American Girl is a bleeping racket

The BBQ Pit
1

Ok, so my 9-year-old is currently obsessed with everything AG. She starts nagging for a doll a few months ago. She tells me you can order them to spec to look like the kid (matching hair, eye, skin shades). She wants one that looks like her. She gives me a catalog with the doll circled that she wants. I look at the prices and do a double take. The damn things are $100 each. I start hemming and hawing and tried to put her off by setting a list of behavioral conditions (do your homework without being asked, don’t dawdle in the morning and get tardy slips, etc.), and tell her we’d get her one for Easter if she does it. I figure she’ll be good for a couple of days and then forget all about it. I was sure she’d have no memory left of it by Easter. Well, I was wrong. She really wanted this doll. All the girls in her class have them. Apparently you’re nobody in the 3rd grade if you don’t have one of these dolls. She kept up reasonably well with her conditions (not perfectly, but better than I expected), and she sure as hell didn’t forget about it.

So Easter sneaks up, and she reminds me about that damn doll. She brings me that same catalog with the same doll circled. Well, she’s got me in a box. She kept up her end, I have to shell out for the doll. I go online to order one, and once again am appalled at the price points. They don’t look like anything special to me. Just cloth dolls with plastic heads. I don’t get what the appeal is. I’m thinking, “what, do these things have cocaine in their cooches or something? What am I paying for here?” It doesn’t matter, I promised. I have to get it. Not only that, but I’d foolishly promised her the deluxe set, with the purse and the accessories and whatnot, and I get sticker shock from that stuff too, but I have to do what I have to do.

So, with postage, I end up forking over 179 bones for this doll set. It comes today in the mail. I cut the box open. There it is. A sappy, ordinary looking doll. It doesn’t talk or dance or anything. Then I look at the accessories. It’s cheap litle plastic crap. A little purse, a little plastic cell phone, a hairbrush, earrings (these things come with “pierced” ears, apparently), a few other baubles and a little book of some sort. None of it looks any different (to my untrained eye) from any of the approximately 4 tons of cheap, plastic Barbie accessories she already has.

Basically, I think I just shelled out almost two bills for what looks like about a 9 dollar doll and about 50 cents worth of plastic accessories. How is this company getting away with this? What am I missing about this stuff? This is an out and out racket, is it not? I feel like I just bought a set of speaker boxes full of sawdust.

As for the kid – she’s on Cloud fucking Nine. Couldn’t be happier. She’s taking the doll to school for show and tell tomorrow. That’s how they do it. They use your kids against you.

2

I don’t understand. Why would any doll coast that much money? I mean, if it was one of those porcelain dolls that was created by German craftsmen, and all the other samples were destroyed in the bombing of Dresden or something… But the doll really cost that much? And having spent that much money on the doll, you’re letting your kid touch it?

3

American Girl keeps 20% and kicks back the rest to the kid. You just got played by a 9 year-old.

4

Of course it doesn’t talk to you, dumbass! You’re a Dad! The continuum runs clueless, totally clueless, Dad.

When you’re gone, its circuits activate…

“I just love my Obama, he’s my sweet daddy, my sugar mack! I’m going to write down all the things Mommy and Daddy do, and send them to my sweet Obama, he needs to know so he can protect them…”

5

Yeah, that’s how they do it. Bastards.

I remember Jordache jeans. I remember shelling out big bucks for a Member’s Only leather jacket when I was a senior in high school. I remember Grey Goose vodka. I remember paying a premium for Rao’s pasta sauce last week at the grocery store.

Maybe you’re the exception that’s completely practical & rational, but do you really think branding is something that only affects juveniles?

Nah, they’re just as happy to use you against you.

6

I hope she didn’t see me checking the cooch for cocaine.

7

That’s right! Look, these dolls have their own special story. Some have there own unique story in history. I am partial to Julie. She reminds me of my mother, a much younger, plastic version and the hair color is wrong, but the nostalgic 70s flavor is there.

8

Perhaps she is a drug mule, I try not to judge.

9

The nominations for SDMB Typo of the Year are hereby officially closed, no other entries will be considered.

10

I reseat the implicaton than that was a tpyo, and demadn recondirsation.

11

What? You mean, he wasn’t mistyping “couch”? Oh, dear. Oh, my.

12

They’re opening an American Girl store at a mall near here. I was by there a few days ago, and the still-covered storefront said they were hiring cooks. The page from Annie’s link says the store will include a bistro.

What the hell, is there some sort of special, girls-only food there too?

13

Hell, drop them off, head to Hooters…

14

Uh, no, they actually will serve the food eaten by each of the girls in that time period.

If you’re gonna snark, at least think it through.

15

Of course there is. The bistro features a nice selection of sugary and high carb junk food made to order for the American girl compulsive over eater. For the gourmet American girl who restricts calories, the sue chef carefully prepares celery slivers and rice cakes to compliment the generous selection of zero calorie exotic mineral waters. I am sure each girl has a story.

16

It’s like he’s trying to tell me something, I just know it!

No original snark intended. Not every store can sell every thing. I understand that they try to find a niche. I understand that they try to appeal to a particular subset of customers. I understand that they may pitch themselves to those customers for their exclusivity; offering them things that they, and only they, would desire.

I don’t understand how “food” fits into that.

17

From what I hear about the Chicago store, the cafe is just as much for the parents as the kids- mom can have lunch while Betsy runs around and ogles little tables and chairs.

Also, like Barbie- and bigger than Barbie these days, it’s a lifestyle brand. A good analysis of the phenomena is here, at the ny times- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/29/fashion/thursdaystyles/29critic.html?scp=3&sq=american%20girl%20doll&st=cse (Reg needed)

18

Yes, you cult members have your totems. :stuck_out_tongue:

Madison is the home of the factory, and I swear it really is a fucking cult. Sometimes it seems half the women in town can debate which is the best doll, by name, and yes, the adult women are at least as captivated by these things as the girls.

A few years ago Mattel bought out the company, so the marketing schemes have skyrocketed and the actual doll quality has plummeted, so some people tell me. I wouldn’t know, I’m not even sure that I’ve ever seen one.

I hear a lot of women say that they they have a lot of trouble finding dolls and doll clothing that doesn’t teach their daughters to dress like sluts. Apparently, ‘whore’ is the ‘in’ look these days. Maybe that’s part of the attraction of these dolls – wholesomeness.

19

Aw. So at least she actually appreciated it and will probably always fondly remember the day she got the doll that meant so much to her. There are a lot of things that really aren’t worth the price you pay for them but are still “worth” it because of what they mean to the other person. I imagine that at some point you’ve probably bought your wife flowers and jewelry, right? Same idea.

I just looked at the dining info on their site. It sounds like an overpriced version of pretending to have a tea party with your doll basically.
Judging by the tiny portions you get for the money it costs I’d call it a rip off…but, yeah, as long as I was able to afford it, I’d let my kid go there if it was really that important to them!

20

In the mall at Roswell Georgia (a northern suburb of Atlanta with several very affluent suburbs) there’s an American Girl shop that has a hair salon. They actually had beauticians AND a waiting list/appointment schedule. A hair salon for overpriced dolls… this is “stuff the Bolsheviks thought of when they were having Romanov shoots” ridiculous.