why are doll collectors so "creepy"

Referring dolls as own children is a bit odd to me, but I feel my dolls have very strong personalities so I speak about them as I would speak about humans, but in a doll way. Get me?
Yet I think it's a bit odd to say doll people who do this are creepy. There are so many people, personalities as there are dolls and if it's not something that does harm to other people then I say more power to it. People should just focus on their own way of being with the dolls and not think about others so much =)

 

there are definitely a few weird people in the hobby. bjd confessions blog have shown me they can be much more worst than we think xD

but I don't think this is really a debate topic. there is nothing to be said. there are weird people everywhere and on different levels *shrug*
and whether the way one refers to his/her doll is weird is just a point of view that varies a lot from a person to another.

 

There are all kinds of folks in the hobby and so the reasoning likely differs dramatically from person to person. Many people assign characters to their dolls, so they're referring to the character of that doll as a "person." Even if they're fictional, it would be awkward to refer to them all as "it." For many of us, it's just partially habit (hey, everybody's doin' it) and it's fairly tongue-in-cheek. I'll speak that way about my dolls sometimes, but that doesn't mean I don't know they're toys. At the end of the day, when I'm finished with them, I place them back in their boxes and put them on a shelf.

There are also people whose beliefs differ and genuinely feel that objects have souls or life, as part of their belief system. You or I may not see things the same way, but I hardly think that makes people "creepy." Not everyone has to think or believe the same things to be perfectly fine.

Honestly, I don't really see how it's that particular to this hobby, either. I know plenty of folks who refer to their action figures, models, Transformers, in a way that references the character, including gender pronouns and anthropomorphization. ("Knock Out's default paint job looks so terrible, he must be ashamed. I'll be repainting him this weekend." So on and so forth.)

 

You really don't see too much of the weirdness here.

Sahoma is right in that...a lot of the hobby's...darker sides come up in confessions blogs on tumblr and such... there is where I was really exposed to the potential weirdness of doll owners. Especially as of late... But... I think it's because of how deep one can get in this hobby. People may find they have a deep connection wit their dolls if they do things like customize them, paint them, blush them, sew for them... A lot of artistic vision can go into them, strengthening a connection... a connection that can... show through in some odd ways.

I just don't let it bother me. What some do with their dolls has no effect on me. I'm in this for the dolls, and maybe to make a few friends. That's it.

Admittedly, don't surprised if this is locked. This seems to focus on the personal tendencies of the owners and not dolls themselves.

 

I don't see that many different tendencies in BJD collectors than most other people and hobbies. *shrugs* Even my brother who's a big car guy will talk about a car like it's a woman. "She's so beautiful, graceful and I love the way she sounds." I've been in a lot of hobbies where personification is just part of the hobby for people who get very attached to things, including pixel things or non-existent things.

Dolls, being a figure which depict the forms of humans or other living things, of course get a bigger dose of this than other hobbies. It makes a lot of sense to me. Specially since I have seen some very realistic dolls before. If I can look at it and think it is a human, I'm sure the owner who has a very deep attachment to it can too. :P

Personally, I say things like that at times too. But for the most part it's just because that's how the lingo goes when speaking to certain circles of other doll people. When I do it, to some degree, it's to 'fit in'. When you're in a circle chatting with 30 other doll collectors and you're the only one that refers to your doll as in 'it' instead of a 'he/she', I can tell you this: You get weird looks. So I mostly just go with the flow of whoever I'm talking with and I know I'm not the only one, haha.

 

that's a good point!
many people act as if the doll hobby is the most bitchy or the weirdest but really, pretty much any hobby is the same!

 

I don't think it's that much of a trend - I know people who call their dolls by gendered/personifying pronouns, and I know people who call them all "it". Admittedly, personifying dolls is a bit more common around here than not doing it, but you won't be castigated for treating them as objects.

I think the whole convention of calling the dolls "my son / my daughter" came from the Dollfie Dream community, who do it to a much greater extent - And not everyone here does that either (A lot of people, especially people whose dolls are styled to be older, find that jarring - I for one find it weird when anyone calls my dolls my children).

Personifying them by giving them desires ("Jim wanted another wig so I got him this" or "Liz fell in love with Soom's new boy so hard that I had to buy him for her") is generally just a cute way of injecting some humanity into them - It's more fun for a lot of people, to have a cast of quirky characters around than just pretty resin shells.

Overall, people treat their dolls in all different ways, but in general nobody will look down on you for treating yours differently.

 

Well, one must consider that a lot of these dolls are based on carefully crafted original characters. I don't really see this so much with 1/6th action figure collectors or otherwise--even if people kitbash, it tends to be more make another established character/person/someone generic for display. Also, it's not unusual for writers to call their characters their children, so it makes sense that it would spread to a hobby that tends to involve intense character creation for a lot of people. And as those characters have genders...well, calling them "he" or "she" instead of "it" is just par for the course.

Generally, talking about dolls in such a way is just harmless fun. Barely anyone believes their dolls are actually alive, they're just putting forward their doll-related problems/activities in a funny way that allows them to show off a bit of the character they've worked on. And even if they do believe their dolls have souls or something like that? Well, that's their belief and it isn't going to reach across the internet and do weird things to you so it's nothing to worry about.

 

I refer to my favorite characters from my stories as my "babies," so I guess I kind act the same way about my doll (who is based off of a character of mine). It's not so much that I'm treating her as my child or anything, just that I think of her the same way I think of all my other characters.

I certainly don't treat my characters the way a person would treat their children! Unless people like putting their children in dangerous situations.

But if I were to say something like "Ashera doesn't like blue," it wouldn't be me thinking my doll is alive and has emotions and opinions, it would be that the character my doll is based on doesn't like blue.

 

I don't really consider it creepy when someone talks to their dolls like they're people- heck, my mom even calls my dolls "she" or "he," and she's not even a collector. If anything, I think the habit stems from the fact that most dolls look like people in some way or another, so many people have the natural tendency to speak of them in a similar way that you would a person, especially if they have an emotional attachment to the doll.

And as for creepiness in general, there's creepy people all over, not just in the BJD hobby. I considered it a little creepy when a couple I didn't even know had no problem invading my personal space while I was grocery shopping last week.

 

Creepy is in the eye of the beholder, remember. I don't think it's weird -- I actually find it refreshing. But think of it this way, there's a lot of emotional investment and effort put into these dolls. People save for them, customize them, sometimes they represent a beloved character (fan or original), and don't forget they are people shaped which makes them easier to relate to in that way. So yeah, people aren't necessarily going to refer to them the same way they would a collectible plate or an article of clothing, because while those things can also have both sentimental and monetary value they don't tend to invite the same level of interaction. That doesn't mean that there aren't people who don't personify their dolls at all, but there are good reasons why so many people do. You of course can do whatever you like and refer to your doll however you like as there is no right way to enjoy the hobby.

 

Well...actually...my husband collects cast iron skillets and he belongs to a forum where there is a whole section dedicated to the 'ethical' treatment of skillets, (I'm not kidding-they're genuinely horrified when a skillet of any kind is used for decoration instead of as a cooking utensil etc )


Personally, I don't get why anyone would put coins in a book to collect them instead of spending them, or why some people covet corvettes when a cheap used car will get them where they're going, or why some people HAVE to have the latest tech the second it comes out. I don't think it's wrong or creepy...I just don't 'get it.'

But I don't find what BJD collectors do odd...I never have...which is probably why I'm in the hobby.

Just out of curiosity, cheesedemon, what would you consider 'normal' behavior for BJD collectors?

 

I think it's worth pointing out here that dolls' clothes can be removed and most BJDs are anatomically correct, whilst most action figures have sculpted clothes and as such have all of their naughty-bits permanently covered. Action figures also tend to be made in such a way that they can handle rough play without breaking as easily because they're mostly being handled by younger children (boys in particular in most cases- i.e. figures like G.I. Joe's and Transformers). BJDs, on the other hand, come with warnings that they're not suitable for children under the age of 14, so they're not meant to be played with in such a way.

I think another aspect of it is that many BJD collectors are very creative people. Many write stories and develop the looks of their characters from the ground up, even to the point that they know which sculpts do and don't work for their characters. Because of this, there tends to be a great deal of emotional investment made in these dolls, which I believe is the reason for so many different viewpoints when it comes to how they are treated and which scenarios they are placed in.

 

I have personally seen threads like this in other hobby circles, so it does exist and a lot of people can and will prove you wrong on that 'fact' you've perceived that this is only in doll collectors and in fact doll collectors are much more likely to say no such abuse exists than some other circles.

If you go to a heavy roleplay forum you may find threads of people saying it is abusive to give a character a disability or addiction or make them an orphan and even find campaigns run by people to 'stop the abuse'.

You can go to pixel pet websites and forums and find people complaining about the abuse of pixel animals. A perfect example of this is in the old computer game community for Petz, where many people will say it is abusive to spray a pixel dog with a water spray bottle. You can go to Neopets and find people wanting to stop the abuse of Neopets who aren't fed often enough, that people are starving their pixel creatures and are horrible and it "must. end. today!".

Seriously, look around at other hobbies before you try to so strongly look down on doll collectors as 'more peculiar than average hobbyists'. They are not. You clearly haven't seen enough other hobbies.

 

The whole 'he/she' thing really isn't that unsettling. They look like women, men, boys and girls so assigning genders makes more sense with them than with something like a ship or a car. I don't think anyone finds that particular aspect of it weird, because gender is stated in body shape.

However, I do find referring to them as children a little unsettling. Not really something like 'she's my baby!' because that's something that often just shows a great love or appreciation of something. But calling one your child; that's different, it implies a far different relationship to the doll than just appreciation.

Mostly I don't find calling them children too worrying, even if it does make me a little uncomfortable, but sometimes I do worry about the person in question. Some people seem more invested in the implications of calling their doll their child than what's normal, or possibly even healthy. But normally, I don't read too much into it, most people seem to just use it as a term of endearment.