Which country are you from? is bjd popular in your country?

I have basically the same experience with where I live. I live in a tourist location that’s also a college town. I’ve found most people think I’m incredibly weird if I bring up that I collect BJDs for some reason, but I don’t really mind personally. Weird comes with the usual reaction people have when I tell them I was working toward being a puppeteer, so I’m happy I can get used to the feeling early enough before I head into the professional field after college.

 

I am from the US and have found collectors from all the states and even have seen that some conventions happen. None are as big as LDoll and theyre not always close by but its nice to see that there is a community for it.

 

I've had people mistaken adult-toy-collector for sex-toys before, so as a completely asexual person I rather not be stuck in the same dilemma ever again. Even within a forum for doll collectors, it can be easily taken out of context, so I just rather clarify before any actual confusion. I've always been into creating art and have taken art courses from an earlier age -- I've always been fascinated by art and art-dolls; I would love to see museum quality dolls in person, in my lifetime. That would be so amazing to see in person. As a cynic by nature however, I don' t believe the vast majority of people would ever understand the beauty of dolls. Even art and classical music are starting to be seeing as outdated hobbies; I hardly believe there will ever be a point where people don't give a sh*t about other people's hobbies and try to live their own lives instead, to see dolls as anything but a "creepy-old-lady" hobby. We can only hope, although I truly don't care either way. I've always been a weirdo and have been bullied for being "a dirty hippy" (because apparently that's what vegans are, or the opposite extreme mightier-than-thou). Popularity did happen to video games however, so only time can tell -- of course not all genres, but that's OT. I look forward to seeing your sewing creations; I'm a complete amateur but still enjoy creating crappy clothes for my dolls sometimes, even when I have no idea what I'm doing. (:

Yes, as long as you don't fit with the "norm" ideal of any given place, you'll be seen as a weirdo. I stopped caring a long time ago, mostly because people seem to mind things that don't affect them one way or the other, and I stopped caring to explain why it shouldn't bother them. It's as if they were financially responsible for your livelihood, and thusly had a saying in it. I don't really share my hobbies outside my close family and friends, but when you are a student, even as early as kindergarten, fellow students seem to think it's okay for them to judge you. Whether you ask for their opinion or not, so I stopped caring back then, about other people's opinions about me. I was always taught that if a person wasn't physically or mentally hurting me or other living beings, then it wasn't any of my business what they did with their lives. So, I kind of assumed that was the same for everyone. When I learned that wasn't the case, I just turned the other way and ignored whoever tried to chime into my personal business. Of course that doesn't always work well, because people really seem to want to give you their personal opinion one way or the other. As an old-weirdo to a younger person, I just hope you don't give upon your hobbies just because of troublesome, meddlesome people who should mind their own business. It's not easy, but it's better than giving up on what makes you happy. n__n

 

Enzyme & Kiki,

You two are exactly the sort of people I want to support and encourage. Here follows a short list of people who were dismissed as weird/wrong/out of it. Until they showed us the way. These people all had something to teach us.

Mozart: the magic flute had less than 10 performances when it was released.
Barbra Streisand: Whaaat? She didn’t show cleavage and she didn’t sing right.
Van Gogh: everybody’s fave crackpot
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs: they smelled bad and nobody knew what they were talking about.

There are others. Enzyme, take a look at Queen Mary’s doll house and the Thorn Rooms in Chicago - google them. This is miniature done right. The Thorn rooms are consistently the most popular exhibit in their museum. The queen’s dollhouse is considered a national treasure.

They and creators like them are my role models.

 

I totally agree. I really liked the convention. Maybe we can plan online meetups via the Facebook group. Although I think of we adhere to the distance rules we can meet again.

 

I'm from Spain and while we've had a few conventions and it seems to be a good amount of fellow hobbyists, we're very scattered and it's not easy to hold meetings with others. We had a couple forums active back in the day but now everything we do is through facebook (we are about 500-600 there I think so not bad at all).
So even if we're a good bunch of collectors, I don't think adult doll collections in general it is popular at all (but if you collect Legos or miniature cars they're like a separate thing that is totally respectable) and people will look weird at you or even laugh if they know about your dolls and most keep it as a secret I think.

 

I live in the United States, I have purchased two Dollys secondhand now both from the USA, so it seems to be popular here but in niche factions. Because no one at work had ever heard of these guys.

 

I'm from Singapore. There is only a handful of collectors and never met any of them.

 

Sadly it is the same everywhere and also cos I'm a male.

 

U.S. here as well. But still quite new so haven’t really sought out meeting other folks except online.

 

I'm from Greece. Back home we're a small handful of collectors; maybe 10-15 people but we used to be a tight knit community.
Nowadays we're dispersed all over the place though. One of my doll friends and I have moved to Scotland and I hear there is a small Scottish community but I've yet to meet with them.

 

I am in the USA as well and yes, adults collecting any kind of doll is generally seen as immature.
But in my area at least additudes seem to be shifting. When we were able to hold meets at the local library we would often get people coming into the room who where genuinely curious.
Best interaction so far has been a lyft driver bringing me home from a meet. Normally if they ask I say I was at a craft fair. But I opened up a bit this time and explained what was actually in my suitcase and he was really interested. Even encouraged me not to be so guarded around people not in the hobby.
I think there's a change in thinking that been going on for awhile and we are starting to not judge people for what they like.

 

From Norway. I don't think the hobby is very popular here. I've found a facebook group but it only has a little over 200 members and isnt very active.

 

I'm originally from the Bahamas, where I am fairly sure I was the only BJD collector in the entire country. Certainly in my island. Shipping from abroad was next to impossible and no one was really into that kind of thing. I've moved to America since then (Southern US), and while there aren't exactly doll collectors popping out of every corner, the distance is not so impossible. Unfortunately for me, the timing on my move wasn't great, due to the virus cancelling any potential meetups I would ever even get to consider attending. Oh well, there's always next year!

 

Cainhurst, where are you, if you don’t mind? I am in Texas and Tennessee. I commute.
Frillseeker

 

I'm from Canada! Unfortunately, there aren't that many bjd dealers here and shipping can get very expensive (Even shipping within Canada is also expensive lol) Although that hasn't stopped me from adding more dolls to my collection....

 

It embarrassingly never even occurred to me that people can just ... go between states. Like whenever they need to. Whoops, you can really tell I'm from an island.

I'm from Florida! I'm planning on moving more up north ... eventually, despite being originally from south of here I still absolutely loathe the summers.

 

I'm from Miami, Florida and there used to be quite a decently-sized community there a few years ago but it seems to have dwindled a lot. I've since moved to Japan and DDs seem to be a much bigger thing than resin BJDs although they are more popular than Florida for sure.
I sometimes run into other collectors doing photoshoots in the same scenic locations from time to time and also at the photo spaces at VOLKS Sumikas but I'm not sure if there's a defined community or groups that get together though.