Of Barbies and BJDs

I stopped playing with barbie dolls around 12 or 13, but I still play with barbie dolls with my little sister sometimes who is seven years old and I'm now 20.
We sometimes act out a show with barbies which make it more interesting. And we change their clothes a lot.

 

i always hated to playx with barbies and other dolls :O played until i was 10 (had to play XD) i better loved plushys and cars

 

I only had the Barbie dolls if they came with the horses. My 12th birthday I got a big stable and lots of horses, and a biiig horse with Barbie, ectect. I loved them for years, but gave them away when I was about 16 to my niece because it was taking up so much room in my bedroom.

I miss them and I kind of kicked myself for doing it because she proceeded to be rough with them and broke most of the horses and cut their hair. - Sigh. -

Other than the horsey barbies I wasn't really interested in dolls.

 

People Who Played with Barbies:
How Old were you when you stopped playing with barbies? Was it young due to needing to feel older or was it because you just felt it was time?
I was 11. It wasn't my choice. I lost all my dolls and all my possessions due to hurricane damage. After moving from our wrecked house, I never touched them again. Bad memories I suppose.

Was there anything that you did with barbies, that carried over to how you treat your BJDs?
I used to draw new makeup on their faces and make them clothes. I think it was just BJD training. XD

 

I always loved playing with dolls, I mainly loved action man (which I have carried as a hobby up to adulthood.) I was sad when I reached about 13 and all my friends stopped playing with their dolls. I didn't really love playing Barbie's, I didn't like brushing their hair or changing their clothes. The boys were cooler to me because they were fully articulated, you could bend their knees and elbows which you couldn't do with the girls.

So I don't really think I carried anything over. I'm the opposite now, most of my dolls are girls, because they do have bending elbows and knees and are just as cool as the boys. I love brushing their hair and changing their clothes.

 

Let's see... I forget when I stopped playing with Barbies, but I still have them in a box in the basement. My sister and I would paint their faces, color their hair, and make them clothes. I guess all of this has followed over into the BJD hobby, eh? We would also give them stories, make them talk and interact ith each other, and put on fashion shows for them. Again, I seem to have kept on doing this, but with my BJD.

I never got collector's Barbies. I just wanted to play with them.

 

I still play with Barbies and there really was no difference to me making a change from her to my ever so expensive BJD's. I love them both equally.

 

How Old were you when you stopped playing with barbies? Was it young due to needing to feel older or was it because you just felt it was time?
Uh... I'm not sure exactly. Maybe 11 or something? Possibly 12, I dunno. I remember there came a time around that age where I couldn't be bothered to play with them the same way I used to. xD Also, I did think I was too ~grown up~ and all that. Haha

Was there anything that you did with barbies, that carried over to how you treat your BJDs?
Invariably, my Barbies would end up with skin heads. Thankfully that little habit didn't carry over to my BJDs! XP In a way, photostories are kinda similar to playing with Barbies though, aren't they? It's just playing and making up a story, only you're also photographing it! Other than that, I can't think of anything else.

 

I only remember one of my Barbies clearly, and the poor thing ended up in these clothes that I attempted to make by knotting strips of fabric together. I must have stopped when I was 11/12, but I have a sister a few years younger than me that I had played with up until that point. What I really remember is building little apartments out of cardboard, plastic bottles, scraps of fabric, etc and having my Barbie have parties with my Transformers. Thinking about it now, I bet that would make a great cartoon sitcom.

With my BJDs, I now actually try sewing for them, as well as painting. I love the ease of customizing and posing the BJDs, and much of the photographing I particularly enjoy. The home/apartment building has translated into some of my constructing furniture from wood. My Barbies were a bit like actors, playing out jobs or roles depending on how I felt, my BJDs have characters who have set roles...even if those roles tend to cause them to be actors for the most part (and therefore give me excuses to buy/build massive amounts of props).

I still think Barbie outweighs a lot of the currently available dolls in the toy aisle, just look at her resume!

 

Barbies are more of a gateway to BJD's then ever- have you seen the Barbie "fashionistas?" They are jointed and you can change up her hair!

I was about 14 when I stopped playing with Barbies, and up until recently collected the holiday ones. If I had more money and a place to display them, I would keep getting "collectors" ones like the landmark Barbies that are out now.

 

How Old were you when you stopped playing with barbies? Was it young due to needing to feel older or was it because you just felt it was time?

Around puberty-- 11, 12, 13, thereabouts.
I just outgrew my dollies, as so often happens at about that age. I stopped having any use for women as decoration, and I developed a serious distaste for the traditional trappings of femininity. Barbie became a hideous burlesque of womanhood to me, & I stopped liking her as an institution. This epiphany may or may not have been hastened by its being the early 80s & my sister's leaving a copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves out where I could read it.

After that, I didn't collect any dolls at all, in the years between 13 and 35.

And then five years ago, all this broke loose. ^^

Was there anything that you did with barbies, that carried over to how you treat your BJDs?

No-- the exact opposite. My Barbies all had fabulous careers as action heroes. They got buried in ice puddles, stuck in mud, strung up in trees, rescued from gravel pits, run over by all manner of vehicles... all so that the Steve Austin or Big Jim dolls (she was a fickle tart, that Barbie, always switching boyfriends from day to day) could come rescue her. Then, Steve or Jim would get strung up or buried so that Barbie could hop in the Rescue Rig (in her pink Starlet ballgown & heels)... and go rescue him. As a result, my dolls never lasted long before their hair turned into dreadlocks or mohawks, their eye-paint got scraped, their limbs were always getting chewed-on by the cat or the little sister, and something indelible would stain those rubber legs.

Barbies are plastic and inexpensive and plentiful... they can take a lickin' from even the most brutally imaginative child, and still keep on tickin'. On the other hand, BJDs must be played with in a grownup manner if you want your thousand-dollar investment to stay nice. I treat these dolls like gold-- even the ones who do get to go hiking & climb trees. Having BJDs finally taught me to have nice things, & to take care of them.

Of course, it is perfectly possible that the influence of Barbie, the cause of my distaste for the outmoded-ideal-stereotypes-of-women thing, did carry over into my BJD hobby-- on a reactionary level-- because I own only male dolls. ^^ I won't analyze it too deeply, but one certainly can't ignore that! 31 male dolls. My whole dollery now could be rooted in Barbie Backlash.

 

People Who Played with Barbies:
How Old were you when you stopped playing with barbies? Was it young due to needing to feel older or was it because you just felt it was time?

I think I was about 10 or 11. My younger sister ripped the head off of my favourite Barbie (Jasmine from Alladdin), and the neck piece broke rendering the doll wrecked. At that point, I decided I wouldn't collect dolls until I was older and out of the house.

Was there anything that you did with barbies, that carried over to how you treat your BJDs?

Not really. I always liked making up stories/characters for my Barbies (even if they already molded Disney personalities), and I tend to do the same with my BJDs. Oh, and I'm thankful that said younger sister won't go near them.

 

I played with Barbies (and other similar dolls) till... probably around 12 or 13? My sister is three and a half years younger than me so I would usually play with her. We had a lot of furniture and kitchen stuff and cars for them and everything and we'd make these elaborate house set-ups and usually the adults would go off to work while the kids would go on crazy adventures xD I didn't really ever make a decision to stop playing with them; it just sort of happened. I'm not sure any of my Barbie habits carried over to BJDs... maybe just how careful I've always been with them (I wasn't the type of kid you hear about who ripped their heads off and stuff)? But that's part of my personality, so... xD

 

How Old were you when you stopped playing with barbies? Was it young due to needing to feel older or was it because you just felt it was time?
I didn't have very many Barbies - topped out at three and a few outfits. I had a friend with a bazillion of everything and a suitcase full of Barbie clothes, and we'd play Barbies a lot, mixing in GI Joes and what have you as we went. Other than changing their clothes and making them act out stories, I don't remember much what I did with them. I liked Barbies then and LOVED My Little Ponies, but was also a huge Transformers and GI Joe fan. Of the shows: my parents couldn't afford to get me expensive toys like Transformers.

I played with other things beyond a seemly age and got made fun of for it, but Barbies I lost interest in and then started to actively dislike. I started to figure out that what she represented had nothing to do with me. I started to acknowledge I hated pink and actively resisted really girly things. And I started to realize that my mother's reluctance to have them in the house had little to do with cost; she really hated them.

Was there anything that you did with barbies that carried over to how you treat your BJDs?
Telling stories and changing their outfits, fiddling with their appearance; I do this now on a much, much more detailed level, and also do customization. However, I'd really rather my BJDs learned to change themselves :p. Nothing like wrestling with 70cm of resin that likes to suddenly try to sit down or fly over backwards - it's like having a small child!

I think I'm another one who reacts against Barbie still - all but one of my dolls are male, and the female sculpts I'm attracted to are generally (but not exclusively) cute little girls or tomboys.

 

I stopped playing with Barbies around 12. I was into Blythes and in my 40s when I saw a Lati yellow, now I'm getting ready to sell my Blythies (except for a couple) cuz I love the bjds so much.

 

I don't think I stopped playing with Barbie's (and other fashion dolls such as the British doll Sindy) until recently, but the definition of 'play' changed for me as I grew up.
As a young child I suppose I played with mine as any child would. I dressed them up, set up scenes and acted out stories with them. When I got a little older (8-9) I became more interested in collecting them. I started to acquire limited and special editions as well as ones that I just wanted to play with. As I started to reach my teens I began learning about doll customisation and how to repaint and root new hair into them.
I suppose eventually it wasn't enough for me to just repaint them. There seemed to be only so far that you could go before it got very repetitive. I discovered the 1/6 obitsu's and the Volks Dolfie's and began customising them and my Barbie hobby was left behind really. I stopped going to the fairs and conventions and I sold on quite a bit of my collection.
When I discovered BJDs (through a friend) I thought I'd found the holy grail of customisation They felt a lot easier to work with just because you could do so much more. So I suppose in a weird way, the habits I developed playing with Barbie's carried through to my BJD's.

 

What a great topic! And it is relevant to BJDs, so hopefully the mods won't mind.

I only really played with Barbies until I was 10... I was Lego girl growing up! But I did still collect a few of the collectable ones that I liked the costumes on.

Barbies were a gateway doll for me when I was about 18. I started making OOAK costumes, posing them on the shelf like figurines, but not playing with them because the bodies are so stiff. A few I changed the face paint on, and one I sculpted elf ears for, added new hair, and made an entire costume based on one of my original character. He sits in a case on my shelf, and will soon be reborn as a BJD.

Then I discovered BJDs, and not only could I customize and clothe them, but I could pose them and take them places with me! Somehow it seems less weird for a grown woman to cart around a BJD than a Barbie. The sculpted details of the resin BJDs is so much greater than the barbie line, and as an artist I love seeing veins and musculature.

 

I LOVED Barbie dolls. Just a ball park estimate, I probably had about a hundred, give or take a little and that's not counting the collectors dolls. I had all types of dolls when I was little, and it isn't surprising to me that my love of dolls couldn't be stifled into adulthood.
I know that my love of Barbies is probably what helped me transition into BJD's. I stopped playing with Barbies at about 12, though I occasionally pulled one out to dress up out of boredom. The first time I came across BJD's was about 13, and I've been lusting after them for 5 years.

I will get my first BJD hopefully in about a week *sqwee* so I'm not sure, but I could never just let my dolls alone on a shelf. I immediantly ripped them out of the box and changed their clothes and hair. I can't stand to leave anything just sitting on the shelf, and I have a feeling my BJD will ride around the house with me.

 

I loved barbies I have dozens of them stuffed into bins now. I probably stopped playing with them when I was 11 or 12, I was growing out of dolls in general at that point. I was growing into my own individuality and started to realize barbie was way to generic for me. I first got introduced to BJDs via DeviantArt I saw so many people photographing them and thought "oh my god, these are like, customizable, more realistic barbies!". I like these dolls so much better because you can make them into whatever you want them to be. I think the only thing that I brought over to the hobby was styling my dolls, I loved to dress my barbies.