Venus Palermo and Yahoo!

Honestly, I think the article is REALLY badly written, and the bolded section that implies BJD collectors are pedophiles is entirely unnessecary. It has nothing to do with the topic at hand and manages to paint the hobby in a terrible light (because you know, DoA is SO overrun with perverted old men and their creepy dolls!)

This girl is just a silly 15 year old weeaboo doing makeup tutorials- she's going to get weird attention, any decently attractive female (and most decently attractive males) who put themselves on youtube/anywhere on the internet are. The BJD thing is just her being a weeaboo. Tutorials for clear skin and big eyes were a thing way way way before BJDs- BJDs are modeled after that standard of attractiveness, after all. I think as long her her mother knows when letting a creepy fan near her daughter is a bad idea, it's all good.

It's not like she has a weird fetish for being a living doll, and even then that would be absolutely none of yahoo's or anyone else's business.

 

Do you think this article is an unfair portrayal of the hobby?
Most definitely. However, this may be a somewhat common view of our hobby... since many cringe at the fact that they are anatomically correct and automatically jump to "pervert". I view BJDs more like the Statue of David(s). They are nude, anatomically correct, but beautiful. It's intended use is artistic. What Yahoo suggests is something far from this. It is a very poorly written article, and the author failed to research the hobby to give an accurate statement. I find it offensive, really.

Is Palermo's connection to the hobby, in your opinion, good or bad for it?
As for the girl, I feel indifferently about it. Yahoo could have jumped to that outrageous comment after viewing a different BJD-related video. In the end it's Yahoo who made the connection to something our hobby doesn't represent.

 

Wow Just...Wow. Again Weeaboos manage to try and ruin another good thing, lol. I think if anything it's a pretty inaccurate portrayal as the hobby as a whole. It seems as though the article is trying to paint the situation as if all Bjd collectors are pedophiles. I mean I've seen some freaky stuff in this hobby but that doesn't warrant the inaccurate portrayal. I think in general they should stop letting kids post videos of themselves on the internet.

 

Do you think this article is an unfair portrayal of the hobby?

Yeah, but web journalism is like a tabloid in that most times it wants pageviews and therefore goes straight to sensationalism. I certainly wouldn't expect a well-researched long-form article from Y! News.

The upside is that it will soon be forgotten in the deluge of silly news stories and pictures of animals being cute, and it will be forgotten even faster if everyone stops forwarding it to their contacts and boosting its popularity.


Is Palermo's connection to the hobby, in your opinion, good or bad for it?

I'm a 34-year-old goth. I learned ages ago to not care about attention-seeking teenagers with too much makeup who give a bad image of the subculture

 

Clearly the the article is silly and ill informed, but much on the web is like that. The thing is, people don't tend to care enough about other people's hobbies to bother getting the information right. This is annoying, but at the same time, just one of those things and certainly not the end of the world. Most of the world doesn't know what an abjd is, and honestly doesn't care.

As for the makeup video -- lots of people post hair and makeup tutorials (I've used hair styling ones in the past myself). If someone wants to make themselves over to like like an abjd, well hey, sounds like a good idea for a costume party, convention or photoshoot. Wasn't there a DoA contest at somepoint involving dolls looking like people, and people looking like dolls? I don't think her video has an effect one way or another on the hobby. If you have an offbeat interest, then some people will misunderstand you -- sometimes in astounding and mind boggling ways. One more or less make up tutorial isn't going to change anything.

 

I love how the last bolded line makes it sound like collecting life-like pieces of art makes someone a pedophile, creeper, or like... potential rapist.

Do you think this article is an unfair portrayal of the hobby?

Very much so. It's a grossly inaccurate portrayal of this hobby. You don't see people portaying old ladies that collect porcelain dolls or people who collect Barbies as freaks or the like... Though apparently there was this girl who spent thousands of dollars to get plastic surgery in order to look like Barbie, but I digress.

But, really, they aren't going to do an article about the grown woman with fantasy Soom dolls that she has displayed in a nice case, are they? I'm not at all surprised that they'd find some obsessive weeaboo who wants to *be* a BJD to use to portray this hobby as a whole. It's something a reader would pay attention to and it would get reactions.

Is Palermo's connection to the hobby, in your opinion, good or bad for it?

To answer this question simply... Bad. Obviously.
Her connection to the hobby is just as detrimental as the attention-seeking, anime, yaoi obsessed fangirls that paint us all as weirdos with no lives outside of trying to be Japanese... But that's just how it has to be. It's not like you can tell her to stop doing what she enjoys just because it will somehow make you look bad.

It's as PunkyPhresh said: Leave it to the Weeaboos.

But really, I couldn't care less. If someone wants to judge me for collecting dolls and that alone, then I'm not interested in getting to know them anyways...

 

My favorite part is when the writer says "Life sized" because we all have 5 foot+ dolls at our homes.
LOL Idiotic garbage.
She is not the only person on You Tube posting videos on how to look like a real doll. Writers are always looking for some controversy to exploit.
I wonder if this guy would be writing the same thing about people who collect art dolls or other collectables like action figures. Does child like collections equal pervert? I so do not think so.

 

Do you think this article is an unfair portrayal of the hobby?

I think that life-sized sex dolls being linked to bjd's is an unfair portrayal the hobby (and, why exactly did that happen... because both were made in Japan?)

I think adults need to get some control over themselves and their fetishes and leave 15 year old girls alone:

She likes dolls, anime, and giving make-up advice to other 15 year olds. She does it on a Youtube channel because that is what everyone else in 2012 does when they want to share advice. Perhaps she is positioning herself for a future in hosting a syndicated show, because this is how one achieves that goal on the www.

Is Palermo's connection to the hobby, in your opinion, good or bad for it?

I think that journalists are bad for the hobby.

 

I think it's the typical American press doing what they do best: creating hysteria where there is none because they don't understand (or want to) the real hobby. Real info about the BJD community? That doesn't get ratings or money. Portraying it as a bunch of pervs? That does.

As far as her connection to the hobby? Meh. It really doesn't seem all that solid. She's more about make-up and looking like a little girl. If she wasn't so irritating to listen to, her tutorials would be just fine. Frankly, I'm more concerned with the stalkers and creepy old men who *would* get the wrong idea. That, the article does seem to get right, and her mother had better get her head out of her butt and wake up to the real threats out there.

 

This. ^_^

 

Journalists are bad for everything...

 

The article says "The perverse comments on the 15-year-old's videos is proof she's attracting some unsavory fans". Well, it is NOT her fault she is attracting those unsavory fans, it is the fault of the people with those perversions, aint it?
And it is also written in article that she has a "risky hobby"...Um for doing makeup and dressing up as a doll? What happend to the millions of lolita-fans all over the world?
This article is so badly written that I cringe.

 

http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php?508473-Trying-to-look-like-a-BJD.../page2