Rule 34! (I didn’t look, I’m just assuming.)
I never played with dolls, I always had stuffed animals. Baby dolls creeped me out massively. Those things described in the article are even freakier.
It reminds me more of those sad websites for photo retouchers that retouch your photos of your stillborn child. Which is not something I want to think much about.
I’ll be honest, I like this kind of doll. If cost wasn’t an issue, I’d probably own one or two. But they’re meant to be collectable art, not a substitute baby. So I thought. The idea of carrying one around with you strikes me as very odd, as odd as carrying around a hummel or Elvis memorabilia.
Any antique dealer will tell you that doll collectors, aka Doll Bitches, are the worst of the lot and are to be avoided at all costs.
I saw something very similar years ago, only it wasn’t vinyl it was porcelain. It too was very lifelike and weighted like a real baby, though my father had the lady make one from a photo of a friend’s son (still living) and dressed it up like a girl, then made up a name tag with what she wanted to name her daughter (if she had ever had one)…
Carrying one around strikes me as odd too.
I like dolls myself; however, I prefer the ones which aren’t super-realistic looking. They just have more personality and charm, to me at least.
The ones in the article the OP links to are not only creepy, but they seem less creative and imaginative to me, and therefore much less alive than a fanciful rag doll or Kewpie for instance.
A doll is a doll, not a person, so why do they go to all that effort just to make one that looks like a person?
I read an article about them a couple of months ago. The owners came off as seriously disturbed. One woman claimed it was just as good as having a real baby- no, better, because you don’t have to change diapers! Right. That doll there- that damn creepy doll there- is just the same as a kid. Right.
Creepiness abounds.
But what’s up with that video? Is there any way to make that Film on Demand thing go away? It’s annoying as shit.
I can tell you right now if I’d seen that damn doll in a locked car I would have FREAKED. I can’t tell you how panicked I would have been. Toting such a doll around is ludicrous and as these stories prove, irresponsible. Having lost a child myself, seeing something I assumed was an infant in peril would have upset me a lot. Which is bad enough without tying up the valuable time of emergency services.
Yup, the whole thing is just frigging bizarre. You just lost your child - you’re distraught - I know what will help! - overlay that distress with a weird obsession for spooky rubber replicas. <shudder>
Is it just me, or can you picture Melanie Lynskey owning one of these?
Ya* think*?
No, wait, obviously these folks don’t think. Never mind.
How about this as a potential solution…
When the police officer smashes the window and discovers that the call out has been a complete waste of time, because the trapped infant is in fact a spooky rubber replica - he or she gets automatic license to smash all the other windows too. And the headlights.
The Channel 4 documentary in the wikipedia article in the OP was a bit creepy and it did occur to me that they might look like kids in trouble if one was left lying about.
I ought not to have clicked on the link. Too creepy for words.
But driving with broken headlights is a ticketable offense.
Ah – I see the genius of your proposal.
Oh, sure it is. Except it doesn’t, you know, move. Or look at you. Or smile. Or grow. That is really creepy, and sad.
Maybe the “parents” of these “babys” can get one of those RealDolls off the website to sit in the Hummer and babysit the infant. I figure if they can drop $50G for a Hummer and another for a recycled doll, surely they can come up off of $8 to $10 grand for a RealDoll to sit with it.
There is no link supplied to the RealDoll website because it is NSFW and as I am AW I don’t think it would be a good idea to look it up. I’m not even looking up the wiki on this until I get home.
The owners would just assume the windows were broken in an attempt to steal their baby doll. Because they are, obviously, something everyone would want.
I see ads for these realistic baby dolls all the time in the back of the National Enquirer. Big full-page, pink glittery colored ads. They creep me right the hell out. I keep thinking that they must sell a lot of dolls to the demographic that buys the National Enquirer.