why are doll collectors so "creepy"

Hee hee.... yes, *chanting* One of us, one of us.

 

I'm one of those "creepy" people who takes the dolls out in public and talks to them. And I really don't CARE who thinks I'm weird or creepy. Why do I take them out? Because I'm BORED with photoshoots in my own home. I'm out of new settings. Sometimes I want nature settings or just a different atmosphere. Personally, I'd MUCH rather be out dining at a table next to "creepy doll person" that "screaming brat won't shut up person". Or be in the park and see creepy doll person taking pix than annoying dog person's dog jumping all over me or biting me.

But my opinion on defining "creepy"....if it's not a danger to others, I really don't see it as "creepy". People do weird things. I have a history of talking to objects. The printer at works jams? I yell at it. Car won't start? I plead with it. I'm really tired? I greet the bed. lol It's not really any different with the dolls. and they ARE original characters that I role play and their personalities are in my head. So I often "talk" to them. If I didn't have this "relationship" with them, I couldn't play them because I couldn't know what they think or how they would react to things in rp.

Now, my other figures/dolls that aren't my role play characters? They sit on a shelf and I do nothing with them except the occasional clothing change.

That's just my explanation of why -I- do it. Others may be different.

 

Well,There's good and bad people in the hobby{As Everywhere/Everything has}.

And I refer to my girl as if shes real time to time,because i did grow a personal bond with her character.I devoted much time creating her,and these dolls are so real.So,when we drain are energy{& money} into them and enjoy playing with them,it's like bonding.We forget there just resin.

Oh,lastly an interesting fact about dolls.Dolls where originally created as a casket for the dead body's souls to then escape to in their next life.

 

There are some weird people in the hobby, not gonna lie, but there is weird people everywhere. I have heard of someone showering with there dolls though, that's definately creepy xD

 

There's always the extremes in every hobby I've noticed, but dolls seems to be a gateway for some people due to the humanoid nature of them. They can be turned into lost loved ones, or people they can have, which leads to them calling them 'boyfriends' and having strange, intimate relationships with them. HOWEVER, this is not 'the norm' and with every group there will always be that one thing that someone will hate. I remember seeing a quote that kind of fits this.

"You might be the ripest, juiciest, sweetest peach ever. But there's still going to be that one person who hates peaches."

It's all opinion and perspective!

 

I think it was the title "why are doll collectors so 'creepy' " That kind of puts people on the defensive, because it sounds as if you'd already decided we're creepy and are looking for an explanation of why. Maybe "why do doll collectors behave this way" or "do you think doll collectors behave more strangely than other collectors", something like that would have been better.. But I acknowledge that this may be a problem of translation.
==but yeah, you will see a lot of people relating to dolls in a humanlike way, for all the reasons stated above. I know perfectly well that my dolls are made of resin, but they have eyes and faces and hands; I can't imagine calling any one of them "it" as though s/he were a brick. The sculptors, painters, wig and eye makers that create them are all striving very hard to give them individual personality and character, to make them as lifelike as possible, so I personally think it's not creepy or weird at all to respond to that.

footnote: Try reading this passage from the Volks website on why they consider your Super Dollfie to be "another yourself." Even the creators of these dolls sometimes feel this way. =) http://site.volksusa.com/html/hello_sd/index.html

 

Honestly, if the "creepiest" or "weirdest" thing in this hobby is an owner calling their doll "he" or "she", you haven't seen nothin' yet! If this really freaks a person out, perhaps they should consider another hobby if they are worried about being perceived as different in any way from "the norm".

Someone posted earlier that the habit of referrring to our BJDs as "he" or "she" came from the idea that the earlier manufactures, Volks comes to mind, encouraged the idea of personalization. Basically making your doll into "Another Yourself", i.e. a dream of idealized version of you, or an aspect of your personality. And I don't see anything wrong in this as long as your not feeling anxiety over something to do with your doll, as if it actually is a living thing. But if being worried that you've embarrassed, or hurt your doll's feelings, is your thing, I'm not going to judge you just because I play with my dolls differently than you.

I'd also like to point out that people regularly refer to ships, boats, cars, motorcycles, as "she". Is this "creepy"? I don't think so, it's been going on for decades, and no one seems to make a big deal about that.

Juli DC

 

I agree, I don't think it's creepy calling your ''he'' or ''she''. For me it would feel weird calling a doll ''it'' xD

 

You're a gamer. You should be used to getting funny looks from the Normals.

But anyway, yeah. I still use "he" or "she" or the doll's name when I'm talking about them to non-collectors. So far, no one has reacted at all oddly to that.

I guess if I treated mine like kids or did the "Oh, he hates this"-thing or insisted they were alive in some way I might get some raised eyebrows, but I don't do that anyway. It doesn't matter who I'm talking to, collector or not.

 

I've also found it odd that people will refer to their dolls as their children and it actually makes me very uncomfortable. I think it's just the way people put a lot of feeling into their dolls as an outlet for different kinds of stress and because of their humanoid forms it just seems natural to call them children but I don't really like it very much.
But like Reecey said, many people tend to just use it as a hobbyist term without really meaning it so I try not to mind too much (or read into further implications).

 

I was actually creeped out at a meetup once. Someone was saying stuff like, "Oh, he's unhappy because there are all these other dolls around, and I'm not focusing on him." They also apologized to the doll when they changed his clothes (I guess because he was naked in public???) and continued to narrate the doll's emotional state to me. It was...weird.

Buuuut I don't think there are more creepy people in this hobby than in the next hobby *shrug*

 

I still refer to them as he or she or possibly even by name depending on who I'm talking to. It's not weird to call a doll he or she when they are obviously intended to be one or the other. It's a lot easier to refer to my doll as she, her or even Cáit than say 'this is my Volks SD13 Megu head on a Volks SD girl body' at which point most nondoll people would have zoned out, lol.

My GPS is also named Margo, and I argue with her all the time. I have observed this tendency in other people with GPSs too. I also swear at and threaten the presses at work when they get up to no good and jam incessantly and have been known to plead with my car not to run out of gas. Some people may personify objects more than others, but overall it's a pretty common human thing. I would say most people do it to some extent or another. As I said before in my previous post, I think dolls invite that more than other things, but it really isn't anything all that out of the norm. There can be a lot of negative stereotypes about doll collectors -- I think because the non doll collecting public has a hard time seeing them as anything other than children's toys and can't wrap their heads around the fact that adult play is a healthy thing. Therefor when someone is seen treating a doll as anything more than they would their left sock, it leads some folks to make all kinds of unnecessary judgments. However using pronouns such as he and she is really such a mundane thing that I doubt many people would even notice.

 

Another thing you'll learn about the BJD hobby is that hobbyists are VERY sensitive about most things. If someone doesn't like the sculpt of doll they have, that person must be elitist, if someone mentions constructive criticism on someone's "critique" thread rather than gushing praise, they are often "mean" "unreasonable" or "nitpicking," etc...there was a debate thread at one point where owners were actually getting offended at people saying pedophilia is wrong and sick.

As for your most recent question, I usually refer to my dolls as "my dolls" or "it" to non-doll people as in "I bought it online from Korea" (not like they want to hear about my dolls in the first place) unless they show interest in BJDs and then it's sometimes "he" or "she." I never really feel the need to use my doll's names or anything, they are depictions of characters from my stories sure, but mostly they are there for me to look at and say "oh how pretty " or to sew for/paint on/modify. I have never thought of my dolls as being alive in any way shape or form and think that "neglect" is a silly idea (unless you're damaging your doll by putting it in the windowsil or something in which case it's a big waste IMO) and I will often leave my dolls for months with no eyes/faceup or in various states of undress when I don't feel like working on them. They don't care, they're freakin' dolls. They're not alive any more than the bird on the fruit loops box is.

 

Whenever I have had hobbies, I have always referred to things as he or she. My car is a he (we call him Carthulhu), my computer is a she (we call Dread Machine)...I'm one of those people that just names inanimate objects and often jokes about their technological quirks as personality ones. I don't think they're alive, nor do I think they actually have personalities- even though I will joke about a doll thinking something like, "So, I really think she hates Gary" or "Mel looks maaaad at you. What'd you do?". I think it's a fairly common thing for people to do. My husband even calls all self-checkout computers Alice. I just keep it in the world of the humorous. Does "pretending" or "acting" like an inanimate object has a personality make me creepy? Trust me. That's not why I'm creepy. People find me strange for numerous reasons. It also really depends on the context..I'm not going to talk to my graduate admissions counselor about my dollie hating being left at home, for example. Some people have no grasp of appropriate context or audience.

There are very, very odd ducks out there, and I don't think one hobby breeds them anymore than any other. In some hobbies it's just easier to spot (watch the documentary Darkon for such an example).

 

This is very true. Sometimes it's like you have to walk on eggshells to avoid offending someone, and words like "creepy" tend to push the wrong buttons. Trust me, I've had to learn the hard way.

 

Possibly a bit of an aside, but since it relates to your perception of the community - calling poor care "abuse" is not personification or anthropomorphization of the doll. Although (judging by another thread) a lot of folks only seem to focus on specific definitions or connotations of the word to the point of completely ignoring other, equally valid definitions - and it could also be a language barrier issue - "abuse" can simply mean improper or harmful treatment. There is a reason that warranties for electronics or other items include "abuse" as an exclusion. The Apple people are not trying to claim that iPods have souls or that they are people, but they still list "abuse" as a reason to void the warranty.

Obviously, there will be differences of opinion in what actually constitutes mistreatment (which is best left to that other thread,) but just because someone says you can abuse a doll doesn't mean they're treating it like a person.

It depends. On LJ, most of my friends are not collectors, but I still use approximately the same language there as I do here. Then again, even here, I very rarely use the "he/she thinks/feels/whatevers..." type of phrasing in regards to my dolls, but if/when I do, it is absolutely meant to be facetious and participate in the shorthand silliness that other collectors use. I don't believe I've ever used that kind of language outside a doll forum.

I very rarely discuss my dolls with anyone offline, as they're just not a topic I bring up, but when I do, I tend to speak of them pretty strictly in terms of objects, with the exception of some use of gendered pronouns. (Then again, like some other posters, I also call my car by male pronouns and I've named him, so it's just par for the course with me. I do tend to casually anthropomorphize objects in my speech - instead of saying, "the scissors go in this drawer," I might say, "they live in here.")

 

Just wanted to clarify a little on "children" and "feelings".

I DO refer to Amir and Loki as "my kids" and the rest are more like "friends of my kids". However, when I say it, I don't mean it as in I honestly think Amir and Loki are living breathing children replacing live children. I do not think I birthed these dolls. I don't put them in a carriage and push them around. To me, it's more like their characters are the "child" of my imagination. I may refer to them as my kids, or say "he's my baby", but I don't mean it literally. In fact, in character, neither would call me "mom" or even acknowledge my existence. They are characters in their own world and have their own in character families. I am not a part of their story.

The feelings thing...that's really more character stuff than actual doll stuff too. I might say "Amir is pissed and glaring at me" or "Loki would really like this" or whatever, but that's in reference to what the character would think or do, not what the piece of resin is ACTUALLY thinking or feeling. I just keep my doll and character very close. I won't put my doll in poses or stories the character wouldn't do. I won't dress him in things the character wouldn't wear. I won't pose him cuddling dolls he doesn't like in character. So when I say "he doesn't like that" or "this really upsets him", what it really means is "that is really out of character for him and I don't like it".

 

To be fair, there are threads where multiple people have compared damage to a doll to abusing a child or pet (and selling a doll to divorcing your spouse, and so on). It sounds absurd enough that it's tempting to think "they don't really mean that the way it sounds", but I've seen it enough now to know that for that for that segment of hobbyists it's genuine.

I think it's a fairly small segment, but the kind of language of faux-personification that a lot of people use (generally non-seriously) might easily lead someone new to that trend to think that those people are more of a majority (my first impression was also "Is everyone crazy?" before realizing that at least 80% of it is self-aware/play).

 

I always say you have to be at least a little bit crazy to be in the doll hobby. Although I consider myself sane, I also once spent 1/4th of a monthly salary on a doll head and thought it an amazing deal. Yes, at least a little bit crazy, but does that make them creepy too?
I can give and many other people already have given examples of "creepy" things that happen in other hobbies.

As for the why, I have no idea. Do I need to justify how I enjoy my hobbies? Do other people?