Rude Reactions to Your Dolls?

That's the down side to broad-based social media -- everyone thinks their opinion matters, and that they should express it. (Like I just did, *snerk*.)

It makes me thankful I never branched out beyond doll-oriented chat boards, and it keeps me from posting on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter etc. Of all the annoying comment examples you cited, @Auden, asking for a free doll really ticks me off, lol!

 

I've had people tell me that they are "kinda creepy" and my response is always "good, I'm glad you think so" because I want non-doll peeps to be creeped out

 

Many people said so many things about my dolls... Everything you said I already listened...
I don't care about people saying things like this, I just ignore them and if it's so heavy, I just block them. Even in the "dolly familly" I had many rude comments about my face-up, about my dolls, about having cheap dolls because they are not as good as expensive ones... Well, just ignore them. They are just stupid people. XD

 

Surprisingly no! The most reaction i got was my sister and niece being absolutely tickled that most bjds are anatomically correct. They saw one of my boy dolls weiner and couldnt stop laughing! my sister thinks they're neat but shes a creative person so she gets the customizing aspect of it.

 

I’ve had the “creepy dolls” comments before. What I started doing is when someone says they think the doll is creepy, I’ll chuckle and say something like, “Glad you think so, but I usually try to describe dolls using a less boring word.” Most people that say, “creepy,” are just parroting what movies and tv have told them. A few that have had the above conversation with me have actually started asking questions about where the dolls come from and how they pose and things. Not creeped out anymore (even if it took some time).

Online is a bit different. I’ve had Instagram comments about scary dolls and the norm, like it seems many of y’all have had. I usually just delete the comment and block them. No use spending energy on someone that doesn’t like what I provide, especially since it’s mostly just a passing commenter and not a personal friend.

 

We had some repair guys in who saw my collection and made a joke about them coming to life (he wasn't being mean, just joking around) so I told him "well my theory is if they wake up and want to kill people the person buying them all the cool stuff is probably last on the murder list"

He took it surprisingly well, haha.

 

a lot of my friends call my grey skin dolls 'zombie' which i think is very rude.... They are nice people but i guess grey skin might be too special for people who don't collect dolls

 

Some folks who seen all of my dolls displayed been creeped out but either by the quantity (I have a large collection of 1/6 dolls from different brands+BJDs) or because of the haunted doll movies lol So it wasn't specifically directed at me for collecting. But I've gotten questions like "aren't you scared to sleep in the same room?" To which I explain they're more modern dolls, so the chance of haunting is very low.

My friend's cousin saw my first BJD and was very impressed by the size, even asked to take a picture of him. She thought it was funny that I later moved him to limit any light exposure. Other than that, more common reaction is "omg I had dolls from this brand when I was a kid." But for doll posts, I have a separate instagram dedicated to doll content only

 

My daughter(29) told me she thought my dolls were creepy, and I just told her, " That's why I like them!" I think the thinking behind " creepy" is really just that they are so realistic that they look like they are alive - and that they actually might one day come to life when no one's looking! After a few years, she actually thinks some of my dolls are cute. She's also impressed with how many views and likes I get with my Flickr photos of my dolls! She also once asked, "Aren't they really expensive?" and I just didn't answer her because really don't anyone to know how much I spend on my hobby!

 

Sadly yes most who find out about my dolls and the hobbies related to them. They are very judgmental over the dolls themselves or their price point. I usually withhold telling anyone about them until I have a better understanding of their personality and ability to not be rude. Even family and friends gives me trouble at times with them I don't care anymore. I don't work 50 hr weeks to spend my free time and money on what other people want.

 

Yea i had ppl tell me its a waste of money and that i should feel guilty buying them. That theyre creepy and "what if they come to live and kill you" and i always tell em "if they kill me then thatl be it i gues" bc giving a boring reply seems to make them shut up lol.
I must say i have a friend when first meeting also told me my dolls where creepy ect, i eventually told them i dont rly apreciate it since these dolls mean alot to me. And now theyre intrested in getting one themselves lol, even tho theyre still a bit freaked out to see a doll without eyes or faceup (i also dont intentially sent them such pics unless i ask if theyre fine with it).
I also try to ask them if it be fun if the same stuff where asked on repeat about their intrests. Dont get me wrong though theres surtain dolls im scared of (looking at you ceramic dolls, realistic baby dolls and woody from toystory), but if somebody where to collect those i wouldnt bash them for it, would b kinda hypocritical of me lol

 

The rudest two I've had were:

- "Ewww, Chucky!" when my doll had absolutely nothing in common with Chucky aside from being a male doll. Long blond hair, green eyes, white skin, adult, in a business suit. But the whole Chucky thing already annoys me after more than a decade working at Spencer's and watching grown adults screaming and being obnoxious over an actual Chucky doll, so this was just extra irritating to me.

-"Well, isn't he an ugly thing!" by a JoAnn employee who was asking too many questions about what I planned to do with my fabric, then "doll stuff" wasn't enough detail because she couldn't imagine a doll that wasn't American Girl or a baby doll. So I pulled him out of my bag and got that instant reaction. How are you going to take that much interest in my hobby just to be rude as hell?

I've also had people say they're creepy, that I'm weird, insist my (masculine presenting) boy was a girl and demand "proof", someone condescendingly ask me if my doll was my baby while I was taking photos in a park, some random stranger let their toddler grab my doll at a meet up, that my doll looked like a monkey. Oddly enough, the only person who ever told me to give them free dolls was in the hobby! Her reasoning was that it wasn't fair that I had more, so should give her a few to make it even.

And the funniest goes to Jason Narvy (Skull from Power Rangers). He was asking questions about one of my girls, curious about her, my husband jokingly offered to sell her to him real cheap and his reply was "I don't need a cheap woman in my life." And then he apologized to me for insulting her.

 

I haven't had anyone say anything rude to me in public - I am probably ruder to my dolls (cursing them out when their hands go flying off, fighting with their knees, etc.). My family has never been rude either though my mom will go "I hope you have what they're worth written down. I don't know what I'd do with them if you died before me." Which...wasn't rude but more like a valid point. My doll friends are kind of spread around the country - if I did pass - shipping them my collection would be crazy expensive. So I am trying to keep some kind of record of how much I paid for each doll and such.

But I might just be lucky. I tend to go off the beaten path in the park to get my doll photos and the majority of my dolls are elves. People are too busy running or walking their dogs or trail biking to be rude to me. No one's said anything when I've taken their pictures in cherry trees in full bloom or in botanical gardens - I think everyone is so absorbed in getting their own pictures done they don't pay attention to the woman with 2 MSD elves ready to collect herbology specimens.

I am sorry that so many of our community have had run ins with rude people though. Not cool!

 

Most people have been really nice about it, but i don't tell many the price because i have gotten a few comments that aren't exactly rude but still not very fun about how expensive they are from people. usually when someone i know says they're creepy, it's the headless eyeless blank in the middle of customizing state they're reacting to and not the doll itself.

 

I've never had people outside of this hobby be rude or leave rude comments on my dolls (or most other OT toys, except for my Taeyang Sebastian Michaelis doll who was called "creepy" by two random people, but I thought it was hilarious). I had however, people within this hobby saying things "behind" my back. I say things and not mean or rude comments, because I don't really care. The person who let me know about them seemed to care, more about the adults with children acting that way, towards another adult owning dolls. I understood their points, but it honestly made no difference to me either way. I am not responsible for what other people think/feel about my dolls, if they are also adults who collect dolls and feel their taste on dolls is better than mine, that's their opinion (and you know what they say about opinions! Lol!). It doesn't hurt nor bother me in anyway. I do like creepy, weird, scary, unpopular things, so that's actually true. If people think my dolls are creepy or ugly, and want to say that to me personally, that's their time wasted. It hasn't happened yet, most of the stuff said was done on a forum meant to say nasty things about other people who collected BJD, a million years ago, and then a few people on Russian blogs, who thought my custom Sephiroth was sh1t, and stole by bandwidth, which at the time did make me a bit angry -- I always thought it was internet-etiquette not to repost photos that didn't belong to you without permission, more so not on your own server, but that's probably always just been me. I

'm an old-art, however, I've been alive for a long time now. I've always been thick-skinned because I was bullied for being vegan as a young child growing up, so I really couldn't be affected by "mean" comments made towards my dolls, or my repainting skills. There's no one in this world that can criticize me more than I possibly can, and as traditional artists for a lifetime now, I really couldn't be any more critical of my work if I lived to be a thousand years old. (:

 

Generally, the rudest comments seen to come from within the hobby in my experience. -Looking at the person who Implied I was trashy for taking a doll to Cracker Barrel- But as someone who grew up being bullied for still liking American Girl dolls, Barbies etc in late elementary school (really, you'd think eleven-year-olds would still be into that stuff...), none of the stuff people say about my current dolls bothered me enough to be memorable. The few things I do remember are purely because of how amusing I found them. I frequently tote dolls around with me on outings, a lot of times I might even carry one in a "cradle" position. I'm often approached by older ladies (60s+) asking what company makes them and the likes, what the dolls name is, etc. Occasionally they'll come up online in non-hobby spaces, like the time I posted my PC setup which had some dolls included, but this typically results in mild banter, at worst "is she going to haunt me?" to which I will generally reply "yes" or "only if you have a guilty conscience"
I find that generally having the aura of "I could not possibly care less" helps, as I suppose it generally makes me seem less approachable

 

I've had my mum say it's creepy or it's probably gonna come alive and walk around when i'm not looking but then would gladly sew outfits for my dolls and design my doll's looks so i'm not actually sure how to feel hahaha.