Why is there no term for our subculture?

I dunno, I think Resinerie sounds more like the collection of dolls themselves, like menagerie is for animals.
Does that make us curators instead?

 

Violinless Violincasery made me Resinerie sounds sophisticated! I think if we do come up with a name, it should be French.

I would argue that even the term "collector" pigeonholes our hobby. It's not necessarily about constantly obtaining more dolls, but about the artistic things you do with the dolls you already have. To me, "collector" implies something more hands-off.

 

Doll-freaks? Sort of, claiming the derogatory term as a term or pride, the way the word queer is being used?

 

I generally call us "hobbyists," and if it gets too ambiguous, "ABJD hobbyists." When I'm feeling frisky (or tired) it's ABJD-ers.

 

I think "doll-freak" describes me perfectly. I've always been a bit of a freak, one way or another.

 

Do we need a "term"? I just say BJD collectors...

 

Because "taking it back" is not the same as "misappropriating"! When people say they're proud to be otaku, that takes away the denigrating power of the insult. It's like happily calling yourself a bitch, a geek, a nerd, a queer, a queen, or any of the many racial epithets that people have taken back. If you own it, it ceases to cause pain, so it's useless against you. Then the haters have to think of something else to call you. Which they always do, of course; and then you take THAT insult back; and so on & so on until people learn to just STFU and treat each other like humans.

"Misappropriating" is when something is used incorrectly... but lolita is indeed derived from the O.G. Lolita, in that it's centered around worshiping/pretending to be a prepubescent girl (in however exaggerated/burlesqued a way), so it's apropos. Not every lolita chick might know where it came from, but they are owning it in a way, too. If something starts as a snarky term to describe you, & you start using it yourself, that's owning it.

The taking-it-back phenomenon is more of an American thing in general, because we've got this big self-empowerment culture thing going on, & a head-start in the self-aggrandizement department (for good or ill ^^). But...

... I am glad to hear that it's at least in progress over there! Good on them.

 

Actually stamp collectors are called philatelists, which means someone who studies stamps. If there's a similar word for dolls I don't know it. But then most of us collect more than study.

 

If I had to come up with a cheezy title name not dissimilar to the term "trekkie" for Star Trek fans for our hobby, I'd probably use "Dollector". Literally from "Doll" and "Collector". The problem with using a name like that for us enthusiasts is that doll collecting is such a wide range of specific hobbies. Doll collecting can range from store-bought Barbie's, to rare classics, baby dolls, artist dolls, high-end fashion dolls, porcelain, and our ABJD's, plus whatever else I missed in between. Not to mention the range of hobbies/interests applied to just the ABJD section of the doll hobby...

Personally I like the term "Resinite" but that sounds almost like one has a fetish (in the sexual way, not the "general fixation" definition) for resin. While not exactly untrue, it might sound wrong to the uninitiated...

Typically I use "collector" or I say "I collect dolls." when asked and that's not very often.

 

Jenny Nemesis - I see where you're coming from, but I was more referring to the fact that people who are followers of Japanese culture don't necessarily know what the word means before applying it to themselves. They go: "This word means anime nerd, and that's what I am!" and not really bothered to even notice the negative aspects of the word before they applied themselves. (It's important to note that the term has been around for years referring to Western anime fans, long before Japan started 'taking it back', which has probably been more of a Western influence than anything.) It's a word that's come from the culture of 'fan' Japanese, rather than an insult that's been re-applied as a badge of honour. And if you're going to use a word from another language to describe yourself, you should damn well know what that word means to begin with. (Imho.)

I could go into a rant about the glorification of what is essentially children's cartoons in Western culture, but I won't, as that's a rant for another forum. =) (Also, I do like anime, but I cannot stand Otaku/Weeaboo culture.)

As for names for what we do, I think just 'hobbyist' works fine. My dolls don't define me any more than my love of musicals, or video games, or DVDs, or my job, family life... these are all parts of me that make me as a whole, and trying to define me by merely one is oversimplification.

 

Eh, I just say 'doll people'. Does everything really need a term to describe it?

 

I think a fun term for BJD people would be gaggle as in geese, because when they're together and not in flight, they're busy honking and flapping their wings and are very animated in communicating with each other. That describes most of us when we get together to discuss our dolls! lol!

 

I usually call it "doll lovers", since most of my BJD loving friends like more kinds of dolls...
Like Pullips or venyl BJD's.
^^

 

The only reason we don't have a term for our 'subculture' is because no massive major corporation has figured out how to make money off of us yet.

And like some other people have already said, do we need yet another ill-fitting catch-all term floating around in the language? I honestly don't think so, and wouldn't use one if it was applied. I like to think we're all much more than "those doll people"

 

I'm not really into the idea of naming ourselves with anything more specific than what we as individuals choose to call our selves (e.g. I refer to myself as a BJD hobbyist). This is mostly because, in my experience, naming tends to come along with attempts at defining, and once you start defining what is and isn't part of a hobby or subculture, that means you start having rules that must be followed before other people in the hobby/subculture will consider you a part of it. This is a very individualized hobby. One of the things I LIKE about it is that you can take vastly different people -- say, folks who just want pretty shelf babies, folks who are super into photostories, folks who are into heavy-duty modifications -- and we can still enjoy each other's company, share our general interest in dolls, admire one another's work, and so on. Would we still be able to do that if, suddenly, our hobby had a name? I would love to think yes, but I'm skeptical.

And yes, we do already have some rules for being in the hobby. Someone who strictly collects Barbies isn't a member of our hobby. But beyond that, it seems to be that we're a pretty lenient group and a lot of "restrictions" are actually restrictions placed on what kinds of dolls do and don't count as on-topic for a specific doll-based forum, like DoA, so the forum doesn't get too unwieldy. They aren't the kind of rules I worry about or would hate to see, like "A true BJD hobbyist does photostories with one or more of their dolls on a regular basis."

 

This is the point I wanted to bring up: Most labels are negative until people decide to reclaim the word.

I don't think us Doll People really fit under a label. Labels carry with them the ability to be misunderstood, and stand as a way to separate something from another (Otaku are separate from anime fans), and usually it's not in a good way.

As shiori_hime said, it runs the risk of ... keeping others out, I guess. "Well, "X" are these kinds of people, and I'm not like that. I don't belong here."

@JennyNemesis: Just because a word is "reclaimed", doesn't make it fine and dandy all of the sudden. It's still offensive. It just doesn't offend you(meaning the one using it) anymore.

 

Even if the BJD hobby ended up with a term... I think this is one of those situations where you can't give yourself a nickname. I would bet anything that it wasn't the Trekkies and the otakus who decided to call themselves that, but probably people outside those hobbies trying to describe those groups.

So maybe the person who said it is right... we just haven't become a big enough hobby for the Masses to try and label us.

When referring to other people in the hobby I usually say "doll people" or "doll folk." When referring to myself... usually "doll-nerd."

 

That's not actually correct. Reappropriation is effective, which is why several social movements have in fact been employing it for decades. If it can no longer be used to offend the ones it's aimed at, then it just makes the user look like an idiot in the attempt to offend, thus the inherent power of the term is lessened or removed. And it's never been claimed to be an "all of a sudden" effect. It's always a process over time.

And "otaku" may have been used negatively outside the subculture, but it arose within the subculture (in Japan I mean) as a way for members of the subculture to identify each other. So the immediate "otaku is a BAD word!" and "Japanese people associate that word with child murderers!" argument has always been slightly flawed (although for the latter there was a certain amount of truth to that in the past). Otaku have always been identifying themselves as weirdos and outsiders, so how people from the mainstream used the word isn't all that important to them.

But that term, like related terms, arose fairly naturally within a group that felt like outsiders and needed that solidarity. Being a doll collector is not such a common and yet not such an unusual thing, and certainly not done in the public sphere enough, for the hobby itself to need such verbal secret handshakes, as it were.

 

I wouldn't mind if there existed an accurate, self-explanatory name for our corner of doll collecting. I appreciate other types of dolls, from Barbies to vintage porcelains to ReBorns, but our areas of play (like sewing, crafting and painting) at best run along parallel lines. We BJDer's are a pretty diverse yet specialized interest group.

Hmmm. This might take some thought.

 

@timid:
I probably didn't phrase it right. I know it's a process over time, but even through re-appropriation, it's impossible to completely remove the earlier connotation of the word, meaning it still can offend, but not to such a large extent as you said. So even when being used in a situation where it's not meant to offend, it still has the possibility of doing so.

Also, I see your point, but I never said it was bad because of the otaku murderer. Otaku comes from "O-Taku" meaning "your honorable home". Originally, an otaku is someone who is so obsessed with something that they don't leave their home-- in other words: a geek. However, after the Otaku Murderer incident, it got an even worse connotation (for reasons I'm not certain of). Nonetheless, I'm not the kind of person who would take pride in calling themselves a geek, which is why I dislike the word "otaku".

I'm sorry for going through that whole explanation. I'm not very good at making myself clear at times. I just don't want to be misunderstood.