Uncanny Valley

I get the impression from people I've spoken to about it that the eeriness they feel is something very ancient and subconscious- if something looks alive, they expect it to be alive, and the fact that it is not just tips some people over the edge into discomfort. It doesn't even need to be a three dimensional representation, I think the same feeling can be got from portraits when the eyes follow you around the room.
For me it's part of the appeal with some BJDs, I find the slightly unsettling quality very appealing, and I'm currently saving for my first boy, who I intend to try and make as human looking as possible.

Has anybody seen the work of Australian hyper-realist sculptor Ron Mueck? (contains artistic nudity)
http://http://paintalicious.org/2007/09/14/ron-mueck-hyper-realist-sculptor/

 

Ball-jointed dolls do tend to fall into the uncanny valley for most people who don't own one. But they are just like anything else; with enough exposure, you become used to them. So of course they don't creep us out, otherwise, why would we buy them?

You should also consider the fact that most of us came to this hobby through a love of either anime or other types of dolls. We're used to either the stylized appearance, which resembles the style of anime, or the "creep factor" of dolls in general. (To whoever mentioned the antique porcelains with hair eyebrows: I've seen them, and been creeped out by them as well.) To the average person on the street, yeah, they're open and shut uncanny valley.

It makes perfect sense, really. To us, our dolls are far more "real" than they are to people who don't know us/them. They have personalities, life stories, interests. I'm sure a lot of us even talk to them as if they were a human friend (In your head counts.) They've come out the other side of the uncanny valley into "real enough" territory. To someone who's never seen one and/or knows nothing about BJD the community, that additional personality isn't there. They just see eerily realistic little doll.

Heck, I've had people say that dollhouses and roomboxes are creepy, especially electrified ones, because they look so realistic. My uncle refuses to go into my craft room if I have miniatures out. He says that part of him keeps expecting a little 5 inch tall woman to yell at him for messing up her house.

You know what bothers me the worst in my uncanny valley? Madame Tussaud's. That place totally gives me the willies.

Edited to add:
@Romwell I love Mueck's work; my dad introduced me to it about a year ago. Oddly, the only one of his to bother me is the giant newborn. But then, when I saw my nephew as a newborn (and I mean pre-clean up) that bothered me too. I find brand new babies kind of hideous actually. They aren't cute until a few days have passed.

 

I've never had that experience myself. I've always owned dolls, and since I'm a wuss when it comes to horror movies, I haven't seen movies, like 'Child's Play', that show dolls in a bad light . I have friends who most definitely find them creepy, though. I constantly get the 'Chucky' thing, and that's just from pictures!

I can definitely understand why people find them creepy (I'm not one for clowns in full makeup, to be honest. A friend talked me into watching 'It', once. I made her turn it off halfway through, but it still creeped me out. Told you I'm a wuss.) I think it's all in how people think, and what they were raised around. I was raised with dolls - I still have my three favorites. A MyTwinn named Larly (my childhood name for myself, when I couldn't say 'Lauren'.) a My Generation named Cassie, and my very first doll, a baby named Opal. (They're all desperately in need of new wigs. I'm going to send them off to the Doll Hospital this summer.) I wasn't raised with Clowns, and only ever saw them briefly at the occasional circus or in a movie. My first big experience with one was 'It', and now I can't stand when a clown is too non-human. (Unless it's a DOG, or some other animal, dressed as a clown.)

I think there might be a reason for it, and it might be a little contradictory to my 'NO HORROR, PLEASE!' attitude. I have been known to like things that have a bit of a 'creepy' factor attached. I'm perfectly at home in stores like Hot Topic and Spencer's, but some of my friends refuse to go inside. (I can't fault them - I won't go in Abercrombie, I can't even breathe in there. Whenever we go shopping, we compromise.) One of my favorite song artists is a woman named Emilie Autumn, who is most definitely considered 'creepy'. As in, stage makeup, growling, songs like 'I Know Where You Sleep' and 'Dead is the New Alive'. She even wrote a song for Saw 3. (It's an instrumental song called 'Organ Grinder'. Electric violin = ) I think that may be the reason I fell so hard for BJDs. They've got the whole eerie, off-kilter aura going without being downright scary. (To me, at least.)

 

Just wanted to say something here-
I went to the one in NYC recently, and LOVED it. My sister took pictures with her cell and sent them to one of her friends, who thought she was actually meeting the people and asked her to get an autograph.

Honestly, it was the ones that didn't look real the unsettled me. The ones who were very waxy looking. Other than that, it was great. (I did not go in the Chamber of Horrors, though. People jumping out at me /=/ a good idea.)

 

First off, this is a VERY interesting topic, and I want to thank the poster for bringing it up. I haven't had this much fun reading a debate topic in awhile!

I saw my first BJD when my friend showed me a Haute Doll magazine about 4 years ago, and I remember telling her they were weird and kinda creepy, but I never remember being actually frightened of them. I just dismissed them as something I didn't really care about at the time. I have always liked dolls, but they had to be a certain kind. I never cared about porcelain dolls, antique dolls, baby dolls. I did buy a set of two Living Dead Dolls years ago though, the little evil nun and evil minister, and I loved the minister to death and still have him after like 8 years. It was something about the way he was detailed, the little evil thing he had about him, and I remember I used to dote over his hair for some reason. He had this synthetic little black hairdo, and I just thought it was great.

So there have been dolls that I have really liked, but they have to have something certain about them that attracts me, and that thing isn't always obvious to even me. My getting into BJDs about 7-8 months ago was totally random. I was sitting around one day, remembered my friend showing me that magazine years ago, and thought "I wonder what is up with those dolls?". I started looking them up on Ebay, then on other sites, and eventually here. I love them now, and don't find them creepy in the slightest. People have even asked me if I would be creeped out if I saw one of my dolls move, and I said that I wouldn't. I would be shocked, I'm sure my heart my skip a beat and I would wonder if that really just happened, but I honestly don't think I would be that unsettled.

My real fear is of people themselves, and maybe that plays into all this for me. Someone could show me any horror movie on earth, and I would still find the most unnerving ones to be the ones where a human being massacres a bunch of people, because this could really happen. For me it is much more frightening to look around me and see what serial killers have done to other human beings than the thought of a doll moving. It is much more possible to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and just get brutally murdered by a random person who felt like doing it than it is for a doll I own to somehow come to life and kill me in my sleep. For me, my dolls are harmless, beautiful, sweet little things that I look after, keep clean, dress, and just generally have fun with. Maybe I don't find them creepy because I find no threat in them.

 

For me to find an item uncanny it'd need to be somewhat lifelike. There are these dolls called Reborns which are highly detailed newborns. I find these to be uncanny because of the detail of realism put into their manufacturing and their sizes are appropriate. ABJD lack hyper realistic characteristics and their sizes.

Most ABJDs don't fall into the uncanny valley for me because of their size and lack of realism. Let's face it, many dolls out there have more in common with manga characters than human anatomy found in actuality.

These dolls appeal more to my desire to nurture which is commonly found to be exhibited on items that are canny such as pets and appliances. Although, I think an item's degree of being uncanny is dependent on the viewer as some view this hobby as "creepy" and there are even individuals out there with doll phobias.

 

Topazrain said that these dolls (I will assume she meant BJDs) bring out a desire to nurture, and it is true that, for the most part, child- or pet-like robots manage to escape the valley. This brings up an interesting question. Could our desire to nurture, our maternal instincts if you will, be the reason that more women are in this hobby (and doll collecting) than men? Women do tend to have the stronger drive to nurture/protect young.

Maybe our dolls escape the uncanny valley because we care for them as if they were children.

 

That's a stereotype many people have about women and dolls, and it gets applied far too widely IMO. I am not a maternal type and don't want children and do not relate to my dolls in that way. They are the physical forms of the characters that I created and that in many ways are like friends (some of them old friend that have been with me a long time in written form) rather than young that need nurturing. The idea that dolls are stand ins for kids get complained about a lot here, so I know I'm not alone in my thinking.

 

Thanks for mentioning that. I'm the same way. I even kind of flinch when I see other people calling their dolls their "boys and girls" or having them say "Mummy this and that", although I remind myself that it's their doll and they can relate to it how they wish. I agree that the dolls to me are more like friends and frankly I enjoy them partly BECAUSE they are inanimate objects that don't need attention, nurturing, conflict resolution etc. It is OK if I put the doll back in the box for a week while I go do something else. I don't have kids, but I do have an elderly parent, a few friends who can be high-maintenance, and some cats, all of whom need my attention and can't just be ignored. it is a relief for me to have some "friends" that I can enjoy on my own schedule.

 

I think it's safe to say that no one on DoA would think that ABJD's belong in "Uncanny Valley"; if we did, we wouldn't collect them! The exception that proves the rule would be owners who have customized their dolls to look extra creepy (scars, wounds and un-dead mods). Sure, they have put in the extra effort to achieve the Uncanny Valley feeling, but since they are obviously comfortable with those kinds of things in their home, that takes the owners and dolls OUT of UV.

Every time I see some kind of make-over show on TV, (the kind that takes cameras into someone's home) the producers/writers don't let any kind of doll collection go unnoticed - and usually comment negatively. For many people, once dolls are in some kind of grouping, and/or stand out, that alone makes them seem creepy. I find this ironic, considering no one seems to get creeped-out by a store full of dolls, just a home full!

 

That.. that really depends on the person. I find Reborns to be some of the creepiest, most disturbing dolls ever. I appreciate the amount of artistry and care put into them, and that people love them the way I do my dolls, but they just creep me out so, soooo much.

That childlike robot posted a few posts up creeps me out too. They're too.. baby-like, and I find babies themselves a bit unsettling. XD I think I'd be less bothered by a robot made to emulate a 10 or 13-year-old than one that emulates a baby.

 

Even creepier than a Reborn is this baby doll a kid had when her parents were shopping in the store I work at; it was styled a lot like a Reborn (though typical kid baby-doll sized), and had mechanisms in it to make it move like a real baby... I almost ran screaming from the thing when it started moving!

Not even the scariest-looking, most Uncanny-Valley deserving BJD I've seen rivals that experience. *shudders*

 

I certainly didn't mean to offend anyone, let alone suggest that dolls are replacement kids. Re-reading my post, I realized it didn't quite come out the way it was in my head.

I should have said that we care for them as if they were human, not children. And I completely acknowledge that not all women are maternal types anymore than all men are burly tough guys (and thank God for that!)

I do think there are more women than men in our hobby because of those societal molds though. By extension (and back on topic), it makes sense that more men would consider BJDs uncanny.

Boys, generally speaking, don't play with dolls; it's not socially acceptable for little Timmy to get a Malibu Barbie for Christmas. But as a kid I was perfectly used to the odd proportions of Barbie, the "creepiness" of dolls that talked or moved, and the idea of treating an AG doll like my best friend. Maybe this laid a foundation for me to see BJD as something other than "big freaky dolls." Maybe that lack of exposure is why my best guy friend thinks MNF Marcia looks like she's about to commit murder.

 

Only manikins have fallen in the Uncanny Valley for me....they're scary O___o

 

Oh, I'm not offended. I just wanted to point that out, because a lot of people jump to that conclusion. I suppose people who are not into dolls try and find a rationalization for adult women to still have dolls, and that's what they seem to come up with.

I do however, agree that society is much more accepting with girls/women having dolls than boys/men, and exposure might help some people get over the feeling of being unnerved--though for some people it depends on the type of doll. I was never big into dolls when I was little (though I did have a few), but I've never been frightened of them. I suppose, I can't fathom why a doll would want to try and harm me if it could--especially bjds, because as I said before, they are like good friends. Why would a good friend hurt me?

I do watch horror movies, and it's never had any affect on my feelings towards dolls. I just can't take movies like Child's Play seriously. I mean, come on--all those adults can't take out a two foot tall piece of plastic? I have a feeling that horror movies about dolls have come out because people already find dolls unnerving rather than the other way around.