The Facebook debacle & other issues

9 minutes ago, TithorArgentus said:

Did you guys see the Monday boy?

I'm legitimately disturbed. 

Yep. Same here. 

Oh god the ventriloquist dummy mouth is gonna haunt me O_O

But without that he'd be a totally cute boy XD I reckon a ton of people would be into that.

59 minutes ago, Mothiraffe said:

Why does Danny seem to resent the male dolls so much? Like he seems to actively be upset that he's made them, that people want to buy them, that they're popular. It baffles me how antagonistic he is about them. He seems to have only made them to cash in on the ability to make licensed characters, and does everything in his power to quash their availability, never markets them in his photos/vlog, barely ever releases them... I just don't get it.

If I remember correctly, I beleive he once made a post explaining that since he's heterosexual he has a hard time designing the male dolls.

 

If that's true, he doesn't like his make dolls becausd he's not sexually attracted to them (considering miraib and friends are supposed to be 16-17.... yikes)

I just popped in here real quick to say that boy!Monday's face-up is nightmare fuel. @IgelFullmetal Yeah, I remember that post. It's creepy as hell, and I do think there's some truth behind it, too.

God that's bizarre to me because like, as an artist and as someone who knows a lot of artists, that's just- is that weird to anyone else?? Is that a weird thing to say?? It's weird to me... or put another way,

I can draw flowers, even though I don't wanna do the horizontal tango with a flower. I can draw insects, even though I am not sexually attracted to insects. I have acted in professional capacity to offer critique and redlining to other artists working under me in a group, and never once did my attraction or lack thereof come up in the discussion. This is just so weird to me... I mean if he's being legit then, ok I guess??? I'm sorry you have that problem???????? Have you considered practicing to work around your limitations sir... or maybe get someone else to design the male dolls then??? There are so many ways to work around this proposed issue I can't-

See also: Danny doesn't sculpt them anyway maybe trust your designing staff I just- I don't even-

:////////

He used to make alot of questionable post about his characters, I just kind of equated it to being an early 2010s weeb/Otaku thing ( the anime community still has this problem, among many others, but thats another topic for another day...) 

@Mame Yeah, things like that used to be pretty prevalent, like lolspeak and saying "l33t h4x0rzz" unironically. Danny was younger then, too... I rankle against the conventional idea that we have to "grow up" and leave childish interests behind (after all, we're on a doll forum here,) but that doesn't mean you can't like... realize the negative aspects of one's behavior and strive to be less... discomforting. I do miss sometimes the era of Numa Numa when we all said lolz and rickrolled one another with impunity, and sometimes Danny's anachronistic way of speaking can be a nice throwback, but things like his unwillingness to call a boob a boob just gets grating after a while.

2 minutes ago, Mothiraffe said:

@Mame Yeah, things like that used to be pretty prevalent, like lolspeak and saying "l33t h4x0rzz" unironically. Danny was younger then, too... I rankle against the conventional idea that we have to "grow up" and leave childish interests behind (after all, we're on a doll forum here,) but that doesn't mean you can't like... realize the negative aspects of one's behavior and strive to be less... discomforting. I do miss sometimes the era of Numa Numa when we all said lolz and rickrolled one another with impunity, and sometimes Danny's anachronistic way of speaking can be a nice throwback, but things like his unwillingness to call a boob a boob just gets grating after a while.

*carmelldanses at u whilst rawr XDing*

@TithorArgentus lololololz XDD do u liek mudkipz?? roflmao imagine a mudkip bjd!!!!!!11!1 o_o that would be so kewl rite??? ^_^

(Back on topic DOES ANYONE ELSE EXPECT DANNY TO SELL THE MANNEQUIN MONDAY JUsT BC PPL DON'T LIKE IT. AND THEN TO DISCONTINUE IT BC IT DIDN'T SELL WELL, EVEN THOUGH NORMAL MONDAY ON THE MALE BODY LOOKS FINE? BC I DO)

22 hours ago, IgelFullmetal said:

If I remember correctly, I beleive he once made a post explaining that since he's heterosexual he has a hard time designing the male dolls.

As a photographer I can see both sides. On the one hand I've seen some awesome photos of men taken by people who really know what they are doing, so it would be a shame if every talented hetero male photographer only photographed women, or if all the talented hetero female photographers only photographed men.

On the other hand I can get being passionate about women in artistic endeavors. I have encountered some really good photographers who only use female models in art shots because women just inspire them in ways men don't. And I am not referring to nudes here; I've seen some great steampunk and period shoots by guys who just prefer working with female models.

On the doll side I don't really have much interest in male dolls, with the one exception being Tuxedo Mask, if Volks ever makes him. That's partly because I think it would be sad to have Usagi without him, but also because he's a really great character.

 

21 hours ago, Mothiraffe said:

but that doesn't mean you can't like... realize the negative aspects of one's behavior and strive to be less... discomforting.

And things change over time. I can think of a lot of 70s and 80s TV that you couldn't air today because social standards have changed so much.

Edited July 2, 2020 by BeyondTime

@TithorArgentus Eh, that's a bit quick to judge imo, without any evidence. I'm generally not fond of designing women myself; that doesn't mean I dislike gay women. (I'm ace.)

@Mothiraffe That wouldn't surprise me at this point. Honestly, with the way Danny is doing things now, I doubt SmD will be around in 10 years. 🤷‍♀️

Edited July 1, 2020 by Selenae

@Mothiraffe I was really young at that time and wasn't allowed on the internet. The only way I found out about that cursed( blessed? Blurssed?) time period was from my friends haha^^'. I agree with pretty much everything you've said about Danny. 

Im pretty sure he does have some homophobic/transphobic opinions, ( i mean remember the Gemini thing :/) but I don't think hes outright a homophobe/transphobe.( although something different could be said about his cult.....) 

1 hour ago, Selenae said:

@TithorArgentus Eh, that's a bit quick to judge imo, without any evidence. I'm generally not fond of designing women myself; that doesn't mean I dislike gay women. (I'm ace.)

 

Yes, but I feel like saying you don't design x gender because you're x sexuality kinda hints at the very least having really...gross opinions about x gender. It's okay to not want to design something, but using that as your excuse for it seems off to me. Why not just say "I don't design boys because I'm just not fond of it" instead of "I don't design them cause i'm a straight dude"? Why bring up sexuality when there's no reason to in justifying it, you know? I may not be articulating myself the best right now, just came off a very long work week X_X

I lurk here a lot but, I’ll jumping in because I remember thinking it was weird when Danny was designing the boys & kept asking what features were most attractive or should be made more appealing. And I’d think “Just make a human body!” Like how is saying “I’m not attracted to men uwu” an excuse? A lot of the early male bodies were wonky as heck & this goes beyond making them attractive. Like just?? Make a man? You are a man? Surely you know what a man looks like.

Putting this into consideration, I would not call Danny an artist. And I do NOT mean that as an insult. I don’t think he ever claimed to be one. Danny is a manager and a tech guy and his products reflect his strengths by adding cool features and colors and pioneering techniques. But there’s nothing pushing the boundaries aesthetically with Smart Dolls. The makeup varies but there’s nothing cool like eyeliner or lipstick. Even the clothes are casual. He’s done well to create a brand image, but the brand itself is lacking in anything strikingly artistic which stands out in the doll hobby which has a huge community of people pushing the boundaries. This is just my personal assessment, and I think it’s totally fine to own your aesthetic and only make what you’re interested in. I don’t think though that he’s doing it because of a neo classical obsession w the beauty of the female form LOL. And if you have an art education, you’re typically desensitized from nudity being sexual or something you giggle at anyway.  He’s just...not art minded. 
 

6 hours ago, IgelFullmetal said:

If I remember correctly, I beleive he once made a post explaining that since he's heterosexual he has a hard time designing the male dolls.

Do you have the source for that? I'd love to read that post tbh. That's such a weird logic and all it implies is just so yikes to me. 

He's got that "fellow kids" attitude. So he might be bitter about growing up/not being in the loop with his younger customers.
Just look at Monday - the picking-your-nose "joke" is never not going to be mentioned whenever he brings her up (which might work to entertain toddlers)... And also feels like a middle-finger towards those who have complained about the small noses.

Danny should have the means to hire someone to design male dolls... But since he's making dolls for himself first, and customers second/if at all, and is not "into" male dolls, "why waste energy on it". = Use that energy towards negativity on instagram instead!

Yeah... If he dislikes dealing with the male dolls so much because of his sexuality (which is a whole thing to unpack and best for me to just throw the whole suitcase away), why not just work with a person/people who do have an interest in designing/marketing male dolls? I know he likes to holler about how he can't afford to hire any more staff, but having a product (male vinyl dolls) that he seems to be actively trying to sabotage despite having an almost exclusive market on is hilariously dumb.

(And just in case someone doesn't understand what I mean by "seems to be actively trying to sabotage": He rarely, if ever, makes attempts to market his male dolls. The apparel for them is sparse and usually only available for super short periods of time. They still aren't available in a full range of skin tones, and for the longest time there were only two options, one being a milk tone with one faceup, and a tea tone with a different faceup. It's become a running gag that the girls have a million different faceups on the same sculpt that are just slightly tweaked variations, but the boys have...... a single faceup per tone, minus the cinnamon variants that use the previous two faceups. If a customer wants a cocoa boy, or just a different default faceup/eyes/wig, they're SOL. From an outsider perspective, it feels like he would rather the line fail, but demand is too high due to being a cornered market. So, to me, it seems like he is trying to do the absolute minimum to turn a profit on the guys, or maybe to simply justify keeping the molds around at all.)

@RainbowNanaki Yeah, sounds about right. He doesn't want to make male dolls (for reasons I think it best we not examine too deeply, because I'M STILL BAFFLED,) he doesn't WANT them to do well, he probably only ever made them in the first place so he could hawk licensed characters (which is a valid business strategy,) but unfortunately for Danny he's the only one in this game that sells them somewhat regularly, so he's forced to keep them around because despite his best efforts to prevent it from happening, they've become an integral part of his business. That's probably why he's dragging his feet on Cocoa boy -- it's going to sell well, and demand will be high, and he'll have to make so many of them, and he doesn't WANT to, so he's gonna focus on making 200,000 girls with slightly different eyeliner and bemoan how much money he's sunk into research and development, even though if he would JUST make the boy dolls a regular part of his lineup they would literally print the fuck money since his only competition is Volks, and they make it even harder to get their boys than Danny does.

I believe he doesn't do this for the money because he is fighting the moneymakers in this equation kicking and screaming every step of the way. We're going to get the Centaur before we see a Cocoa boy, and possibly Gemini. You can count on it.

(Being in this hobby is miserable OTL)

13 hours ago, Selenae said:

That wouldn't surprise me at this point. Honestly, with the way Danny is doing things now, I doubt SmD will be around in 10 years.

I'd go further and say 3. Hawking inclusiveness while catering nearly exclusively to people who can afford to make 500$+ impulse purchases isn't sustainable.

@IgelFullmetal I agree, it certainly isn't. Throw in Danny's refusal to make replacement parts readily available and you have a recipe for his company to vanish. You can't exist on skin colors and cheap tactics like 1234 face-ups for the same sculpt, and calling it a new doll alone.

Edited July 1, 2020 by Selenae

16 hours ago, Mothiraffe said:

and sometimes Danny's anachronistic way of speaking can be a nice throwback, but things like his unwillingness to call a boob a boob just gets grating after a while.

Bit late to this, but you have no idea how long it took me to figure out that when Danny says "healthcare materials" or whatever it was, that he means porn. XD

Edit: re art and stuff... imagine if I went to work and said "sorry, I can't make a chair in 3D because I don't find it sexy" XD I mean the last thing I made in 3D was a TV so I must be hot for them (sarcasm)

Edited July 1, 2020 by Katsudon
being cheeky

Alright, guys, I just want to throw in a note to please keep personal attacks in check. If you have an issue with a doll product or service, that's obviously something worth pointing out, but I feel pointing out the personal views of anyone and then calling them X, Y, or Z is really not called for here. If you find an opinion of a seller "problematic" and cause for informing your purchasing choices, that's certainly your prerogative and that should really be the end of it. We don't need to be ganging up on people.

I still think he blew up the shoe situation way out of proportion. He could have literally sent the client a new pair of shoes and called it a day. 

But wabi sabiiiiiii! Yup, the route of least resistance would have been most sensible. But then, him and everyone else wouldn't be talking about the shoes still. I just don't even know anymore!

Guessing the shoes were just the tipping point, and if it hadn't been that, it would have been something else. Of course that's no comfort to the poor person who bought the wonky shoes and got treated like crap. 😕 Sorry poor shoes customer...

Edit: I had a random wish last night... which was cortex kits for the smart doll boys. ^^; I mean, if they were kits, Danny and team wouldn't need to put so many resources into producing them (and if we could buy separate bodies and heads I would totally buy a boy cortex body and a Monday head, because I presume that post from Danny was a joke, as he tried to make the doll look like Chucky.) Yup, it's a silly dream, but I really like the idea of cortex.

Edited July 2, 2020 by Katsudon
dreaming

32 minutes ago, Katsudon said:

Guessing the shoes were just the tipping point, and if it hadn't been that, it would have been something else. Of course that's no comfort to the poor person who bought the wonky shoes and got treated like crap. 😕 Sorry poor shoes customer...

 

He was really nasty to her. I was talking to her on Facebook, and she ended up having to return the whole doll. She told me she moved the refund process to paypal not as a dispute but as a back up/documenting and that she was scared. Honestly, it wasn't a bad idea. She wasn't trying to get a free doll but just wanted protection from a company (Danny) who went ballistic on her over a pair of shoes. He then took her going through Paypal as another personal attack and just shredded her. It's been a year since it happened, and I don't remember everything else that happened so there are details I'm not remembering or just don't know about.