Your Experiences in BJD History

I feel like insiders mistake girls for boys, and outsiders mistake boys for girls.

 

Starting from 2006, a lot has changed since! But what I remember from the mid-late 2000s:

• Luts doing custom faceups
• Original Delfs EVERYWHERE
• Femme-boy, gothic, and visual kei styles were THE only options for boys
• Rinkya
• Volks mansion parties
• Gallery posts were a really big deal, and people went to great lengths to post long photoshoots (I just think these days the doll photo culture is mostly moved to other platforms)
• Vinyl/obitsu dolls were not attractive
• Volks Tokyo Boys were a huge deal
• Volks 4 Sisters were popular and common
• DOTs and DOCs galore

 

Oh gosh this is my favorite thread. I've been smiling like an idiot reading through it!

I started in 2009, and my strongest memories are:

• I can't believe no one has brought up Dollzone Mo. I feel like he was another really popular doll for some reason. Almost always had red hair in pretty much everyone's collection.
• Migidoll Ryu and Miho were everywhere. They ONLY were styled with fur mohair wigs. I feel like they were exciting because they were less anime-styled with more realistic and masculine features.
• Platform leather boots everywhere. Crosses on EVERYTHING. So goth, so mysterious. Pleather that would melt and peel and get stuck to your dolls, but it was worth it to make them so edgy.
• People paying out the nose for doll jeans made of real denim. I remember seeing people shell out $100+ for a single pair. When some dealers started offering them at affordable prices, people freaked out. Group orders abound!
• D.I.M. was the company that did the minimees (minimes?). When Tom Hiddleston became hot, there were tons of threads trying to get his order in.
• Photostories were a huge deal. If you weren't putting emotional text overlays on your photos, were you even trying? So many people took amazing gallery shots, and all gallery threads started with things like " + __ ~~ L O V E M E ~~__+" to grab your attention. There was this one person who had this lovely steampunk-styled guy with googles, long black hair, and these crazy wired tendrils in photos that I would geek out about every time they posted. They were really popular around 2010 or so. Some people developed a following through gallery posts before social media really took off.
• Doll meet photos were hilarious. There would be 15 boys with literally the same mohair wig, wearing various shades of either pink or black, or a white tank top and blue jeans sitting on a table. Maybe 1 enormous fantasy Soom guy taking up the entire floor. And then 5 girls, all in the same "lolita" outfit (but more an ita dress in terms of quality) in the shame corner, because girl dolls just were not "in". All of these photos would be taken on a Nikon Coolpix camera, with everything out of focus. If you were really lucky, some of the dolls would turn out with red eye in the pictures. People would get really creative and post things in the meeting gallery. You would see dolls doing CRAZY things or being in places they did not belong for internet points.

 

Zoukeimura eyes were easy to get and popular. Then Volks reduced their availability and they became status symbols.

 

I just had to chime in to say I too was a huge fan of @candygears' Mr. Have! And he was a Soom Sabik too, another absolute icon.

Every single point you mentioned was completely true, but this one is just so painfully accurate.

 

Omg THANK YOU! Now I finally remember Mr.Have's name! So bummed do many of the old photos are broken. Such revolutionary photos for the time!

I hope I brought your best memories back lol

 

@candygears also had Blank Slate who was one of my favorite Dollstown girls. Her photoshoots with sets were amazing, and I still remember her as one of the first people I saw who made pointe feet on her own so she could get her doll's look right. Fantastic.

I started in 2005-ish with a friend (we both still collect) and I remember all the things listed previously. A thing I was just talking about with another user recently was how you used to have to pay for things through bank/wire transfers. I remember what a hassle that was. It's so much easier to acquire dolls these days.

 

The change that stands out in my mind is what I call the "Realistic Revolution." All of a sudden dolls began to appear that, when photographed carefully with detailed in-scale props, were easily mistaken for humans. I had a crisis where I questioned my entire collection and actually considered selling it all off in order to go in this new direction! Fortunately, I snapped out of it and came to the realization that I could admire these dolls and what others did with them (and I do), without actually wanting to have them myself. I love the dolls I have; crisis averted!

 

I do miss how everytime a new sculpt came out, there would be a thread on DOA where everyone would discuss it excitedly and write what they thought about it. There was so few sculpts back then, it was possible to do that. Even hearing people express dislike for the sculpt was fun. Now it feels like there are so many heads (nd bodies to some extent) that many slip under the radar, it feels a bit lonely if you get a sculpt no one seems to have noticed or talked about.