Pediophobia

I used to be terrified of clowns too (though that's a different phobia) but Pierrot's never scared me. I had a gorgeous Pierrot doll my grandmother gave my mum...I still love him

( I mention Pierrot is because I have friends who are terrified of him purely because he is a 'type of clown' even though he's beautifully crafted.)

 

Okay, when you put it like that I'm a bit creeped out by myself...

 

I tend to be afraid of porcelin dolls. I have a large collection of madame alexander dolls from when I was small, and I cannot have them out of their boxes at night.

I heard the the psychology behind the silent hill franchise was that the characters were scary because they were completely de-humanized. maybe its the opposite concept. that they are something that look so close to human, but just slightly different.

 

well I don't collect dolls because I'm childless. I hate children. I honestly do. And while they do freak me out, being freaked out is just a fact of life I just go with. I think there are alot of reasons for peoples fears though. Probably mostly the, its human looking but not human thing.

 

This really is an interesting thread. I've only known one person who was afraid of dolls & she said it was because their eyes seemed to follow you around the room.

Personally dolls never scared me. I didn't play with them much as a child because I was sort of a tomboy & more into dinosaurs, playing army & stuffed animals. But as an adult I discovered antique dolls & so began a 22 year long obsession. BJDs are just the latest stage of it.

But getting back to people being scared of dolls, we have a meet-up every month at Borders cafe & attrack a lot of lookers. No one's had a bad reaction to our dolls but most are very curious about them. I don't know how wide spread this fear of dolls is but other than that one person, I've had no experience with it. In fact the only dolls I've ever found "creepy" are those reborn babies. They look so real that I expect them to wake up & start screaming & screaming children are real high on my list of things to avoid. Plus even human babies are pretty weird looking.

 

Dolls have never scared me (ok maybe once), no matter what people have told me. They have always been things that will love me forever because they don't live and don't die. But I do know people who will look at my dolls and cry and start hyperventilating thinking that doll will kill them. I try and keep any of my dolls away from them and by this I mean Barbie, porcelain, and now BJD.

I can see why some people are afraid of dolls though, some like the BJD's are so lifelike that it is a tad scary to see them. A small version of a human and lifeless it is a bit terrifying if you put it in that way, but then again dolls can show beauty in humans that we can't express as well.

 

I think the whole "dead children" thing is the thing that makes those Victorian "death portraits" so eerie...maybe people think that the posed dolls resemble them?
Dolls scared me a bit when I was little--but only my Madame Alexander Alice--actually, larger dolls with joints scared me (ironically enough). My Cabbage Patch Kids didn't scare me at all, neither did my Strawberry Shortcake, Ginny dolls or my Barbies. But my Alice MA scared the pee out of me at night....as did this one doll that I had that was life size. The weirdest thing of this was that baby dolls--even Cabbage Patch Kids--were my favorite, but I don't like human babies--they freak me out and make me super uncomfortable. I actually teach my favorite age group--middle school--and the bjd dolls l tend to like look like young teens. Weird stuff, psychology!

 

The only doll I was afraid of was this clown doll I had. I actually liked him, but after watching 'Are you Afraid of the Dark?' with the clown episode, and with the clown doll looking EXACTLY like the one in the show...that doll was out of my room the next morning. I was TERRIFIED.

I do see why people are afraid though. When my cousins came over, my youngest cousin really liked my 'softer' looking, gentler dolls- my female dolls mostly, especially my sweet little asha; but she felt nervous around my Soom Namu. When I asked her why, she said it was because of his eyes. Mind you, his eyes are red. My other older cousins said it was like my Namu was watching them- the others were alarming, but my Namu's eyes seemed to follow them. Well, his character IS a tad scary (XD) but my vampire, NaNuRi 07, is a vampire with blue slitted eyes (like a cat), yet because of his gentler look, he was liked much more. I guess the way people perceive a doll influences any sort of fear they have, and eyes can be a big deal.

 

I think that some people are afraid of dolls namely bjds because of how human they can look. Perhaps it frightens them that something could look so human and not be human.

 

I'm actually afraid of any kind of dolls, not including BJDs, obviously. Dolls just scare me for some reason, probably because you can't do anything with them and they just sit there are stare at at you. My mother bought me a porcelain doll that looked exactly like me and I was terrified of that thing. I wouldn't even walk near the same room with that thing there. I think it's in the closet in the other room somewhere and I hope it stays there.
I think what scares people about BJDs is the fact they are so lifelike and you can change everything about them. Even mod them. Of course, I've had many people say how beautiful Aki is but of course, he's a vampire/elf so maybe that's why people are more attracted to him since he is "different" from humans.

 

I hate porcelain dolls and those little clown dolls. e_e I don't know why, they're just creepy. xD; I haven't liked them since I was a kid.

But I love ABJD? Go figure.

 

i personaly believe pediophobia has to do with scary movies and trust (or broken trust)

what made movies like IT, pet semitary, the omen, dead silence, chucky etc so scary is probably the fact that people used to feel safe around dolls, small children, and clowns. and when someone tells a scary story about one of these semingly innocent things becoming evil it scares you more than something you might already expect to be evil, because you used to feel completly safe around them

im not sure if im making any sense here but i have noticed movies that take something innocent (like a loyal, loving dog) and make it completly opposite (rabid killer dog like cujo) they get alot of attention

my dad said he knew some people who told him just before that movie came out saint bernards sold quickly and after that movie they had a litter that took forever to sell and most of the people who bought the dogs either hadnt seen the movie or wanted them because they had become feared by so many people

 

the first time my mum saw my dolls,she was like @@.... she thinks they are scary as they are so big and lifelike.after awhile she got used to seeing them.... and lke them.

 

It may also have something to do with some very old myths and ideas. If look into cultures approaches to dolls and also masks it gets interesting. Many ancient cultures believed that mask wearers should be very careful of the masks they choose in case they should be possessed by the spirit of the mask. And in Japan old dolls used to be destroyed for much the same reasons. Maybe the phobia stems back that far, but that makes me wonder where those myths came from too.

 

I had an experience with a friend of mine. I havent bought my first doll yet (Im still in the research stage) and I showed her a picture of the doll I want, a Blue Fairy Olive. She told me it was the scariest thing ever, and that when I got it, I would need to hide it when she came over. I asked her why it was so scary she said she could see her walking around freakishly, dragging her legs around.
I had never thought of a doll like that before, but I guess it makes sense if you watch scary movies and things like that, I mean, her image of the doll creeped me out...

 

I have always loved dolls. They have never creeped me out. I remember when I was very young that I liked their round soft features and smiling lips. Most of the people around me when I was a small child always wore a scowl or angry, mad face. Dolls gave me the smiles/comfort I needed. I think they provide a level of comfort for me as an adult also. They still smile even when the rest of the world seems to be frowning.

My adult son on the other hand hates dolls. He broke many of mine that I had displayed (when he was young). He even scared my daughter (6 yrs younger than him) from playing with her dolls. When she was about 5yrs old he set all of her Barbie's in a semi-circle around her bed as though they where coming to get her. When she woke up she was terrified and never wanted them displayed in her room again. Thankfully, she still likes dolls and has grown out of those fears.

 

I think the fear of dolls comes from the fact that they look human but aren't human at all. They look alive but aren't alive, their eyes watch you without seeing. Just some of my thoughts, but since I myself am not afraid of dolls, I can't really say for sure.
I've never been afraid of dolls, except for happy clown dolls - crying piero clowns and evil demonic clowns don't bother me. But I think that's more a fear of clowns than actual dolls.

 

I think it's the media that made dolls and clowns really scary to people. I mean when you think of scary dolls usually people think of Chucky or something like that. Like all horror movies something so innocent as a kids toy, clown or a child makes it all the more scary when they are actually evil. That's what I think it is.

 

How offensive! I own an Olive!

But this ties in extremely well to the thread topic. Dolls are sculpted to look like children. Most, anyway. They have been to begin with! And with the rise of ball-jointed dolls, the very meaning of 'doll' has gone frm one thing to an entirely different meaning.

I guess, in a way, I can understand why the dolls that look like children freak out people more then the more mature ones. Kids are more innocent, more sheltered... and, as horror movies make a point to exaggerate, have yet to develop human morals. There are people who are scared of children because they are, in a sense, 'half-human'.

Dolls accentuate this. I mean, come ON! We live the hobby. All of us here have once thought how realistic their doll was compared to others. Uncanny Valley syndrome aside, what do dolls represent if not kid-hood? I myself am not surprised at all to hear that people might agree with the original post.

... oh, freak. As I was typing this, I started imagining a typical child-doll-comes-alive-and-kills-people scenario. A chill went up my spine. Yeesh. How terrible.

 

I used to know a girl who had an actual phobia of dolls, and for her, it was about how they looked real yet they wouldn't move or even blink. She used to have some really nice porcelain dolls as a child, and one day, she couldn't have them in her room anymore because she was afraid of them.

When I used to work in a toy store, some customers also didn't like the dolls too much either for the same reason.

With dolls, I wonder if it's more because of their still gaze rather than their likeness to children that frightens most in this case.

A few people don't like dolls because of horror movies that they saw as a kid (such as "Chucky"). In fact, it seems that most irrational fears that people my age have (college age) when it comes to things that are seen as creepy are the result of scary movies seen as a kid. Granted, this is not great research or anything as it's just from people I know, but most who saw "IT" as a kid have clown fears, those who saw "Chucky" don't like dolls, etc.