sites but when I first got my cat I made him a myspace page just for fun. LOL I really can't judge people who want to do the same for their dolls. What's really scary are the random friend invites you get from strangers

 

I've made MSN screen names for my characters, so I can see where the people who do this are coming from. ^^;
But personally, I don't think I would go through all the trouble of making facebook pages for them, I'm just kinda too lazy to xD

 

Well, seeing as I have a Facebook page for my girl, i am all for it. it's just in fun, and its cute, and idk...i like it. and my best friend has facebook pages for her two bjds as well, so all our resin kids interact with each other, and really fun! its just a little way to step out of reality and into fantasy, and bring that fantasy into reality...

 

Yoru has a Facebook page. ^_^; He spends half the day playing Castle Age.

Since I mostly just play games on Facebook anyway, I've seen LOTS of people who have made accounts for Gaia avatars and or anime characters and such. So I don't feel that having an account for my tangible doll is THAT far-fetched.

And as a roleplayer, it's not that big a deal to keep him in character, either. It's fun to amuse a few of my RL friends with his mini-rants and pictures he supposedly took.

 

Livejournal is my friend! Although, I don't write as my characters. I just like to use it for my personal doll news, planning stories and such. My website Dollflower is where I post all my character stuff. I find that Myspace is generally something I've come to hate in it's entirety and don't use anymore, while Facebook is something I cling to like a drowning man to a raft. Go figure. Still, because of my huge social ties to facebook, I wouldn't have a profile for my doll there. I think it'd be waaaay too time consuming, sort of exhausting, and generally just too much- especially with my website developing the way it is. I don't want to have so much going on with my dolls as that. (I'm already on here waaaaay too much.) Plus, my friends- while accepting of my doll hobby as one of my quirks, and something I really don't talk about with them, probably would stage an intervention if I posted a doll profile. They have no idea about the website or the livejournal (and the less they know the better XD). My doll hobby is actually rather private in terms of people I know who know, so while sharing with unnamed anonymous masses over the internet is cool, having actual people in my life in the know would be kinda scary.

 

Ehh I can see why people would do it; it's kinda cool. But personally I wouldn't.

 

Hmm, this would definitely cross the line for me. I used to roleplay in middle school, but have since grown out of it. So I can understand the appeal, it's just not something I find fun or interesting anymore! I'd rather converse with real-life people and enjoy their real-life personalities.

 

I don't like social network site, but if some peoples want to create a page for theyre dolls, for fun..I think it ok, has long they don't forget that it not real..I always neglect my page, so creating pages for my dolls would be useless.

 

All my dolls have myspace & they have a WHOLE BUNCH of BJD friends . I think its fine as long as you dont try to force your dolls ideals (lets say.. if your doll is supposed 2b a sex addict =___=") on others. Also, keeping your real life issues out of RP is a good idea ;D.

 

Kuma! You callin' me a dork??????
lol!
I haven't done it, but my THERAPIST told me that one of my dolls needed her own facebook page, twitter, etc. She loves my dolls and thinks it would be really fun to have one have her own page. I'll probably do it at some point. It's really no different than "Ask Hazel", if you think about it.

 

I've never thought about it before. I mean if people can pretend to be characters from books on some of these sites, why can't our dollies have one? I think it would be fun and am thinking about going and register my dolls right now XD

 

I think I would love to try this but only on a site where everyone else would be a BJD, maybe that might be a good business idea. I think if it was dolls interacting with other people then it may spoil the illusion. And I think it's fine as long as it is an illusion, there is a fine line between roleplaying and madness I find

 

I have FB and use it to keep in contact with people out of state or in Europe. I feel like I barely have time to keep it updated much less to make a profile for my doll. The idea is cute though and I'm not against it although for me I like to keep things more seperate. My FB is for me and flickr is for my dolls and dolly friends. I am considering making a FB for my dog because I think it would be a great way to advocate pet adoption instead of buying from pet stores and certain types of backyard breeders but that's another topic.....

 

I think its weird. But then again, I view my dolls as just that. They're not living creatures, nor do theyhave 'their own personalities'. They don't talk to me or anything. They're my dolls. inanimate objects. So no, I wouldn't have a twitter/facebook/myspaceetc.. for them... if you wanna do that, or feel the way about your dolls thats cool.. I'm not gonna judge.

 

I personally wouldn't feel comfortable doing something like that. It seems slightly weird, but at the same time, it could also be fun. It does make one's doll seem more real, or alive, and it's another dimension of personality for the doll.

 

OOF - I think that's taking it a little too far. Not for me. But I can imagine for some people it's a form of creative writing.

 

Both of my dolls actually do have a Myspace. Though it's rarely updated, I do enjoy the interaction between other doll owners and it really helps to weed out the character.

But I don't have a Myspace for myself. I've never liked myspace and see it as more of a game than a social networking site.

On the flip side, I do have a Facebook. And because of that, I wouldn't make one for my dolls. Like a few other posters have said in this thread, people pop up out of nowhere. People that I haven't spoken to in years have somehow found my facebook, so I have no doubt that they'd stumble onto my dolls pages. I have pictures of my dolls in my albums, and I've gotten enough weird comments about that, so I'd rather they didn't know about my other hobbies on the internet.

You might say "Well, if they can't accept you for who you are, then they're not really your friends at all." Yeah, I can see where you're coming from there. And, I'll be honest, I don't like half of the people who have me as a friend. But it's not really about that. It's about reputation. If these people on your friends list know people you don't, and these strangers have opportunities to meet you in person, your reputation will probably already be tarnished before they even get to you. So if you're serving a semi-important role in a business, that could be trouble. There's always a chance you could turn that bad situation around, but it's best to just avoid it completely I think.

 

I don't think it's a bad thing. Christopher has a bjdnetwork and livejournal account where he can talk freely.

Actually, for character creation making social networking sites is a good way to develop them, so I don't find it bad.

 

Most of mine have a myspace. It's not necessarily the *doll's* myspace. It belongs to the character. And in some cases, it can help to flesh out a character in a more realistic way so if you were to write them into a story, you might have a better idea of how they'd react in certain situations and with certain other characters.

It's no weirder than joining an RP group and creating a character to join some dorky heroic storyline surrounding a dragon and stuff like that. It's dorky, yes, but seriously no stranger than that.
The only difference is there's sometimes pictures of the dolls themselves put up. But the doll is just a shell for the character. Not much different from a drawing.

So I'd say fun. Most of the time.

 

This. My main boys have their own respective myspace pages and it's helped a lot with their development and character as well as helped me as a writer overcome a few writers blocks. My boys' pages are strictly for RP and any friend requests are looked over and screened so to say. They don't add just anyone and no humans allowed as friends. In fact it was through one of my boys' page that i got to know someone who is now one of my best friends and it wouldn't have been possible if it weren't for both our dolls interacting via their myspace.

I can also understand the whole issue about people thinking its weird and all that because I've come across some really questionable profiles of dolls wanting to add my boys' and you can clearly tell that the owners have a little trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality and get WAY to emotionally involved. Then there are others who I've noticed will go on and create a profile of their doll who has no personality whatso ever and by making friends with other dolls they'll find just one profile then start to "steal" your character gets kinda annoying. While it is quite tedious trying to keep up with multiple pages I find it kinda fun when I'm bored as well as it's a nice place to store photos of the dolls.

As for the BJD Network I had three of my dolls create pages on that but I found that place to be not as fun as I thought it would be. To me it seemed like a site created by a bunch of friends and a lot of the time it was very unwelcoming or to many people were whining about others and what not. I do still visit there once in a blue moon.