Uncanny Valley

That is an interesting topic. I think there is a certain element of this between myself and certain dolls, the same way my own characters (and those of friends) are so very alive in my mind. Not quite the same, but you get the idea. It adds an element of mysticism that is very appealing to imagine that a beautiful doll might have thoughts and opinions and a soul of their own, even if in reality they do not.

 

I've never been scared of dolls, but I've had some pretty good experiences with people flipping out (In a scared way) over them. My physics teacher had to cover her eyes when I pulled my boy's arm apart to show how the upper arm, elbow and forearm pieces are all separate and just held together by elastic cords.

 

The way this affects me (& I noticed at least one other person here) - I refuse to let my dolls sit around in 'unnatural' poses. I'd NEVER leave a doll just laying about w/limbs bent weird, or headless (unless unavoidable as in head off for a face-up) - & the headless ones or floating heads get put in a special place where the others can't 'see' them...
Somehow, to treat my dolls (not just BJDs either) as objects no different from my dishes (some of which are expensive & carefully stored, mind) feels inhumane.
I think one explanation is that if I could treat something that looks soooo much like a little human in a cold, unfeeling way, I am that much more able to treat real humans in the same way. Small stepping stones, from dolls to pets to people we read about (as seen in the film 'The Third Man' where Orson Welles justifies his atrocious actions because all the people looked like ants from the top of a ferris wheel) - then to those around us.
I'm not saying people who treat dolls like objects will become psychopathic killers! I'm saying that for ME, I prefer to indulge my inner sentimentality rather than quash it. I'll pack the dolls away, but they'll have PJs on & their fav stuffed animal is all...LOL

 

I'll have to agree with you there, Teleri. I'll find I have to have my dolls posed "comfortably"...when I find out that a limb has twisted the wrong way on a dressed doll I'll spend ages trying to make sure the joints are back sitting in a "comfortable" position. I too feel that natural instinct or need to care for them due to their more human qualities and would just feel wrong leaving a doll around undressed / posed with limbs out of joint / left sitting without eyes etc. I think it's just a natural humane reaction to anything with human-like qualities and, yes, also comforting then to at least know it proves you naturally have that instinct to care and you aren't in danger of becoming a psychopath. =^-^=

 

Love~ this topic.
There are quite a few sculpts that I dislike for the very reason that they cross too far into that hazy gray area
though I can't say I feel concern for them yet as individuals, but that's only because none of mine (apart from a disembodied head or two) have arrived yet.
I certainly have. I was looking up faceplates for a robotics project I was starting (before I got into BJDs) where I'd turn my phone into a talking interactive doll like Chobits, when I found...

this​

-a DollShe Saint by ju.kosh on Flickr

 

I've never really been afraid of dolls, and even most BJDs aren't realistic enough to fall into the valley for me. I don't know why because I have been affected deeply by uncanny valley in the past, but dolls just don't seem to do it for me. It might be that the valley varies for individual people? I've seen a lot of dolls, clowns and creepy children used as horror tropes, which plays on fears that I personally don't understand.

 

My dolls HAVE creeped people out before but more so in pictures then anything else. I like taking photo's on a certain setting to see if I can capture any strangeness and a lot of pictures (of my OT boy which I will gladly PM anyone who asks) that I took had this energy flowing out of him...It was eerie but beautiful...Made me if anything else love him even more. Reborns fascinate me and creep me out at the same time..More so their owners then anything else I'm sorry to say..(I know some look totally normal but the old ladies I've seen on TV who act as if they were real babies...Just disturb me a little in a pitying sort of way.) I do appreciate the work that goes into them. Like our BJD's those dolls are works of art..Just a little...Cuddlier?

I don't associate BJD's with corpses...I don't think they look dead...A floating head will look sad or irritated because it's just a head, (like my floating head I just ordered a body for. He's face upped ready to go but looks like he's sulking.) or a doll with a certain look will look quite irritated. (Like my girl. A few people thought she was glaring at them when her head fell backwards leaving her gazing up. One person thought she heard her growl...True story.) Or sad or bored...It dpends on their face up, pose all that. Kaname when I saw his previous owner's pics of him I actually was a little...Off put I suppose and hugged him for awhile after. He looked evil...Pure evil in those pictures and yet when I held him in my arms I saw my sweet boy who I fell in love with at first sight.

I think it's prospective mainly.

Also depends on how you typically pose your dolls. I for a week had my little boy Riven hold my floating head Yuichi on his lap. Their characters are lovers so it made sense for me...Even if it looked a little creepy in a sad way to put them together like that.

 

Robots and androids have never been in the Valley for me, and neither were BJDs. I have a reborn baby that I was given when I was young, and I loved it. It wasn't my favorite doll to play with, but I loved how real it looked. Honestly, the only thing I can think of that falls into the valley with me are corpses which the funeral home has already prepared. They seem fake, over pale and over make-uped and smell funny. They don't scare me per se, but I do not like them. Normal corpses, which are just dead, are okay.

Edit- on the other hand my best friend likes the faces of BJDs to an extent but also finds them creepy. She is very creeped out by the SD boy bodies because they are so detailed. I however love that detail. It looks like somebody put so much work into sculpting them.

 

Your post brings back an old memory of mine...I had AG dolls as a young girl and when they'd shift when I'd toss and turn at night their eyes would pop open and it would fill me with just dread...I have memories of grabbing one that whilst she was my favorite it was also the one with the creepiest eyes...By the neck and shaking her for a few minutes until I felt the danger had passed..I don't know why but this feeling of dread filled me...Yet I've never felt that with my BJD's...Hell I felt safe having my boy standing nearby..He felt like a tiny knight watching over me. Weird huh?

 

My one doll falls a bit into the uncanny valley, but I consider it a good thing... he's a YOSD stylised to look a bit like a porcelain doll or a biblical statue of a childlike angel. He's got eyes from a porcelain doll for now, and I really love how they venture into that uncomfortable feeling a bit, honestly. It's an interesting experience for me. My partner started taking interest in him particularly after I put those eyes in him too... the eyes make him almost... 'relatable' or something, and it constantly makes you wonder if he's 'feeling something'. I'm not superstitious and I'm not a beleiver that the BJD's have souls, but I can accept the sensation for what it is - this strange feeling that the doll seemingly has life, but there's something wrong... something unmoving about him, and maybe 'unnerving'. I don't have my other dolls styled like that though, and I beleive they don't give the uncanny valley impression. There's one particular SCULPT (not an entire assembly of eyes, faceup, etc...) that comes to mind when people talk about BJD's reaching the uncanny valley but for the sake of potentially offending the sculptor who could very well read this, I'll not say. Just to say though, it's a COMPLIMENT coming from me, and I WOULD consider that doll because of this, just to have an SD sized doll that gives off a similiar vibe. Qwuilleran, I see what you mean. He's pretty real looking that it's to the point of creating this bias that the owner should 'try harder' to make him ultra real... and although he doesn't personally seem creepy, I think that particular doll is 'just real enough' that it makes you notice things being 'off' more than usual like the buttons being big and so on... I begin to pick the poor doll apart at a certain point which I know is unfair... :/

 

My uncanny valley= real dolls. Wow.

But it's totally understandable but I'm not that interested in this whole thing to begin with so ehhhh.

 

Not personally, no, but my brother and my husband both attest that realistic dolls are "creepy".
I asked him about it once, and he told me he can appreciate the artistic merit of the more realistic adult dolls, but when it comes to the more child-like ones (especially the Dollmore Lusion's) they are firmly in the Uncanny Valley. Then again, my brother has always been scared of dolls...not a good thing when you have two doll collectors in the house with you

 

The biggest way this affects me is posing. If a doll is in a pose that a human wouldn't have, like a backwards hand, a back set too straight, a dangling foot at too sharp an angle, or just anything that doesn't look quite natural, it bugs the crap out of me. It makes me uncomfortable until I can fix it.

 

I don't find bjd creepy but I do know a few people who do, and they think I am strange for inking them. For me, tose realistic apanese robots hit my nanny valley!

 

So, while reading on the web today, I rediscovered a topic that I had long ago read once and then sort of forgot about - the uncanny valley.

Basically, if something is extremely human like, people have an instinctive, animal reaction of dislike or fear of that thing. I guess if you were out in the wild, it would keep you away from sick or dead people that could make you ill, or put you in danger as well. Sooo....I guess other people don't necessarily reject Bjds out of a rejection or your personality, but as a genetically hard wired response.

Do you think that people who love Bjds have learned to get over that hard-wired response? Or are even drawn to it?

Do you think Bjd lovers like other uncanny objects such as robotics, zombies, puppets more often?

Just food for thought, I guess. I know I find robotics fascinating.

Here is the article:
Uncanny valley: why we find human-like robots and dolls so creepy | Stephanie Lay

 

That hard-wired feeling is instinctual, an exercise I had my art students try, was to draw a quick 3 minute sketch of themselves, even labeling the drawing with their name. Then I had them poke the eyes out with the pencil. All found it difficult and many just could not do it. The exercise brought home the fact of how people will humanize inanimate objects.

I have never had an uncanny feeling about any of my dolls as a child, stuffed animals were slept with to protect me from noises in the night. I am still a believer in night lights and white noise at night. All houses creak and go bump in the night and I like my pet dogs to let me know if I have anything for my husband to get out of bed to check out. Being wary of the dark is a very old and wise instinct, you cannot see what is there, could be dangerous, including in this day and age of running into something on the way to the bathroom.

Corpses are not particularly frightening in a doll-like way, and I am older and have lost many family members. I felt at the time and still feel such sorrow in the presence of the corpse. My folks were not there any more, and will not 'come back' to frighten me, even when good things happened for me after their death that only they knew about it. They are in the next existence and too busy, thank you, getting educated in the everything, whatever that is. Just as we are too busy here with the same.

I never cared for clown dolls or clowns, they give me that uncanny feeling that was sealed by the movie Poltergeist. My husband suggested that this feeling was engendered by 80+ years of indoctrination by Hollywood in doll-related horror films.

The first bjd I saw was last January on Pinterest, and no way did they give me the creeps. They are all way too perfectly beautiful to be real, just go to Walmart and check out the real humans. Uggh! The realistic baby dolls are beautiful but not really real. Real live babies are covered in this and that, mussy and fussy most of the time, except ritght after a bath and clean clothes, but they are adorable anyway. I don't know what will happen when dolls are fitted out with electronics that will give them life-like movement.

My friends and I used to help out my mother and her friend in the friend's boutique by modeling clothes in the window, as though we were manikins. We learned to be very still, including eye-movement, blinking, for long stretches of time. We gave passers-by such a start when we would quickly drop an arm, change position behind their backs. That was new back then, and folks enjoyed the joke. But the point was the same, it was uncanny for something believed to be inanimate to suddenly move.

My dolls are just dolls, and my puppets, the same, though I will readjust an 'uncomfortable looking' pose with them.

As far as robots, bring 'um on! I want that robot vacuum. As soon as anyone can have a house keeping robot, I am ready now. The question is, do I want the R2D2 model, or some male eye candy? Hmmm? Nevertheless, houses will need to have robot closets after that.

 

Oooh, R2D2 AND eye candy!!! I've got more than one bjd, so moving to more than one robot would probably happen!

 

For the most part bjds do not hit that uncanny valley for me. This is kinda interesting to me cause just looking a person in the eyes can cause me to enter the uncanny valley so the fact that bjds don't do it is weird.