Trying to get back in to the hobby but struggling

I live in the United States but there aren't many collectors around here either so I feel your pain. Ive found it really helpful to share my dolls and my photos and make online friends, that way you can talk about your hobbies together and even get more ideas! but be warned, don't go buying for no reason because it wont bring you instant joy and you'll just feel pressured! Take coming back into the hobby slow, find inspo photos to recreate that's spark joy.

TLDR; don't buy to fill the void, make collector friends even if they're online and try finding more inspo photos that spark joy
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Sorry if this wasn't helpful but I hope you get back into the hobby!

 

Most people I hear of it's online. Talking to people, sending compliments about things you (genuinely) like and sometimes it leads to convos which can lead to friends

 

I think there's regular meets in Australia, @aihre organizes some of them if that helps

 

What usually gets me going is taking pictures and spamming the relevant thread here and looking at other people's dolls. However, I do think DoA - like most forms - is a lot quieter these days. And I'm just not a big fan of the video platforms. I much prefer reading to video.
So for me it can sometimes be disheartening to see that I'm basically the last poster on half of the threads I watch...

 

Are you crafty? I find making an outfit or accessory helps me to reconnect with my doll. Then if you like to take photos, sharing it online is a great way to reconnect with other hobbyists. Good luck and have fun

 

I've actually found that I'm enjoying the hobby more now that I'm no longer on most social media. I'll post here and a few times on a discord doll group but mostly my collection is private. It got rid of that pressure of trying to get the perfect picture, perfect outfit etc.

Finding an online friend or small community to chat with can definitely help but it's also important to do what you want too. Hobbies are personal and not everyone in the same hobby does things the same way.

 

I’ve been slowing down in the hobby but that’s because the only person I can talk with about my dolls is my husband or a select couple of friends who aren’t in the community. A lot of my (and my RP buddy’s!) original characters have been shelled into doll form, which is how I end up connecting. Aside from that, I have a few curious people but I tend to stick to myself or post a rare set of photos on social media.

I always end up picking up one of my dolls and sitting them next to me while I quilt or do some little adjustments on them. That usually sparks joy.

 

in my opinion if a hobby is hard to do and creates any frustration it doesn't worth the effort , that's why I left it the first time and that's why I'm happy now to selling everything through a middleperson the most valuable commodity in life is time , much of our time is spend in necessary but hard activities , work and things that are important but might cause frustration then there is the pleasant piece of time we spend with our loved ones , hobbies is a tiny part of time in my view with the aim to destress mind if it causes any stress even the most miniscule one it just doesn't worth it losing even one second to a hobby that ends stressful or not pleasant is waste of my own life for nothing.

 

I second @Pixiestixx advice about taking your time and coming back slowly. Explore what it is about the hobby that you enjoy now, as it may have changed since the last time your were active. Interests change and so does what is available, tings may be possible this time around that were not possible for you the last time.
Finding ways to enjoy your doll for your self makes community less important and may lessen the pressure to find new people.

With that said, there are a lot of great people out there. And while in-person meetups and events are a lot of fun, the fact that you can make friends all over the world makes it almost guaranteed that you will find at least a few friends over time.
Stay active, talk to people and build relationships.
To increase the chances of getting a dialogue going on places like this, try to answer specific users and comments. Don't just add your response to the list of other peoples responses as if you all were talking to yourself.
Also don't be scared to open a private conversation with someone if you find their posts valuable or interesting. Not everyone will reply, but some will. I've made real friends that way.

As for finding friends closer to you, that will depend a lot on your situation.
Just as an example: I have a friend in the hobby who doesn't live very far from here, but we can't see each other very often. She lives outside of town and I don't have any transportation of my own. She does, but isn't always up to driving. We've both got some health issues that makes it difficult to plan and pull off spending time in real life. Instead we message each other, share pictures of our doll projects and sometimes send little gifts in the mail. It's not the same as meeting in person, but it's still very nice.
My point is that friendships can work in many different ways and sometimes online friends and IRL friends are not two separate things.

Best of luck in finding you way back into things!

 

If you want a more active forum than doa might I suggest the BJD subreddit? It’s not as stringent about qualifying dolls so you will see a lot more dolls that would be off topic here but it’s a lot more active. You can find it here https://www.reddit.com/r/BJD/

 

I know personally in between meet ups to connect with my dolls we go out together. There is a store here in the US called American girl. They have a restaurant and tons of cool doll props everywhere to take some nice pics with for 1/4 scale dolls. Even if I don’t go there I love going to a local tea house with my dolls or having a tea party at home. There is even a neat doll museum I took one of my dolls with me too. Since I have tons of hobbies I also bring my dolls to anime conventions or lolita meet ups. The sky is the limit besides dress up these days.

 

I'm lucky in that I live in Manhattan but I'm very low income and struggle with chronic illness and mobility issues a lot which can make it very difficult for me to attend local meetups and events even when they do happen here.

I know there are other doll people here and I would love to make friends with a few so we could just hang out sometimes..The new venue they have for meetups is a bit harder for me than the old one but I still want to try to do one in March or April.

I sympathize because I have lived in a town before where I was probably the only person there who collected the types of dolls I do. Online boards and that they kept me sane.

 

I have a different issue. I'm struggling with getting back into the hobby now that photo sharing on Instagram is so different. I can no longer search a hashtag and see relevant, recent photos unless it already has a lot of likes and that ruins thing for me. I want to be able to see unique, loved dolls that aren't necessarily showstopper, popular etc. I understand I can still come here and I do appreciate it but the "bitesize" nature of doll Instagram I really miss.
Oh, and the continued issue that it is so much easier to buy a whole new doll than buy an outfit for one is still a point of irritation for me haha

 

I recognize a couple of you from "the olden days." Lol. I have just recently taken my dolls out after months and months and in some cases, YEARS of being in their boxes. I was disheartened today to find my El with seriously ruined eyelashes and in major need of restringing. And I thought - I forget even HOW to restring a doll. Crazy! Life happens. I think DOA is a good place to restart your hobby. I know of zero doll people in the town I live in. I've tried in the past to post meetups here, but got no replies.
I think just cleaning your dolls, maybe trying to do a photo story or make a garment and uploading that here is a good place to start..

 

I feel this in my soul! I used to search instagram all the time and now it’s just the same few photos. And even tags that have say 100 photos don’t even show up as anything being there anymore because they’re “not popular”.

It was really a shock coming back to the hobby after like 7 years away and finding the forum a lot slower than I remember. I mostly hang around on discord now.

 

@babytarragon I've found Weibo to be great, at least for the Chinese side of the hobby. The search function is pretty decent and it doen't take too much effort to learn the Chinese names for the companies/sculpts. The environment is very creative and high-effort.
I really hate Instagram and I refuse to feed a video of my face into their AI in order to register (they actually request this for new users).

 

Thank you I'm going to check it out! I can read a bit of Chinese already

 

Also commenting, you might want to check out Xiaohongshu (小红书 )! It's a photo-based platform much like Instagram, and you can follow a bunch of Chinese companies as well. I personally follow a ton of faceup artists, and imo the algorithm is top notch.