Fighting that Doll stereotype

You, there comes that time in age whem people start saying "your getting too grown up for dolls".
You receive them and play with them, and one day, what was "normal" and accepted change to "abnormal"
Though luck you still like your dolls.
That happened to me, and although I kept loving them, I only took the step to startcolecting on my early 30s, beguining exactely with those dolls I used to play with when I was a child. Aparently that took everyone by surprise (even my husband, though he is grudgingly supportive).
I love to look at them and that's it. I don't tell people who arent close to me about my hobby, because yes, I feel the prejudice, but i intend to keep my collection because they make me happy.

 

Insecure people are going to be threatened with anything that pushes them out of their comfort zones, regardless what the thing is. If it isn't dolls it will be something else. I don't care what anyone else thinks and why should I? I live my life, they live theirs. They wouldn't avoid what they like because of MY opinion, so why should I avoid or hide what I like due to theirs?

I know what you mean, it's frustrating to feel like I have to defend my hobbies. I finally quit. My response is "this is what I do. I don't criticize your football games so don't you criticize my dolls."

The funny thing is that one of my future characters is a former football player... har har har har. I think he'll make fun of the character that has a BJD. 11cm obitsu make perfect bjd's for dolls you know.

 

the way people will see you is indeed pretty influenced by the media.
if you tell someone "i collect and play with dolls" a lot of people will probably visualize dolls like barbies, and so. if you show them actual photos of the dolls, the way they are dresses and type of doll will be a huge influence on the stereotype they will give you. but yeah, most of them will think you are weird in one way or another mostly because this is not a common thing out there, specially thanks to the ridiculous "dolls are for little kids only "
about the Goth thing, i think a lot of people relate this dolls to them mostly because they tend to use dolls a lot on their art but in the poetic approach. so when people see this dolls the first image coming into their head is the goth art so.
i think most people will find vintage dolls to be the creepy ones.
but whatever, even with colorful happy ponies, if you have a big amount of them on shelves people will go like " doesn't it creeps you out to have so many eyes looking at you?"
so, at the end they are quite creeped out and scared about almost anything that they are not used to and the different :P

 

The gothic stereotype? What is wrong with that? It does fit rather often (it does fit me to a certain extent, lol)... and if it doesn't, it is still not really offensive, in my opinion. I mean, being called goth is usually not an insult. "Goth" means you wear certain clothing and listen to certain music. It doesn't assume anything about your personality.
Other stereotypes - "childish", "lonely girl who needs a boyfriend", "tactless fan-girl/fan-boy" etc., make me much, much angrier sometimes, because I don't like assumptions, expecially negative and judgemental ones, made about someone's personality just because of her/his hobbies.

 

The stereotype I run up against most is that all doll owners push their dolls about in strollers, think of them as their children, believe they're alive and talk to them as if they expect a response. When I got my first doll, one of my close friends said "Okay, but if you get a stroller, I'll disown you!" (I got that same friend a BJD for his birthday last year and he is now an avid doll collector himself. XD) My girlfriend watches me carefully to ensure that I don't become such a doll owner. I just smile and shake my head because I know her misconceptions are based on a select few individuals she's run into at cons, as is the case with most of my friends. (She's also just hyper-logical and thinks it's "weird" to use "he" and "she" to refer to dolls rather than "it." Some people are just super immersed in reality, just like some people are super immersed in imagination.) The more doll people she meets, though, the less that prejudice seems to override everything else, so people's minds do change with exposure. For the ones who can't/won't change their minds... as others have said, who cares? Don't make their prejudice your problem.

I've never run across a gothic stereotype, nor do I associate Goth much with dolls. I think your own experience with the hobby might just be limited, and I would encourage you to reach out to more doll owners so you can see for yourself what a diverse group we are. It's the best way to clear your mind of stereotypes for good.

 

I think anything you get into gets negitive backlash once it starts being a deep interest. I became very interested in fish three years ago-- one ten gallon was fine with my family, though there were laugjs about how I was waisting my money whe I bought a heater. My second tank was too much any everyone started callimg me weord and obsessed. Sorry if you can't mix some species lol. Just because you're more than passingly into something doesn't make it weord. It makes ot that people are enviois, I think. How can you put/waste so much time/money/effort into something *I* don't see the appeal in? :P I love my dolls, I love my fish. Life is good and hobbies are awesome.

 

People always confuse "passionate" with "obsessed".

It's sad, and I think jealousy has something to do with it. I think some people secretly want their own thing to treasure, but they are too afraid of "not being mainstream".

 

I think this sums it up pretty much and also is how I feel about it. Everyone is always going to think something either good or bad about one topic or another. It's ridiculous but it'll never really stop.

Just be happy doing what you're doing and from there don't let the hater's hate get you down.

 

While I get what your saying I see a doll as a blank canvis....you know especially if they come blank :P
But I did alot of looking into dolls when i was first looking for one. i even went so far as to look at the ones i couldn't afford to get a general idea. I found that there were clumps of the same but of course there were ones from every side of the woods.

 

I think in most hobbies there is a bad stereotype of the people in them. With dolls I think a lot of people have grown up with 'you're too old for dolls' mentality when lots of people would wish to hold onto them. So people assume dolls should only be for children no matter how expensive. I find it a little sad really because there are plenty of other grown up hobbies that children have simplified version of when they are younger (for instance model trains and miniatures). That and the horror films about dolls haven't helped much.

 

I don't really care what people think of my doll collecting. I have friends who also collect them and others who cannot understand why i would want them. Some people do make judgements about you because of your hobbies but that's their problem not yours. I get labelled because i have tattoos and listen to heavy metal too. I like to think that i would not judge or label someone to quickly. All people are individual and getting to know them is the fun part.

 

I agree. I don't think the tv shows depicting doll collectors and making them seem crazy helps either.

I've grown up in a family of doll collectors, so to me, it's very normal and no big deal. I've never really heard the 'dolls are for kids thing', thankfully. We go to doll shows and whatnot all the time. It really saddens me that my hobby and the dolls that are dear to me make me almost labelled a freak or something. Many see doll collecting as something that elderly women do and that's it. It's far more. I mainly collect Blythe so I'm not on here much but through Blythe, I've made some amazing friends. I don't mind that people find my dolls creepy, I think that's a bit funny, frankly.

 

I've always been the weired guy. Check out my profile pic. I only have a problem with BEING a guy with a doll and people thinking that I'm girly. It takes huevos to sport an SD on my arm.

 

Racoondevil- I'm not seeing ANYTHING girly about your profile pic and if people think packing a doll changes that....they must be blind. O.o

 

I don't think these dolls are "inherently creepy" at all. they are what you make them. I might be fond of vampires and zombies but a lot of my dolls are just pretty girlies dressed kind of old fashioned. You are in the right hobby if you love your dolls and it's up to you what you do with them.

As for what other people think of you because you own dolls, non of us can control what other people think of us full stop. Not on any issue, so why single out your doll ownership? If people have decided they don't like you or that you are weird they will look for something like this hobby to justify their negative attitude toward you, but that's their problem to deal with, why should you care? Don't waste time worrying about people who don't care for or about you, it's a hiding to nowhere. Concentrate on the things you love doing and you will find like minded people.

 

I've never noticed much of a gothic thing with ABJD collecting, the stereotyping I've noticed is more about how you must be into anime and manga and that kind of thing.

I find different people react differently to different kinds of doll though. Like, some people will comment on how beautiful my BJD is, and how it's an art piece. But can't understand my fashion doll collection at all. Others think having any doll at all is weird, and others love the fashion dolls because they're quirky or nostalgic, but can't fathom spending hundreds of pounds on resin. Some people are impressed with the workmanship that goes in to 1:12 miniatures, others think that doll houses are only for retired women. And so it goes on.

At the end of the day it's your hobby and your life. It doesn't matter what other people think of your dolls, so long as you enjoy them.

 

yeah I have to admit I've thought about this a lot. Being a guy, I've probably worried more so than the women in this hobby. Some of the pictures I come across of people involved in the hobby make me wonder if I want to be in it and or if I'm going to become one of them. I apologize if I've offended anyone by that remark. I'm weird by a lot of normal people's standards and I'm ok with that. Comic books are "weird", anime is "weird", collecting action figures is "weird". But to be honest I don't want to be one of those "Bros" that males are expected to be. I go to work, I have friends, I go out once and a while, played football for half my life. So I don't think you have a to be a gothic, antisocial hermit to be a doll collector.

And my thoughts on where the gothic stereotype came from is from porcelain dolls. They're soo pale, like people who never go outside (goths lol). And since most outsiders probably see resin bjds in the same category as porcelain dolls they probably associate bjd collectors with the gothic stereotype as well.

 

As a gothic collector of dolls, I can see where it comes from this gothic stereotype. xD dolls are a bit of an obsession to gothtards to begin with, so if you collect bjds your aesthetic carries over. Same with the jock fans etc. there's always a pocket of us goths types in all the subcultures. If we can bring the darky dark darkness into things we will. I swear it's in the contract.

 

I've seen/experienced a lot of what everyone has described, even within my own family. My mom thinks bjds are creepy--as it's been suggested, because they look so human-like but aren't alive, are too small to be human, are sometimes oddly proportioned, etc. She's just not used to them--but she's come around to most of the other kinds of dolls I collect, so . . . it'll happen with bjds, too, I think. My dad is much more aggravating. He thinks it's perfectly fine to spend a lot of money on a new tv, but weird--and almost wrong--to spend it on a doll. I've tried explaining that it's the same thing--both these things are luxury items for our enjoyment, the only difference is that he wants the tv and not the doll. He just can''t put himself in my shoes.

I also see the "you're too old for dolls!" thing. It does kind of bug me that some people think the psychological growth of doll collectors is somehow stunted . . . but I'm mainly just frustrated with any kind of stereotype, I guess. I wish people could learn to empathize, could learn to stop being so judgmental, and could put themselves in other people's places and realize, "Hey, I like electronics, you like dolls. I own 30 pairs of shoes, you have shelves of dolls." There's no difference except that some hobbies and activities are more mainstream than others. I try not to mind, though. I used to teach college writing, and I'd tell my students on the first day that if anyone was willing to get me a $600 bjd I'd give them an automatic A. Then I'd explain what a (basic) bjd was: "They're ball-jointed . . . they come bald . . . and they're nude." It was actually pretty fun to see their reactions!

 

I think you might just be looking in the wrong places, I've seen plenty of non-goth dolls I think they often appeal to Gothic minded individuals because they're on the periphery of society, and therefore more open to things 'normal' people might initially shy away from, plus Gothic stereotypes are often mysterious, and nothing appeals to creative and artistic minds like a hint of mystery, though some do overuse it.