Uncanny Valley

I seem to find a fascination with realistic dolls, though dolls such as reborns do, as Iris says above, seem like dead babies to me. But my favorite thing that could bring out an uncanny valley response in someone are eyes that "follow" -- my Leekeworld Chouette's eyes seem to look at me from every angle, and I absolutely love it. He seems more lifelike to me, more like an entity than just another doll. But I know to other people it would scare the life out of them.

 

I've never heard this term before, it's quite an intriguing concept. Personally I rarely experience the "uncanny valley" effect with BJDs, because as other people have said, they're not quite realistic enough. I prefer the more anime or stylized sculpts to the hyperrealistic ones. I do empathize with my dolls a lot, because I've created detailed characters and histories for them.

BUT... sometimes the sleeping or dreaming heads creep me out a little, because to me, THEY don't look normal. That's when something is a little "off" for me. Two of my dolls have sleep heads that match their awake heads. Whenever they are wearing the sleep heads, I have the urge to shake them so they will wake up! LOL!

Glorfindel catches a few Z's.​

I agree with previous posters about the eyes. I've never had glass eye dolls before, and it is especially unsettling the first time you adjust or change their eyes.

And I can't stand to have my dolls in an unnatural position. I have to fix them so they look "comfortable". It's an obsession. I went out to lunch a few days ago with two friends at a doll show, and the three dolls sat next to one of my friends on the other side of the table. I asked her to fix my guy's hair because it was bunched up and he looked uncomfortable to me. LOL! After reading this thread, I'm glad I'm not the only one who does this.

There's a name for that too. It's called Baader-Meinhof Syndrome. ROFL!

Linda S.
galatia9

 

I was disgusted at the sight of them before, since I lean more on realism. I don't really like anime style faces. I got used to seeing dolls looking like dolls. I still don't like the dolls with big irises that fill up too much of the eyes(DOD) and the ones with noses too small. Iple house and Soul Doll are ok for me. Having a better face-up takes away most of the awkwardness though.

Sleeping heads look odd in a way that they don't really look like they are sleeping. They don't look relaxed most of the time.

 

I've never actually had this feeling. While I have had people say they were creepy it was from people who were afraid of dolls in general and this is again was creepy not uncanny. I don't think BJD look "real" enough to be uncanny. To me their proportions and facial features look too anime-like to be real even when they aren't the anime styled kind (Dollfie Dream). I have seen photos though where it took me a while to figure out if it was real person or a doll but they were extremes and I didn't find them to be uncanny just wowed that they can make something look so realistic many of them were also heavily photoshoped when it was a real person so it looked almost fake.

Other dolls on the other hand... for example I however do not like those antique childlike porcelain dolls with that one face they always seem to have with the parted lips and teeth showing adult-like ones are fine though. American Girls also but its weird because never used to give me this feeling until recently I don't know why I've had a sudden change of veiw.

 

I've never experienced the uncanny valley effect with anything. I've never seen a corpse in person, but things like dolls, androids, halloween masks etc... don't creep me out at all. ^^

 

Funny enough, BJD's are actually one of the few dolls besides porcelains that DON'T creep me out. Most life-like looking dolls scare the crud out of me, but these ones don't affect me at all. Actually, I LOVE how realistic they can look. I still don't understand why.

 

For me, I love testing my limits to see where the limits of the uncanny valley effect are for me as the concept fascinates me.
I always had a kind of an odd dislike for the old painted store manikins...they don't creep me out completely, I just don't like them...they kind of give me a weird vibe. Give them blank unpainted faces or more stylised, enlarged, unusual or more aesthetically pleasing heads and they don't weird me out at all.
The same goes with robotics...put a human-like latex or silicone skin on a humanoid robot and those sort of things can really creep me out, but a completely unrealistic fantasy of sci fi anamatronic puppet head can fascinate and delight me.
Some BJD sculpts can give me the same type of "weird vibe" that the old painted head manakins can but it tends to be certain styles of less realistic doll or badly proportioned doll that do it. Again, they don't completely creep me out but it's more of an odd feeling that something crossed the line in what I like and don't like or can accept in a sculpt. I have yet to find a BJD sculpt that completely creeps me out though.

 

The only time I've ever felt this way was when I saw Dollmore Lusions, and that's because they look so much like real children. It struck me as odd to have a BJD that resembled a human so closely, especially a human child, and I was slightly disturbed by it. I've seen pics of Lusions since and haven't had the problem, so it was more of a one-time thing. I also found it a little odd when another company recently released a human-sized BJD, but there again it's because I don't understand the appeal.

My husband was unnerved by the pictures I took of my first BJD after I got her because she looked so much like a real person. He also found it unnerving when he first saw her without a wig (her wig hadn't arrived when she did, so she was a baldy-locks) but that's mostly because she had oddly-shaped ears and he thought she looked like the creature from "Splice."

And like others have said, I like to pose my dolls naturally.

 

can't say i've had the uncanny valley feeling ever, however... i have an anecdote.

i was browsing flickr and my boyfriend was watching the pics i was looking at. now i collect & was looking at a mix of pictures of ABJDs and DDs (Dollfie Dreams, Volks' anime style dolls). my boyfriend then made the remark "i like the pictures of dolls in nature, but the DDs look weird because they're too cartoony. i think the other ones look more natural"

so then i was all, "a-ha, umm, check out this website that makes dolls, they're called Iplehouse"...

and i started showing him the Iplehouse websites. my boyfriend is not a doll person, he would never buy a doll for himself and sometimes he thinks aspects of my dolls are a bit freaky, but i discovered he really liked the way Iplehouse dolls look and started saying how good looking they were...because they fall the closest into "Uncanny Valley"... but for him, it was in a good way, not an uncomfortable one. if anything, he finds cartoony, anime dolls like Dollfie Dreams to be more unnerving and weird than the ones in UV.

 

Oh, yes! When my friend bought her first doll a few years ago, she was not allowed to bring it into my apartment for the longest time, and I couldn't have it turned towards me if I was in her apartment, because the face freaked me out. And that wasn't one of the most realistic dolls... I eventually got used to it, when she bought a smaller one, and after about half a year I could even actually touch the smaller one Then it took another few years before I was comfortable enough with them to even consider getting a doll of my own...
But Uncanny Valley has always been very large with me, for instance I can't stand shop window dummies (I turned around in a store once and found one standing right there, just inches away from me and I literally screamed out loud and almost knocked over a rack of clothes to get away from it ).

 

I agree with this. I have a friend that has absolutely no interest in dolls. I post lots of doll pictures on my Facebook, and he'll often tell me afterward that they're creepy and scare him. So maybe they reach the Uncanny Valley for him because he can't see them in person to know how small they are, because like Zagzagael said:

 

I used to be freaked out by a lot of dolls, when I was a child I had a life size doll and she terrified me so I locked her in my closet because I was afraid she would come to life like Chuckie!

But as soon as I saw a ABJD I didn't feel afraid at all.
There is something different about them, and I actually find them comforting to be around!

However, a few years ago I was at a run down antique store.
They had a doll section that was floor to ceiling on this wooden shelf with a glass display case at the bottom. On the top shelf (it was at least 12 ft tall) they had a row of those German BJDs. One was huge and she had an umbrella and was dressed to her times. But she was covered in cob webs. There was even a news paper clipping of the former owner who had apparently died and they were sent to the store.

But it was the glass case that got to me. There was a bunch of old baby dolls, with crackling painted faces, in really old baby beds and I just froze and felt like I was going to pass out. They looked like dead children is some sort of catacomb.

I like antique dolls, but the condition they were in and how they were displayed was just too much for me!
So I decided to leave and on the way out, I got scared again because they had a life size doll of some creepy old man with a beard!

I went back a few time because I love antiques, but I stayed far far away from the run down doll section.

 

I understand perfectly the idea of the uncanny valley as the reason why so many people are turned off by dolls or even consider them creepy.

Personally, I believe the theoriy presented by Phillip Pullman on the "His Dark Materials" trilogy (better known for "The Golden Compass" movie). He theorizes (quite convolutedly) that nature by itself does not have a soul.
Therefore, trees, rocks, and so on are not really "alive" per se in human eyes. But after you take a stick and sharpen it, bend it, carve it or somehow modify it, you put a little of you into the object: you gave it part of your soul and it is now "alive" somehow, and even after death, part of you will always be in that object.

BJDs in my opinion are specially affected by this. Even 2 dolls with the same sculpt will never be the same person for it's owner.

From the moment you open the box you start giving it a name, clothes, hair, eyes, a facial expresion (if you changed the faceup), you put part of you and your personality and way of thinking into this doll (no one ever creates a character who acts or thinks in a way you disapprove of) and this is why it is now alive for you.

They stop being lumps of plastic in order to become actual miniature living (even if not actually breathing) things.

When people ask me if I think my dolls are scary or creepy I always reply the same thing: I'm not, because I made them and I shaped their personalities. They are, in a way, an expression of my psyche, and essentially they are a part of me. If I were to be afraid of them then I should be concerned, because that would mean that I am being afraid of what's inside my own mind.

 

I don't think I've experienced it with any doll... Now I've looked at my Minimee and thought that it looked most human out of my dolls. But never did my brain see it as anything other than resin. It's the eyes that I think stopped me on that one because they're acrylic and don't look real. Plus I did his face up so I know what I'm seeing isn't human. However, I have had nothing like the effect the OP described.

I think it's strange that people do get that effect with BJDs because, for me, a lot of BJDs are too unreal looking to be human. What I mean by that is the face up, the eyes, and the hair is not ever going to look human to me. The facial proportions aren't like a real human, the eyes will never have true life, and the face ups... well... those can range from realistic to way on the side of not.

Now my family on the other hand... those people are a different story. They feel creeped out by my dolls and even remark that my dolls look at them funny. Mostly this happens when I'm not touching the doll. My sister won't even touch my full dolls. She'll play with the floating heads and parts but never the whole thing. My dad looks at my 'real' dolls and seems creeped too. He likes my fantasy dolls though... go figure. The one that gets my friends is my Souloid. I think this has something to do with the skin tone and the robotic lower. He is creepy! (God, I love him)

For the most part when I ask why they feel this way they can't describe it. Maybe this is why I'm a doll person and they aren't.

 

Once I was at a large doll convention and a company was displaying their life-size 'companion' dolls. One of the selling points was how life-like they looked and felt.

Oh man, it was weird. Everyone was avoiding their booth because they were so creepy. The place was packed but there was a bubble of space around their booth because no one really wanted to get too close to them.

 

Good topic! I am enjoying this one.

 

Bjds have never given me the valley creeps at all. I love them and wouldn't mind if they really did come to life at night.

But that being said...those reborn baby type dolls creep me out to no end. Maybe it is because I NEVER liked baby dolls and have a real aversion to human infants as well. I can't stand the touch of a human baby. I have only held one infant in my life and it was like holding a spider in a blanket. I could not wait to give it back to the mom. ( no of course I don't have any of my own either) They have this weird squishy texture to me. And even small children have a smell about them and a moistness to their skin that also creeps me out. I think that is why the reborn dolls do also. I really really don't like them at all. They are surely in the Valley.

@Robotea : Yeah, I can dig it. I would probably not like those companion dolls either. My partner once had a 5'6' tall clown doll that gave me the major heeby jeebys. When she passed away it was the first thing I gave back to her famly.

 

I had a friend when I was young. She was born prematurely and for whatever reason her mother had a baby doll made to look like her (but not the 2 other daughters...). That doll always creeped me out, and it was kept in the very unnatural glass case. Then again, I feel my dolls have souls. Although as I write that I feel ridiculous. Of course they don't have souls.

But when I was very young and treating something wrong my mother, with the best intentions, told me "everything has feelings". Truly, it's plagued me since then, that everything has emotions, if not a soul. That stick is sad because it isn't with the other sticks. That fabric is sad that you think it's ugly. I'm not sure if I'm getting the Uncanny Valley exactly, but when I voice this all I feel like that line has always been a bit blurred for me. I say a prayer for roadkills (not prayer, but that I hope it happened fast and they didn't suffer), and yes, I think it matters. I tell the children murdered and lost to accidents in the news everyday I'm sorry for them. The whole dead/alive thing may just go right over my head.

 

I am that way with cats I see along the roadways. It bothers me so much that I cry for them. I always tell them I am sorry they died and are lying there on the road. It bothers me soooo much that I wonder if I was one in another life. I do a lot of animal rescue and maybe that is why really. But I even will avoid driving down a road where I know I have already seen a cat lying dead on until I think it is gone. I can't touch the dead ones myself. It just TORMENTs me to see them dead. It happened to me just this morning on the way home from work.

Funny thing is almost all of my BJDs are felines. ( and I have three more on layaway...all feline)

 

As Ebony Rain said I think a lot of people feel that the dolls are creepy and will come to life because their perception has kinda been poisoned by the Chuckie franchise and other sources to think that dolls = evil. People have told me my doll looks like Chuckie when he doesn't at all. (his hair is BLONDE for pete's sake o-o)

When I had a Diva Starz doll I would make it face away from me at night because something about its big eyes staring at me kinda freaked me out. Good thing I dont own Blythes or Pullips I guess. xD It had very little to do with it looking realistic because as far as I know Diva Starz are as far away from realistic as it gets. But for some reason I believed that they were really watching.

Even with my BJDs now I don't feel competely comfortable undressing right in front of them, almost instinctively I think its tasteless. xD Sometimes I feel embarrassed for them when I undress them too. MAYBE I'M JUST A WEIRDO.