________ ________ ________
2018-08-18 / \/ \/ / \
/ __/ /_ _/
Last weekend was Melbourne's Animaga / _/ / /
anime convention, we didn't go this year but \_______/_\___/____/\___/____/_
I bring it up because Animaga is usually the / \/ \/ / \
one event a year where I make an effort to / _/ /_ _/
link up with the Melbourne ball-jointed doll /- / _/ /
community. I figure it's as good a time as \________/\________/\___/____/
any to do a post covering the doll community
and why I generally avoid them.
I'm painting with a very broad brush but, as always, this is entirely based
on my own personal experience. I don't know everything there is to know about
everyone. Also, me being me, this is also probably going to come out deeply
cynical. Emphatic shrug emoji.
By far the most common personality type I've met in the BJD community is
what I'll call Weird Aunts. They're boring, socially awkward late-20s /early-
30s ladies with largely the same personality, their relationship with dolls is
almost always as physical effigies of the characters in their "stories". The
men always handsome and rugged, with the same bland dark-and-brooding
personality and the women (ie. themselves), always beautiful and powerful but
also tragic and sad. It's typical fan fiction tier trash and they will mention
they write any opportunity they get in the hopes that someone will engage and
ask them about their horrible prose. I don't, I know better. These Weird Aunts
almost always either have deep pockets or husbands/boyfriends who have deep
pockets and amass hordes of dolls to fuel their "stories" and egos. They're
the kind who humble-brag about the size of their "family", making sure to
count any loose heads, bodies and who knows what else to boost their numbers.
There's one or two men I've met who fall into that same Weird Aunt category
too, being drawn to the hobby for mostly the same reasons as outlined above.
The Weird Aunts are also the only group within the hobby I've got beef
with, let me go on a tangent for a second here.
If you are a man in this hobby and you are not gay (maybe if you're gay
too, I dunno) then the Weird Aunts will get openly excited about it, they'll
crow about how great it is that there's guys in the hobby blahdy blahdy blah
until you leave the room and then they will gossip and speculate and click
their tongues about you and it's fucking childish and obnoxious. I'm pretty
resilient but have no patience for people accusing me of this or insinuating
that because I have a handful of dolls. Poisonous assholes.
Invariably it's these same people who tout how progressive and inclusive
they are/the hobby is. I'm sure it's not unique to the BJD hobby, either.
Anyway, fuck that shit, let's carry on.
The flip side of the Weird Aunts is the Cool Otaku types who I think I
mentioned in my other file on this stuff. They're the ones who all have the
same type of doll, either a Dollfie Dream or a Smart Doll. They all look the
same, have huge boobs and get dressed in cosplay or not much more than
underwear and bikinis then posed provocatively. Irritatingly this group refer
to their dolls as "daughters" despite the majority of them being either cloned
from anime or fetish-object.
For what it's worth, I did used to hang with these guys but that was more
because of my involvement with anime figure collecting and not as a doll
collector. They're your typical weebs and come with the awkwardness that
entails. They still seem to lack the kind of respect for their dolls that I
feel for mine but they're way easier to be around than the Weird Aunts.
They also won't bitch you out behind your back.
Off topic again, but thinking on it now the anime community is (or was?)
pretty good like that, there's never been much cattiness or snarking behind
each other's backs, not much judgement against who does or doesn't like what.
I'd never really thought much about it. They're good kids.
Aside from those two large groups there's a pretty sizable crossover with
Lolita fashion types who I don't really associate with as well as more than a
couple artists who I'm slightly intimidated by because of their creative
output haha. There was one guy who made a couple fantastic retro sci-fi kinda
themed dolls, they were really inspiring. Got gears turning but still, their
dolls to them are objects. Accessories or canvases.
It's not all me-vs-the-word, though, I have met a few others in the hobby
that you can tell have a genuine love for their dolls but by a large margin
the majority of people I've interacted with who are into the doll hobby come
across as incredibly shallow, self-involved and are tiresome to be around.
I feel like I have a really tangible emotional connection to my girls so
find it difficult to relate at all to the majority of these people, no matter
how many times I try, and now I just find it hard to motivate myself to get
involved with them at all. It's not by any measure my place to say "this is
how you doll" but what they're in the hobby for is completely different to
what draws me to it so in the end it's easier for me to stay isolated.
EOF