Why the "Animosity" From (Some) Non-Doll People? (Revised opening post)

For the ones that joke about it to me (I've never been yelled at by parents as people have here or broke up with friends over such a trivial matter!) it's because they associate dolls with children. My father jokes "aren't you too old to play with dolls
?", I think it's just the way they look at them. Non-dollers will look at my doll and see a toy (granted, a several hundred dollar toy) but I see a piece of art and a "personification" of a character which would otherwise only exist within my own mind or writings. For them it's hard to disassociate the idea of dolls = children's toys and the idea that such money is spent on them in a joke.

 

I've had a bit of issues with my friends. They are always saying that the dolls are going to kill them..... UNTIL I showed them some dolls they liked. My friend is now in LOVE with Ringdoll Shoa and Peter(aka mr booty pants doll). Some still don't like them, they're afraid of them.
I've only have a few people told so far I'm getting one.
so out of 8 of my friends who know 4 like the idea, and 4 don't or are uneasy about it.
My brother has made some sick jokes about the dolls like BJ doll, but he likes certain mods that look like game characters(boys).

 

In my experience, I've had many people think that doll collecting is ridiculous, and especially BJDs (because of the price tag.) Equally, I've had many people fascinated with my collection.

I think the "haters" are partly that way because they think it's crazy that an adult would play with dolls.

My own husband thinks the price is ridiculous for something that "just sits there." He seems to think that dropping $800 on a video game console or RC vehicle is acceptible because the item has electronic parts that cost money and it took engineering to make the parts work. I have yet to convince him that even a $100 doll is worth $100. Unless the doll does the cleaning and cooking, he won't be convinced.

I have a cousin that looks down on my collecting/ doll business because of jealousy. He thinks that it's ridiculous that people would pay me money to paint a doll.

 

I'm still trying to figure out why someone who respects art, including sculpture like figurines and plushies, still acts like a child a lot, has a great imagination, and a pretty good job at reasoning, who happens to be my best friend, says he won't talk to me if I get a doll.

 

It's pretty disheartening to hear all the stories of people getting dissed for their dolls on here. I've never had anyone say anything really negative about my dolls . My friends are mostly cool with it but are amazed at their costs, my boyfriend thankfully doesn't have a problem with them- although he IS Japanese so I wasn't expecting a bad reaction for having a "strange" hobby with him- and I simply don't bring my dolls up when talking to my family. They're the sort of people who would be telling me they cost too much and I should grow up so I just take them out of the equation. They've seen them when they come over to my apartment but they don't ask about them and I don't offer to tell them about them. Problem solved, at least in my case.

I know a lot of people have mentioned about being aware and considerate for people who have doll phobias. I agree that one should be considerate of others who have problems with dolls. One of my closest friends has a doll phobia (along with a phobia for just about everything else) but she is fine with my dolls as long as they are fully dressed, have their eyes in, wigs on, and are not just floating heads. So of course, if I know she is coming over, I will hide my random heads laying around, or the dolls I'm in the process of giving face-ups so that she won't be freaked out. A lot of times I'd really love to show her the new head I just got in the mail, but I don't do that because I know it will make her upset and give her nightmares. So, I really do understand about making sure to be considerate around doll people.

On the other hand, at a certain point, you have to just do your own thing, and the folks with the phobias just need to deal with it. I've seen a lot of the posts on here about BJD collectors just out in public places taking pictures of their dolls or at meet-ups minding their own business and getting grief from people coming up and saying they're creepy. It is my opinion that if you are just minding your own business, not breaking any laws, not trying to draw attention to yourself by waving around a naked BJD at little kids' faces, then the doll-phobics or unhappy adult complainers need to just avert their eyes to somewhere else and ignore it. To comment about it in a nasty way is just incredibly rude, and I would say so.

I didn't mean for that to turn into a long ramble, sorry.

 

You said it yourself - "still acts like a child." Unless he can give you an honest, valid reason (e.g. doll-phobic) then he is just being a brat. For whatever reason, BJDs make him uncomfortable, so he's resorting to a level of emotional blackmail ("I don't want you to do this, so you have to choose - that or me"). So I would say don't talk to him about your growing interest in the doll hobby. It may be a little awkward not talking about something that has you so excited, but you really can't help it if he doesn't want to be interested.

 

Thing is, knowing him, even if I don't talk to him about it HE'D bring it up. And when I said he acts like a child, I meant in his interests, he's always looking at Pokemon things and other similar things, but other then child like interests he's actually more grown up then some people twice his age xD Its just that he doesn't understand it and I said he can hate it as long as he just lets me be with them, and he kept going on about it, it was a pretty big argument that literally lasted all last night, I just got off because I was supposed to be awake in fifteen minutes. ._.

 

Same here , most people that I know or meet seam to ether take and interest or just not care, I've only had one person (a GF) say any thing bad about them.

 

people have given odd looks at me for them, but they generally know how odd I am so it really doesn't phase anyone

 

LOL... same here. People sort of expect weird out of me as it is, so no big deal.

 

I do get some stairs from passers by, what with the whole man holding doll that can move
I do mess with some people and have the dolls look or point at them

 

I get some interest from people interested in that whole guy with a doll thing . but I get the same thing from people about a guy that sews, but I get compliment so i don't mind

 

my dolls and I don't draw anything positive, so they rarely leave the house

 

Sorry... I wasn't trying to knock your friend. I just feel that it isn't very mature or fair for him to say he'll quit talking to you because you are interested in dolls. (Though I don't know you or your friend - he could have simply said it in the heat of the moment - there is room for interpretation.)

In the long run, the doll is probably less important than your friendship (I'm assuming you and he have known each other for a long time). Maybe after a cooling-off period you and he can agree to disagree. He might eventually come around. (It's not like you've decided to start shooting heroine - there are worse things you could do with your money.)

 

Oh I don't mind if you call him immature, really. xD He doesn't really do heat of the moment things, that's my job. (And yes, I did say things that I'm not sure if I wanted to say...) I think part of it is that he doesn't like that I want to use the dolls to get something off my mind, but I don't know why since he's been telling me to find a way to stop thinking about it and this is the third attempt he's shot down (Other two he actually did because he actually had a point... Now it's just because of money he says I shouldn't get them.)

Ha I don't know if there is anything as important as our friendship, at least in my opinion, if his didn't end up shifting, which he was acting like it did and still was acting disconnected when I talked to him today, but maybe he'll come back around, I can just hope. And what you said in parentheses? You've got a very good point there. Not that I've done anything like that, but I can't honestly say my mind hasn't traveled that path.

Oh how I love the anonymity of the internet.

 

Nature is that which we make it. As people around us view the relationship between doll and owner, they begin to (as was even the case between my mother and I) make assumptions as to the reasoning behind ownership. Most will assume that an emotional void is being filled (the need for friendship, a child, a partner, or something else that has been "lost" and is in need of recovery).

Some too are drawn back by the unnatural characteristics of the relationship itself. It could be as little as artist and inspirational muse. Many here take their dolls as artifacts of artistic design, spending time in bringing out the personality they see within the sculpt itself through photography and other creative means.

What makes people a bit more "bothered" you could say is that:

They do (as someone else mentioned) associate the relationship with that of someone who is a child or mentally unstable. Many people in nursing homes are often comforted by holding a doll or stuffed animal. I have upon many different occasions visited women and men in homes who were truly devoted to their faux friends. One in particular I recall had a baby doll that was plastic. It wasn't much to look at, but she loved her so much that she constantly had her hands on her each time I came to sing with them.

I knew from my work with children that playing with dolls is among one of the most basic keystones of socialization for young women (and men) usually in the prepubescent stage. They are the earliest visions of "friends" in the formative years. As the child interacts with the doll, it becomes a projection often of what he/she experiences, etc. (Kind of makes you rethink that idea for a gory photoshoot, doesn't it? Relax, horror fans...) That is why dolls are often an effective form to use in play therapy.

Regardless, when we see the same behavior in adults, we tend to think that there are unresolved issues or that someone is attempting to recover childhood.

You do have people who will also project their own feelings about what I've mentioned above onto the person who is in the hobby. Despite you maybe not feeling this way in respect to your relationship with your dolls, you may find that others pretty much try to dig up emotional or psychological reasons behind it in order to validate their own "queasy-feeling" about what they've seen.

What it comes down to is choosing to maintain the doll activities because of your own enjoyment, discarding the nature of other people's assumptions, and finding the common ground between what is obviously hobby and clearly obsession.

 

On a positive note--- I was photographing a doll one day at the beach, and there was a man walking along the shoreline. He was watching me intently. After he completely passed me, he turned around and came up to me to ask what I was doing. He actually asked if he could help in some way. I asked him if he was a doll collector. He said no, but he was fascinated. We had a good, long talk while I took the pictures. It was really refreshing. I told him that they were going to be in a magazine, and he asked the name of the publication because he wanted to get a copy. Neat, huh?

 

When people at work ask me what I do in my spare time and I answer with "dolls", I get the same response as when I answer with gaming. A girl my age (22) should be going out, dating etc, not playing video games and "playing" with dolls. I don't understand why people are so massively bothered by the fact that I don't go out (go out as in going to bars etc, I do leave the house :p) and choose to do some non-conventional hobby's.

I have a job, I pay my bills, so I should be able to buy the things I like without being looked at like a social reject.

My family are pretty cool about it though, it's mostly other people that are annoying. My mom often helps me make clothes for them and my dad actually dyed my last doll (because I failed miserably at it). My godfather even asks if/when I'm getting a new doll.

Sorry if it sounds a bit ranty, it just annoys me so much that people are so small-minded.

 

So far, I've only had positive reactions to my dolls. The most negative being my Mum telling me that, once my fourth doll is completed (still need a body for that one), it'll be enough dolls (and she's right about that, I really should save the money for getting a larger flat, rather than buying more dolls). My Dad's into model-/miniature-making and thus, he understands the craftmanship involved with making the dolls. He was pretty amazed when he saw my first doll. My brother simply doesn't care and my sis - well, the year I got Luken, she made a coat for him and gave it to me for Christmas. (I had him sent to my parents and couldn't pick him up for a while - she must have taken his measurements, then.) Well, we're a family with kinda "strange" interests anyways, so I didn't really expect much opposition there.

My colleagues know about my dolls, I even got some who've requested I bring one of the boys to work, so each of them, in turn, has been at work with me. The people from my writing group think the dolls are cool. And even the caretaker of the house where I got my flat, when she caught me carrying Tharesion on my arm (coming back from a doll-meet) said "nice doll".

I can see how people would think it's childish to collect dolls, simply because dolls are associated with children. It's still kinda the same with anime, after all - animated movies are for kids. *rolls eyes* Well, they can think whatever they want, for all that I care. But it's none of their business - especially not if they're complete strangers - what I'm doing in my spare time or what I'm spending my hard-earned money on. As long as I'm not hurting anyone and I'm happy with it - it IS better than hanging out at bars or clubs every Friday and Saturday night, spending a lot of money on too expensive cocktails. THAT's a waste of money, if you ask me - what do you get out of THAT, except for a hangover when you drink too much?