The Facebook debacle & other issues

So I messaged Danny privately once again, and was left on seen. The whole thing is still very disappointing 

It’s great that you were able to resolve things with him. Really nice that he took the time to talk things out as well. 

 

I hope kitsooni can can find a resolution with Danny as well. 

This is good to hear, I do hope the Kitsooni situation gets resolved though. I got involved in that conversation and he wasn't acting like he was going to listen

I believe that my situation isn’t going to be resolved and I give up on it, I reached out once again and asked what I did wrong beforehand and got left on read. I feel very uncomfortable that he told the OP that I was a /questionable person/ and did /questionable things/ online, which is very untrue lol. My doll account has nothing but smartdoll support and it’s very obvious that I am still blacklisted for speaking out on this whole issue, he doesn’t want to admit he was wrong in our situation.

edit: thank you for those who want a happy solution for me :’) I really appreciate it 

Edited May 27, 2019 by Kitsooni

8 hours ago, BeyondTime said:

10 hours ago, baldylox said:

So in conclusion, Danny and I are cool. 

That's a bloody relief to hear, so I take back the bad things I said about him.

I'm sorry, but I don't see how Danny Choo should be forgiven just because he apologised to one person (who he's been close with in the past anyway) while he's never even attempted to contact a bunch of other people who he wronged, like @Kitsooni. Honestly I don't expect him to have changed for the better until he makes all wrongs right and issues a public apology to all of the people who were wrongfully banned.

I read the comments he left on @Kitsooni's insta and he was being really nasty. And he tried to make himself seem like the victim so hard, saying stuff like "I really loved her Kizuna doll, too!" implying that he felt super betrayed by @Kitsooni even though it was HIS misunderstanding and she hadn't done anything wrong.

EDIT: I can't seem to quote @Kitsooni's post because it's on a different page, so I'll just reply here directly:

I'm really sorry to hear that DC keeps ignoring you. You did nothing wrong and didn't deserve any of this. I personally haven't been a fan of DC but I can imagine how awful it feels when you've only loved someone's work, bought many dolls from them and said a lot of positive things, only for them to turn around and make you into a "hater" because they misunderstood. Not classy at all. 😕

Edited May 27, 2019 by mizya

14 hours ago, baldylox said:

He thanked me as well, for being a friend and being open with him on how I felt and what I've seen happening.

I find it hard to believe that he could take any sort of criticism... or accept the views of someone else.
I personally ain't gonna hope for much, just yet.

But many thanks for posting! A nice update either way!

I agree with mizya, I dont think this is good. To me, what Baldylox said makes it sound like Danny is happy to just sweep all this under the rug and pretend it never happened, and, even worse, pretend the people who are still blacklisted (again, the original problem here, not the fact that he wasnt replying to Baldylox) are comitting card fraud, and thus its ok to continue to blacklist them. The fact that he's still ignoring her says it all.

Kitsooni's only 'crime' was getting heated with Danny, but I don't blame her one bit for it - and he can hardly hold that against her when he reacted in an even MORE heated way. His comments were just plain childish and the fact that he kept saying he had 'proof' she made the nazi banner was not only a blatant lie but shockingly cruel. (Also, even if Kitsooni had been even ruder, I still dont see it as a bannable offense.  Especially because she has repeatedly apologized.) The underlying issue here is he has banned someone for doing something they didnt even do. If he truly regrets his behaviour he would have apologised for that, but he hasn't. Maybe it won't happen again, but that doesn't change the fact that it happened, and it makes me pretty uncomfortable how he seems to think we'll easily and happily forget it now just because he apologised to somebody else and shared secret info with them.

Edited May 27, 2019 by Monty

13 hours ago, mizya said:

I'm sorry, but I don't see how Danny Choo should be forgiven just because he apologised to one person (who he's been close with in the past anyway) while he's never even attempted to contact a bunch of other people who he wronged, like @Kitsooni. Honestly I don't expect him to have changed for the better until he makes all wrongs right and issues a public apology to all of the people who were wrongfully banned.

I based my negative comments on Billy's original post, and on Danny banning an entire group for the bad acts of one person. Based on Billy's update that isn't true. Danny is banning a few people who he feels have been giving him issues. Ergo, the basis for my original comments about his character is invalid and I am withdrawing them.

As far as the few people he is banning, he hasn't given any explanation as to why, and frankly he's not obligated to openly discuss why he banned a specific individual. Certainly it wouldn't be appropriate for him to share names and details publicly on the internet. Without some explanation it's really hard to make any kind of assessment as to the validity of his grievances.

With nothing to go on here I won't make a judgement. I'm already feeling like I reacted negatively to things in this thread without knowing the whole story, and that doesn't leave a good taste in my mouth.

I would certainly hope at this point that someone who still feels like they have been wrongfully banned, can either get a resolution, or at least an explanation for the ban.

Edited May 27, 2019 by BeyondTime

Let me be clear, I am NOT saying I condone Danny's reactions to this whole thing and I don't think that any of it should be swept under the rug so to speak.  All I was saying in my update was that he reached out to me after a long period and basically straightened out the issues *I* had with what happened.  That doesn't mean I'm okay with how things were handled originally nor does it mean I've forgotten about them.

 

All this means is that there was movement forward in this and Danny genuinely seemed to understand things didn't go well for anyone involved.  Whether he chooses to change, learn from it and do better in the future is all up to him.  He certainly sounded like that's what path he's on now and I'm extremely hopeful he continues.

 

I do feel bad for anyone else, Kitsooni included, that is still not being talked to or not having things explained to them.  As I said before, Danny did NOT give me any names whatsoever on who was blacklisted or for what specific reasons and I wasn't going to press him on it because it's his business/store.  Even if I don't agree with it and I'm all for second chances with people ( for the most part ), he can do what he deems best for him and his company and I can't do anything about it.  I do hope he replies to Kitsooni and gets things figured out with all that soon.  

 

My intent wasn't to stir up this hornet's nest again but to let people know that he finally replied to me and we worked things out.  I can't say if he will do this with others or not but I certainly hope that he will as I think it's in his best interest.

 

Thanks for the replies everyone!

 

 

Billy

16 hours ago, BeyondTime said:

I based my negative comments on Billy's original post, and on Danny banning an entire group for the bad acts of one person. Based on Billy's update that isn't true.

Alright, but I can't help but think that of course he would be saying that now since he wants to forget about it. He's had no problems throwing people under the bus before, even entire groups of people like BJD owners (he seems to have deleted that specific post from his insta but here's a screenshot) -- even though he used to really market his Cortex to BJD owners 'cause they "love the delicious parting lines" (+another positive reference to BJD owners), so it's entirely likely he now feels embarrassed over throwing a tantrum and says it was all the admin's work to ban people from the Facebook group. I mean, this is the same guy who left the group because he got upset over people criticising his prices.
 

16 hours ago, BeyondTime said:

As far as the few people he is banning, he hasn't given any explanation as to why, and frankly he's not obligated to openly discuss why he banned a specific individual. Certainly it wouldn't be appropriate for him to share names and details publicly on the internet.

I don't believe I ever said he needs to share publicly who are banned, I only said he should issue a public apology - which doesn't need to include specific people's names, but those people would still know that the apology is directed at them providing that Danny has contacted them personally and solved whatever issues. I also agree that it's tasteless to share customers' details publicly, but DC has done something to that effect in the past to paint a specific customer in a bad light. Now, even if that customer was someone who bought dolls only to complain about and return them, it still did not give him the right to shame that customer publicly and he should've dealt with it privately. It was like he made that customer into an example: "cross me and I'll publicly call you out all over my social media". He certainly has no problems singling out specific individuals to paint them in a negative light, so I don't see why he couldn't post a general apology into his feed.

At this point I wouldn't fully forgive him based on words (ones he said privately to someone he's close with) alone but focus more on his actions. He's still throwing shade about the Mirai Carry's price (last time was in February) so I'm not quite buying that he's a changed man just yet.

 

15 hours ago, baldylox said:

Let me be clear, I am NOT saying I condone Danny's reactions to this whole thing and I don't think that any of it should be swept under the rug so to speak.  All I was saying in my update was that he reached out to me after a long period and basically straightened out the issues *I* had with what happened.

15 hours ago, baldylox said:

I do feel bad for anyone else, Kitsooni included, that is still not being talked to or not having things explained to them.

In that case you might want to consider how you phrase your posts in the future because honestly... it read to me like "we're cool with Danny now and let me gush over the new incoming projects he told me about". And if I was someone who was unfairly banned and despite my attempts to contact Danny keep getting ignored week after week... I wouldn't feel too good about reading your post. Now, it probably wasn't your intention to make anyone else feel bad, but some of the word choices sounded a bit iffy to me. But it could just be because as a linguist who's been trained to spot nuances in texts, I'm especially tuned in to this kind of stuff and it's entirely possible that others have read your post differently. 

You said that you didn't want to press Danny to contact other people, and I get that you're afraid of him getting upset with you when you've just patched things up with him (proven by his history of throwing tantrums) but I wonder if you could try giving him a little nudge by saying that he's got DMs on instagram from people who are trying to sort out misunderstandings with him - just like you did? Without mentioning specfic names, of course. It might help some of the people like @Kitsooni to get their messages read. If DC currently assumes all messages he's getting on insta are hate messages and that's why he's not reading any of them... which honestly speaking isn't really a good tactic if he truly wants to grow as a person. Averting his eyes from all the hurt he has caused isn't going to change anything. Although he's made it clear that he dislikes people telling him what to do, I'm still going to say what I think he should do: go back and read the messages, re-evaluate his own behaviour and if he was in the wrong, admit to it and apologise to the people who he wrongfully accused. After that we might see some improvement in his character.

Edited May 28, 2019 by mizya
typo

Given Danny’s repeated history of demonstrating that he isn’t above lying to his fans it’s not exactly easy for me to trust  ‘his side of the story’ even if it -did- make his actions seem justified(which is a huge ‘if’ regardless) but nothing about what Baldylox has said about what he said indicates that to me. 

Besides, even if he apparently told Baldylox ‘tell everyone involved in this incident including Kitsooni that I am very sorry’, it doesn’t mean much if he doesn’t say anything himself. 

6 hours ago, mizya said:

I don't believe I ever said he needs to share publicly who are banned

I wasn't suggesting you had. I was simply saying he will probably never discuss the details of specific bans in a public forum, nor would he owe an explanation for a ban to anyone except the person banned. Therefore it's hard to draw any sort of conclusion about those bans.

6 hours ago, mizya said:

It might help some of the people like @Kitsooni to get their messages read.

I think Kitsooni said her last message shows 'read' but no reply has been forthcoming.

Edited May 28, 2019 by BeyondTime

What I see from this is the same pattern as always; he's unwilling to ever admit he is wrong about anything. Even if he changes behavior in the future because of what has happened, and frankly I doubt he will, everything Billy wrote indicates he has no intention of adressing what he has already done.

Just now, cfx said:

What I see from this is the same pattern as always; he's unwilling to ever admit he is wrong about anything. Even if he changes behavior in the future because of what has happened, and frankly I doubt he will, everything Billy wrote indicates he has no intention of adressing what he has already done.

^ exactly this. I will never be unblacklisted unless I put all the blame on myself, which I’m not doing. 

13 hours ago, mizya said:

In that case you might want to consider how you phrase your posts in the future because honestly... it read to me like "we're cool with Danny now and let me gush over the new incoming projects he told me about". And if I was someone who was unfairly banned and despite my attempts to contact Danny keep getting ignored week after week... I wouldn't feel too good about reading your post. Now, it probably wasn't your intention to make anyone else feel bad, but some of the word choices sounded a bit iffy to me. But it could just be because as a linguist who's been trained to spot nuances in texts, I'm especially tuned in to this kind of stuff and it's entirely possible that others have read your post differently.  

Wow.  I have no idea how you read all that into what I posted.  I didn't "gush" over anything, period.  As for my phrasing, I don't try to be subversive or put any hidden meaning in anything I post.  

 

13 hours ago, mizya said:

You said that you didn't want to press Danny to contact other people, and I get that you're afraid of him getting upset with you when you've just patched things up with him (proven by his history of throwing tantrums) but I wonder if you could try giving him a little nudge by saying that he's got DMs on instagram from people who are trying to sort out misunderstandings with him - just like you did? Without mentioning specfic names, of course. It might help some of the people like @Kitsooni to get their messages read. If DC currently assumes all messages he's getting on insta are hate messages and that's why he's not reading any of them... which honestly speaking isn't really a good tactic if he truly wants to grow as a person. Averting his eyes from all the hurt he has caused isn't going to change anything. Although he's made it clear that he dislikes people telling him what to do, I'm still going to say what I think he should do: go back and read the messages, re-evaluate his own behaviour and if he was in the wrong, admit to it and apologise to the people who he wrongfully accused. After that we might see some improvement in his character.

I'll message him and let him know that others that were involved in this mess have sent him messages and that I think he should at least give them some sort of reply.  

 

 

Billy

1 hour ago, baldylox said:

I'll message him and let him know that others that were involved in this mess have sent him messages and that I think he should at least give them some sort of reply.  

I think you are pretty diplomatic, so this probably doesn’t need saying. 

I would word that very carefully. 

 

For my my own part I want to be clear that I am not ok with someone being wrongfully banned. I’m just less ok with making a judgement about someone without knowing the whole story. 

9 hours ago, cfx said:

What I see from this is the same pattern as always; he's unwilling to ever admit he is wrong about anything. Even if he changes behavior in the future because of what has happened, and frankly I doubt he will, everything Billy wrote indicates he has no intention of adressing what he has already done.

Exactly. And his go-to after every controversy is making promises of new, cool projects that he's working on or in some cases he'll even have a prototype to show - which either eventually becomes something or gets forgotten. The latest promises are the DC Comics and Marvel superhero characters. We shall see.

 

9 hours ago, Kitsooni said:

I will never be unblacklisted unless I put all the blame on myself, which I’m not doing. 

I'm glad that you're standing your ground and not bending to his will, it's really admirable after everything he and his fans put you through.♥️ He clearly is trying to make you grovel in front of him begging for forgiveness, even though you never did the things that he accused you of. He's such a manchild, honestly. 😑

*takes a deep breath*

I see for the most part, this thread had died down. I'm glad to hear things are resolved with Baldylox but also sad to see others still blacklisted from Culture Japan. I'm not sure the direction my post will take, so I apologize in advance if my wordings seems a little confusing or all over the place.

First, I was not ever a member of the other group and the whole Nazi cover photo was tasteless and crude. I am,however, a member of the Smart Doll Lovers Group on FB, but have limited my posts due to the recent events. I honestly do not feel comfortable posting there much anymore, because it does not seem like the warm, welcoming group that it was when I first joined. I have two Smart Dolls, one just recently acquired from Fabric&Friends (side note: you can always shop here if you are banned from CJ), but aside from a couple of essentials like hand packs (things that cannot be purchased anywhere else) my business is concluded with Danny Choo. If and only if does he make a formal apology for his recent behavior, I will not patronage his shop. There are no words to express how utterly disgusted I feel from what happened to people and his behavior in general for the past few months. I have been following Smart Dolls since March of last year, and I've seen more and more negative behavior from Danny that I can no longer justify much of which is already mentioned here in this thread. I quietly messaged a few members that had been blacklisted/bullied, but I for the most part I have kept things to myself. The only reason I have not been more outspoken (including removing myself from the SDL FB group) is out of fear of being banned from Culture Japan too for one reason: what if a part on my girls break like Tiltybird?

I was in contact with the woman who had the shoe fiasco with her anniversary Mirai. Because I wasn't directly involved, I won't condone or condemn just inform. She had told me, " I moved the refund process to paypal just in case not as a dispute or anything, just processing and documenting it all through paypal so if anything DOES happen, I know paypal will have my back." Honestly, I cannot blame her. After dealing with Danny with that situation, I'd want the extra protection too. I don't have any other information on what happened other than her messaging me a week later stating that the whole situation was getting worse and causing her major anxiety. I do not know the results from her interaction, but it along with so many other things left a sour taste in my mouth. The Volks message mistranslated, harassing responses on Instagram, people being banned from SDL group on FB for giving a mere opinion, the complaints/banning surrounding the backpack well, I can't just pretend these things never happened. I admit I purchased my second and final smart doll after this fact but mainly, because I knew I wanted one last doll and I wanted to be done with his company. 

My photo along with my anniversary Mirai are in Danny's collage, and I am ashamed to have it be a part of it. I literally untagged Danny Choo from all my Instagram posts and blocked him so that he could no longer see my posts (because he followed me). This news of TTYA and the origins of the wigs has me a little upset too. I have a pair of TTYA jeans and shorts, and I cannot tell the difference between the two other than the lack of an orange tag and the red lining inside the clothing. If they really where made by TTYA in the beginning, why isn't credit given where credit is due? I think it is wonderful that he treats his employees so well (from what I've seen posted on social media), but why are the customers paying for his products given better treatment? I get the feeling that I should be considered myself blessed to purchase from him; that's wrong on so many levels. It's interesting to me that so many back stories of the girls he has for sale all have some tale of being bullied/harrased. Can Danny not see the irony that he now has become the very thing he writes about? From bullied to the bully, it's unsettling. With Cortex on the cusp of release, I'm interested in seeing how he responds to the massive influx he will get of customers. I agree with what others have said here: he needs to allocate someone else in charge of his social media.

I can't/won't give up my girls just because of their creator's behavior; they are the sunshine in my life. But as I said, I cannot gloss over all what has happened in the past year. We are all human and we all make mistakes but apologies/changing behavior should be made here. I do not own any DDs nor do I plan on it, but I hope I am still welcome here. I truly hope that all you who were blacklisted unfairly are soon absolved.

 

EDIT 03/16/21

I did end up selling my girls, because I couldn't look at them anymore and feel happiness. Danny also took the time to seek me out and blocked and banned me from his shop.

Edited March 16, 2021 by Deyja
Update

1 hour ago, Deyja said:

I can't/won't give up my girls just because of their creator's behavior; they are the sunshine in my life. But as I said, I cannot gloss over all what has happened in the past year. We are all human and we all make mistakes but apologies/changing behavior should be made here. I do not own any DDs nor do I plan on it, but I hope I am still welcome here. I truly hope that all you who were blacklisted unfairly are soon absolved.

This forum is about the dolls and their owners, so I would say you are welcome. We also opted to move away from dollfiedreams.com specifically so that the forum would be more inclusive of other brands.

Having two smart dolls now, both of them purchased used, they are quite nice.

I don't feel comfortable posting my full thoughts, but I think that once I am able to get a crimson Kai, that will be my one and final Smart Doll. I was so excited for Cortex, but I just can't look forward to the release any further.

I'm glad I got my one Smartdoll boy months before this went down, because by now I'm attached to the doll for his own sake and he has no psychological association with this mess.

That said, having basically binged this thread on the whole kerfuffle after the fact, I'd say I consider Danny to be on probation. Maybe he'll improve now that he's finally delegating his social media. . . on the other hand, this has been part of a pattern of years, so maybe he won't. I'll probably still buy my existing doll some hands and maybe elf ears, but beyond that, I'm going to do a watch-and-wait approach for the next six months or so. If he improves, cool, awesome, I'll keep an eye out for licenses I may be interested it. If he continues to be a toxic little diva child, then I'll ignore his business in the future and just enjoy my Vitya in my own little corner of the internet.

I'm finally able to get a second doll coming up shortly,

and, I just re-read through this whole thread and was like "... yeah, think I'm gonna get a DD this time" 😤

 

I have just joined this forum today, and was thinking of getting  Kanata...but I'm sorry to say this has really put me off.  I'm glad that Billy got all sorted and wotnot.  I'm not sure if Kitsooni ever had anything rectified. Silky kindly recommended Dollfie so I think I'll go and have a look at them. 

 

This all  makes me quite sad.

2 hours ago, TheGildedStrawb said:

I have just joined this forum today, and was thinking of getting  Kanata...but I'm sorry to say this has really put me off.  I'm glad that Billy got all sorted and wotnot.  I'm not sure if Kitsooni ever had anything rectified. Silky kindly recommended Dollfie so I think I'll go and have a look at them. 

 

This all  makes me quite sad.

With Dollfie you have three basic options.

Collaboration models: https://www.dollfiedream.tokyo/dd_en/model/list_collabo/

These are limited edition dolls based on characters from anime & games. They are sold by lottery, and once they sell out that's it, unless they get a re-release. Occasionally they are sold by pre-order, and some dolls like the Vocaloids get re-released once or twice a year. The only other option for these is aftermarket, but I would use Mandarake or Yahoo Japan for that; the ebay markups are outrageous.

Standard Models: https://www.dollfiedream.tokyo/dd_en/model/list_standard/

These models may go out of stock, but they will restock them.

Lastly, you can buy a body, a blank head, wig & eyes, and build your own. There are plenty of faceup artists here on the forum who can paint the head for you.

There are a few other options, but you have to travel to Japan for those.

 

 

Edited August 4, 2019 by BeyondTime

54 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

With Dollfie you have three basic options.

Collaboration models: https://www.dollfiedream.tokyo/dd_en/model/list_collabo/

These are limited edition dolls based on characters from anime & games. They  are sold by lottery, and once they sell out that's it, unless they get a re-release. Occasionally they are sold by pre-order, and some dolls like the Vocaloids get re-released once or twice a year. The only other option for these is aftermarket, but I would use Mandarake or Yahoo Japan for that; the ebay markups are outrageous.

Standard Models: https://www.dollfiedream.tokyo/dd_en/model/list_standard/

These models may go out of stock, but they will restock them.

Lastly, you can buy a body, a blank head, wig & eyes, and build your own. There are plenty of faceup artists here on the forum who can paint the head for you.

There are a few other options, but you have to travel to Japan for those.

 

 

Thank you so much for that.  I was kinda floundering around  Really appreciate your help.