why are doll collectors so "creepy"

I dont talk like you discribe but I like the idé of it...does that make me one of the creepy ppl? hahah. I Think that alot of ppl that are rly into the hobby put rly strong personalitys to their dolls, that maybe have something to do with it and like I said, I kinda like it ^^ If your really intressted in something you like to be with ppl that are just as intressted, ppl that can call themselfs nerd and I Think Its a Little nerdy to call your doll like its alive but its also rly cute... well I dont get anywhere with this post do I? hahah but yeah..I like that ;P

 

Yeah I talk about my dolls like they're... pets? Idk, I don't see them as my children (I say to people they are, as a joke xD). I do sometimes talk to them when they're not co-operating, but I talk to most inanimate objects so I don't find it that weird... and I do tend to talk about them like "He/she likes this or that" because that's their character.

 

I think calling it creepy is a bit extreme. I personally think it's a bit similar when you're referring to characters from a story you're writing. They'd have personalities of their own and it would be normal I guess to talk about them accordingly.

 

It's more like a fairytale, you got a lovely teddy then you want to take care it like teddy bear is a real child.
So as BJD, I love them so sometimes I will say "that's my girl", "my girl is sooo lovely". Maybe some people thought it must be immature, but they also don't know my feel.

 

Well...I talk to myself all the time. It helps me focus. Now there's a doll there, it gives me an excuse. So I'm creepy with or without the dolls. But I don't have full on conversations with them. I'll apologize to them if I take their heads off, strip them naked or bump them...but that's the extent.

 

To me, it's really very simple. I'm a writer. Dolls don't interest me. People and personalities and characters do. When I began writing, CJ Cherryh, my mentor, said, just take a couple of characters, put them into a room together, and see what happens. I did, and from that scene four and soon to be five huge books have happened. That's what happens with storytellers, and I think most people who refer to dolls in the way you suggest are primarily storytellers. I've said for years writing is controlled MPD! Writers must walk constantly that fine line between fantasy and reality in order to bridge between the reader and the story they're trying to tell.

Wiishu gave me a story the I instant I took him out of the box. Some small part of my brain was suddenly ten inches high with a big black cat staring at me. He hasn't stopped "talking" to me since.

BJDs are fundamentally different from the dolls offered to me as a kid...in which I had absolutely no interest (still couldn't care less about them). Thanks to their unique faceups and ability to pose, BJDs are capable of achieving "personality" to someone inclined to inject that value into an inanimate object. (In stories, it's injected into a bunch of paper and ink! ) All my kids become "real" to me. Wiishu and Pook more than any of the others, but they all have unique qualities that show up the instant I begin working with them out of the box. What I mean by this is that something about the gestalt of face and the way the body poses "reads" differently to me than any of the others. When put opposite Wiishu, who was my first and has achieved a massive personality, they must quickly find their own expression, to hold their own against Wiishu and now Pooki.

For me, Wiishu and Pook in particular are muses and muses are very dear. I recognize intellectually that they are inanimate objects and that I'm projecting my own creative neurons into them, that I'm posing them and my brain is putting together their reactions and dialog to a situation I have created, but if I actually think and speak of them that way, the storytelling is fundamentally compromised. Truly successful character building tends to be a hindbrain function. If you think too much about it, it "reads" like a "I'll take one from column A and one from column B" kind of construct. That's when stories become formulaic and, for me, uninteresting to either read or write. So...my preference is to let my forebrain think of them as individuals with their own personalities.

Besides, it's so much fun looking at the world from their perspective!

 

Excellent and beautifully worded explanation. I can very much relate to this as I was a writer before I became a BJD collector. As to whether or not doll collectors are "creepy" I think it's easy to project characters and feelings onto a BJD, more so than other inanimate objects, because we are customizing every aspect of this doll, so why not customize a personality? The only thing I don't do is call my dolls my "kids". I don't judge others who do, but I have a son, and my attachment to my dolls in no way compares to the love I have for my son.

 

i do the same thing.
And in my opinion, referring to a doll as "my girl" or "my boy" is completely different from saying son or daughter. I sometimes referred my girl as "baby" but not because "oh look at my child", it's something that I call her in reference to her size.
I guess it all depends on the context especially if there's pictures involved :p

 

That doesn't seem unusual at all. Men and women both give pet names to inanimate things, especially expensive things like vehicles. I've even heard a guy refer to his new stainless steel outdoor grill as "his baby". If people are weirded out by you calling your doll "baby", it's just a sign that they're weirded out by dolls in general, and it probably has very little to do with how you address them. It's been deeply ingrained in many adults that all toys are for kids, and furthermore that certain toys are only appropriate for one or another gender. This is all rubbish, of course, but perpetuation of these silly and arbitrary "norms" continues to be a source of bias against doll collectors.

 

No, they are not... Well i think people assume we're cpeery because normally they spend money on their own clothes instead of doll's clothes, and prefer rather to take care of themselves then of a doll. I personally think that in the way we treat our dolls, they treat themselves and taking care of an inanimated object may look really lame. Plus, bjd owners often have more hobbies in common, like anime & stuff, and therefore are being considered creepy by many people due to that, not only because of dolls.

 

I've actually gotten dates because of the dolls (with non doll people) so apparantly I wasn't that creepy lol

 

I wouldn't say creepy either, but I think most collectors of dolls are artistic and in the artistic world you would find more eccentric minded people (I hate labelling people really) but I'm artistic and love dolls because they have so many layers of that - face/hair/outfits/characteristics/ which can relate to fashion/writing/painting/photographing/collecting its all relevant. I think that the more artistic the person the more they would dare to be different in the mundane boring day to day lives, through dolls we can show this sometimes more than through ourselves

 

i am quite new to this hobby myself (my first doll is on her way) and i wouldn't say it is creepy. i have many characters i have created through my writing hobby and bjd is a way that i can bring them to life so to speak, same as when an artist envisions something and translate it onto paper or canvas. when talking about my characters i do refer to them as "my girls" because they are my creations.