The Facebook debacle & other issues

55 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

From the original post he isn’t asking people to give a bollocking to people selling, only to those who complain. He was wrong to say that either way.

Yeah but honestly, so far the only seriously hateful complaints seem to be in his own personal, private, messages. So who do you think the less mature/more rabid fans will probably turn to? Because I think seeing the replies on that girl's post that it might be anyone who is even slightly disappointed on their sales post, even if it's not intended as a complaint. The problem is what you perceive as a complaint, and where to draw the line. His post was very vague, and anyone who just voices their disappointment about not getting their desired doll would fit in his description, depending on how you read his words.

Or maybe it was all just a clever marketing ploy to make his fans buy more pebbles and be oh ever so grateful that he graces them with his presence on Facebook groups. 

At this point I don't even know.

Edited October 26, 2020 by LuluChan

4 hours ago, monkeypizzasonic said:

I'm wondering - if there are e-mails about people complaining, maybe they're from younger fans who aren't mature enough to deal with the disappointment rationally and/or parents/obnoxious "Karen" types who feel like they're entitled to get what they wanted regardless of fine print? I mean, I currently work in retail and I've had a customer walk out on me just because we didn't have any little paper envelopes to put our gift cards in...so these people definitely exist.

 

These are people who have enough disposable income to drop $500 USD on a random doll. These kinds of people carry a certain entitlement with them. Danny should have known that when he started this whole gacha process. Its retail for crying out loud. People will always complain especially when it comes to luxury goods. I don't know why he's so pressed about this. Just set up an automated email response reminding these customers of the terms they agreed to. 

36 minutes ago, LuluChan said:

Yeah but honestly, so far the only seriously hateful complaints seem to be in his own personal, private, messages.

Unless he thinks of that Facebook group as his own private inbox, which would be a bit funny in a way. 
 

What I am really getting at is we need to avoid speculation turning into misinformation.

I.e. Danny says something > we discuss and speculate > 10 posts later someone is repeating the speculation as if it’s fact. 

There are two problems with that.

One, we don’t want our forum becoming a source of “fake stories.”

Two, Danny’s crazier fans can point at the fake stuff in order to discredit the real stuff, and that’s something I have seen happen quite often when fan armies get weaponized. 

Given the execrable nature of a post asking fans to bully people over pebbles, folks commenting on this have been really good about not making personal comments about Danny. 

1 hour ago, MaKayla_Panda said:

These are people who have enough disposable income to drop $500 USD on a random doll. These kinds of people carry a certain entitlement with them. Danny should have known that when he started this whole gacha process. Its retail for crying out loud. People will always complain especially when it comes to luxury goods. I don't know why he's so pressed about this. Just set up an automated email response reminding these customers of the terms they agreed to. 

I myself am a pretty emotionally sensitive person with widespread anxiety issues, but even I can usually let go of a bad customer interaction within a day or two. And I've also had a lot of troublesome transactions where the customers were very understanding of the whole situation. You can't just assume everyone with a problem is being entitled.

It helps that I'm not selling products I personally created/put a lot of emotional investment into, though...I can admit that I'd be a lot more sensitive about someone being rude to me in that situation. 

From my perspective, I would say that this does feel like an attempt to exercise control over resale.  Whether or not he consciously realizes this, I think that’s the ultimate outcome for people in the appreciation group, who certainly don’t want to upset the apple cart.  
 

Even if it’s not his intention to discourage resale of pebbles, if he indicates he is unhappy with people who were disappointed in what they got, then people who don’t want to upset him will be very cagey about making any post that might be misconstrued as being unhappy with a gacha pull, very much including a sales post.

As for the people having $500 dollars to drop on a random doll being entitled, I think the opposite is likely true.  For people for whom $500 isn’t a painful amount to spend, then they can afford to have their capital tied up in a doll while they sell it to someone else, or just have it sit in their collection.  They’ll have more $500 to spend on other dolls or subsequent pulls.  It’s the people for whom $500 is painful, who have to wait until that doll sells to try again or buy a new one who are more likely to feel genuine distress over not getting what they want.  I don’t think either of those feelings amount to entitlement.  
 

People often have buyer’s remorse after a gacha, not just over what they pull, but that they did a gacha in the first place.  It’s all fueled by the fomo, and some people are definitely more susceptible to gambling.  And I also agree with the comment of the rarity of boy dolls currently.  If you want a boy, it’s very tempting to try for a he pebble, especially since those all seem to be Gemini.

I think maybe because of the fact that during COVID19 we’re all stuck inside, that everyone is spending more time on social media.  There are fewer things to distract us from stewing over random posts.  That includes us as well as DC.  
 

It’s always a little uncomfortable to realize a creator is looking over your shoulder, and it has a chilling effect on what you do and how honest you’re willing to be, especially when that has a direct impact on your ability to purchase items in the future.  Even if your intention is to not be negative or hateful, honest discussions of problems, desire for improvements, or just talking about your feelings all becomes super hard when you never know when you’re going to get vaguely called out.

The vagueness of the DC posts feeds this.

Since no one knows if they’re the actual source of the call out, or if they’re just being cagey and it’s not really about them, it will have an even greater chilling effect.

4 hours ago, monkeypizzasonic said:

I myself am a pretty emotionally sensitive person with widespread anxiety issues, but even I can usually let go of a bad customer interaction within a day or two.

On my end, I get the feeling it is a publicity thing. To stir the pot a little.
Throw in a white lie/exaggeration to get people talking and sharing the Smart Doll name - even if it is bad stuff.
It seems stupid, yes. But I can't shake the feeling.
Just like @finnleo said, he cannot seem to go long without posting something questionable

I recently sold all my Smartdolls and feel so much relief for it. I feel that things are escalating and the "fans" have been making me super uncomfortable for a while now. Part of collecting for me is sharing with others, and I didn't feel that community was something I wanted any part of lately. I mean, it has been slowly getting worse and worse, and I did try to go it alone, but I couldn't enjoy my dolls at all. It does seem every "community" has their drama and problems, but these seem self imposed on the part of the "creator/designer" and while I enjoy a bit of snark, his goes a bit too far IMO. It is extremely off putting, and when I add up what I spent on dolls and things from him the number makes me physically sick  Never again. He lost a customer for good, and I am sure it doesn't matter as there seems to be plenty of bottomless pockets to buy his stuff, but I feel a whole lot better now that I have removed myself from it.

21 hours ago, monkeypizzasonic said:

I myself am a pretty emotionally sensitive person with widespread anxiety issues, but even I can usually let go of a bad customer interaction within a day or two. And I've also had a lot of troublesome transactions where the customers were very understanding of the whole situation. You can't just assume everyone with a problem is being entitled.

It helps that I'm not selling products I personally created/put a lot of emotional investment into, though...I can admit that I'd be a lot more sensitive about someone being rude to me in that situation. 

Yeah, I have anxiety like omg! Thanks, brain. Most of the stuff I make is given away for free, so of course that attracts negativity sometimes.

I think I only had one time where someone caught me in a bad mood, and I responded to the crit with some light snark/bitterness. Then I realised I was in a bad mood, and apologised, saying they caught me in a grumpy moment.

The number 1 way I have found to diffuse "haters" is with positivity. People can't get to you if you say 'thanks' or 'I'm sorry, I'll sort it', depending on the situation. Someone trolled me once with "wtf why did you even make this garbage, blah blah etc" and I just explained why I made the garbage and that was the end of it. XD

Uh, I might have hugely nicked these techniques from the Konami forum (I think?) where whenever someone posts "why don't you do x/y/z unreasonable thing raaargh rudeness!! This game suuuucks", their mod would post "thanks for your feedback" and that usually worked XD

I mean, I don't think this would work on a large number of people/organised campaign. But for the amount of stuff it's likely Smart Dolls get, it should work fine. If a bigger company like Konami can do it, then yeah, there's no reason to respond so much to every little thing. Especially as it's caused this cycle of fear/intimidation, and more criticism, so even more intimidation... and so on.

But I dunno. My trauma reaction is fawn and not fight, so ymmv. Oh man this post got away from me!

37 minutes ago, CrazyDollPerson said:

I recently sold all my Smartdolls and feel so much relief for it. I feel that things are escalating and the "fans" have been making me super uncomfortable for a while now. Part of collecting for me is sharing with others, and I didn't feel that community was something I wanted any part of lately. I mean, it has been slowly getting worse and worse, and I did try to go it alone, but I couldn't enjoy my dolls at all. It does seem every "community" has their drama and problems, but these seem self imposed on the part of the "creator/designer" and while I enjoy a bit of snark, his goes a bit too far IMO. It is extremely off putting, and when I add up what I spent on dolls and things from him the number makes me physically sick  Never again. He lost a customer for good, and I am sure it doesn't matter as there seems to be plenty of bottomless pockets to buy his stuff, but I feel a whole lot better now that I have removed myself from it.

It's really sad that your dolls and your enjoyment must pay the cost of the action of DC and his fandom.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CG3CoMCBD9V/

Lots of stuff to unpack here. Blue coming soon, but it will be limited and followed by a green; milk bodies also coming (but he doesn't seem happy about it), also more hints that he's spying on our forum:

Quote

Also, just wanted to mention that there were a bunch of folks who insisted that our Interstellar blue girls were “all photoshopped and not real” and that “folks are going to be so disappointed that they are a fake” lol nice one.

*waves at Danny* Hi. How's Japan? Any plans for g04 in tea next year? Or maybe a g04 boy?

Not going to say anything about the limited color runs, because that totally makes sense - there's a lot of that in the resin side of the hobby. Milk coming back in a limited capacity is interesting though; I guess there was so many people upset over production stopping abruptly, even among the "non-haters", that he had to actually listen to the customers for once? Maybe if the "doesn't like DD hybrids" theory is true, he's decided he's more okay with DD heads on SmD bodies than the other way around? 

Either way, I am at least going to give him kudos for actually listening to the customers for once, instead of snarking more. Maybe more positive enforcement will encourage finding more ways to incorporate consumer feedback in ways that won't overtax the employees or strain production.
 

34 minutes ago, monkeypizzasonic said:

Maybe if the "doesn't like DD hybrids" theory is true, he's decided he's more okay with DD heads on SmD bodies than the other way around? 

Me memory is a bit fuzzy on this since it has been quite a few years ago, but I believe originally you could get the option parts to use a DD head on a SmD from CJ themselves, cant recall were all bodies shipped with the neck piece, or was it an optional thing you had to buy separate. So originally there was some banking on DD owners swapping to SmD bodies, but ... well you know, the evil big company came in and spoiled all the fun.

@finnleo I also vaguely remember reading something like this wayback when I first discovered Smart Dolls say 5 years ago. I did a bit of googling and while I couldn't find anything about an extra neck joint, I did find this: https://archive.dannychoo.com/en/posts/caring-for-your-smart-doll

If you look in the "Apparel and Compatability" section it pretty clearly details how to hybrid "any other doll head that has a larger neck socket" and also links to someone else's article where they do put a DD head on a SmD body. This could be what I'm thinking of, but it's not ringing any bells.

There's also something extra on the naked frame's neck peg here: https://archive.dannychoo.com/en/posts/the-smart-doll-body

It doesn't seem to be on the inside of the clear head either. I don't feel like this is what I'm remembering either though, it might just be for nice presentation.

2 hours ago, monkeypizzasonic said:

also more hints that he's spying on our forum:

Maybe they were all photoshopped, and when he realized he’d been caught he had to make blue to maintain his cred. 🤣😂🤣

It wouldn’t exactly be spying, he doesn’t even need an account to look at any of the forum posts. 

34 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

Maybe they were all photoshopped, and when he realized he’d been caught he had to make blue to maintain his cred. 🤣😂🤣

It wouldn’t exactly be spying, he doesn’t even need an account to look at any of the forum posts. 

I personally feel that this was actually the case, plus he realized what a great selling point this would be for his blind boxes since the blue girls are apparently the SSRs.

That sounds like too much work. I think it's more likely he had something vaguely blue but photoshopped the colors to be more vibrant until he could get the mix right or something.

I more meant "keeping an eye on this forum because he feels the need to read and respond to his "haters" or something". Even though most of us aren't mad, we're just disappointed most of the time.

I feel like I need to start addressing him directly more often now or something. 😅 Like "Hi by the way DC, how's your day going?" or "I do really like the blue you came out with, and I think forgoing blue heels to make more milk bodies was a wise decision that will satisfy your fanbase without overloading your employees. Do more of that please." or "If a lot of your fanbase is teens, you really should not be encouraging them to bully each other for any reason, even if it feels justified to you. There are enough bullies in the world right now, we need to save our ire for the people who truly deserve it, not just blindly attack anyone who says something that might possibly indicate they are unhappy with your company. Star Wars fans complain about Star Wars all the dang time, but they still love Star Wars."

Or "Sorry I've been ranting at you, it's just been a hella stressful time for my country and the world and this is possibly going to be the longest week of my life, and looking at doll news and being mildly annoyed at you is a heck of a lot less emotionally devastating then looking at real news right now."

...Okay, I'll stop before it gets too real here. 

I first saw the “blue girls are photoshopped” rumor on Tumblr so it could be possible he saw it elsewhere than here.  Regardless I’m glad he actually released the blue dolls after teasing them since he has a track record of teasing stuff that never happens.
It is a bit disappointing that blue will be limited, I understand why though.  I personally don’t need or want a blue girl so I’m not too mad about it 😂

1 hour ago, monkeypizzasonic said:

I feel like I need to start addressing him directly

One of the guys in the Nixon administration knew his phone was being tapped by the FBI during Watergate. He therefore always answered his phone with “F*ck Hoover! Yes, go ahead.”

Spoiler

For those who might not know US history: J. Edgar Hoover was a longtime director of the FBI who was subject to considerable hero worship within the Bureau.

 

1 hour ago, monkeypizzasonic said:

I more meant "keeping an eye on this forum because he feels the need to read and respond to his "haters" or something".

I know, and I wasn’t trying to be critical. I was just saying it’s publicly readable, so he’s welcome to read it just like anyone else. 

I think this isn't the only place photoshopping blue dolls was speculated on. I think it popped up on the bjd confession tumblr too..? People there are waaaay more harsh than we are here.

But even if they were photoshopped, does it matter? I like testing faceup plans in photoshop before doing anything to my dolls. It's still useful to test ideas before jumping in too deep.

But as Danny's reading... hey I had an idea! I dunno if you have considered this, but as you posted ages ago about discontinuing one of the sets of hand parts, it might be cool to offer it as a free printable, the way that discontinued boob parts are offered. Maybe? I mean, it's up to you, dude. Could be a good way for those pieces to live on.

(I actually don't know what's available as 3D downloads, aside from the boob parts. ^^; )

3 hours ago, Katsudon said:

I think this isn't the only place photoshopping blue dolls was speculated on. I think it popped up on the bjd confession tumblr too..? People there are waaaay more harsh than we are here.

But even if they were photoshopped, does it matter? I like testing faceup plans in photoshop before doing anything to my dolls. It's still useful to test ideas before jumping in too deep.

Ooooh yeah, the rabid Danny haters on those confession blogs are ridiculous.  They’re just as bad as the rabid fans in my book.

And in my opinion photoshopped pictures would have been really bad if they were being used to tease a product that was never going to happen.  Photoshopped mockups to test if his audience was interested in a blue skin tone wouldn’t have been bad in itself, but Danny was hyping up the concept of Interstellar Blue a lot.  He would have just been adding more fuel to the fire so to speak if he had hyped up a new skin tone and then just never released it.

On 7/22/2020 at 12:23 AM, bbotss said:

@CrazyDollPerson I dug this up. This was from the SDL group during one of the "wabi sabi" discussions. Completely "rational" discourse from one of his most ardent supporters.

Sounds like someone can't take advice or constructive criticism. To be fair, I don't know if the opinions were shared in a polite manner or not, but you can't shut down opinions. Especially when it comes to posting online.

Besides, isn't it less exhausting not taking everything like a personal attack? :'>

Also... I'm just catching up on the blue doll rumor discussion and I'm sorry that I find it all a bit funny  what a strange comment to casually publicly post! I can't help but find the whole "mystery" around the rumor a bit funny. They're just blue dolls after all!

I guess the Instagram links aren't showing up in the forums right now? Also, I can attest that this:

21 hours ago, monkeypizzasonic said:

also more hints that he's spying on our forum:

Is completely true. I have said nothing anywhere about SmD except on this forum. Then I found myself blocked on Instagram after talking about the Photoshopped blue (I could see where some areas that were missed in the selection process in a photo). So yeah, he is checking here. I'm just watching a train wreck and eating popcorn.

I can see some stuff on Facebook but he doesn't post everything on there. That blurb about people saying he Photoshopped (which he did) he didn't post on FB.

Do hope the people who want the blue dolls can get them, but I would not be surprised if they are limited even more to only previous customers.

Edited October 29, 2020 by kranberrijam

58 minutes ago, kranberrijam said:

I have said nothing anywhere about SmD except on this forum. Then I found myself blocked on Instagram

He must have a lot of free time to bother blocking people on instagram, for posting on other platforms... 
If only someone could police his actions too

54 minutes ago, Yumeiro said:

He must have a lot of free time to bother blocking people on instagram, for posting on other platforms... 
If only someone could police his actions too

Everyone has too much free time and too much pent up stress right now, which is not a good combination.

Japan seems to be doing a lot better than the US in terms of outbreak control right now though; maybe once the team is settled into their new space they can consider opening the storefront again and that will keep everyone busy (and also help with the money situation and then maybe he'll cut down on charging ridiculous prices for garage stuff).

I might be biased though - I work at Joann fabrics and we've been open literally the whole time because people needed supplies to make masks, and I'm lucky enough to be in a part of Florida where the masks mandates have been pretty well enforced, so I'm probably less afraid of public spaces than most right now.*

*Yes, I always wear a mask, have hand sanitizer on me at all times, and immediately toss my clothes in the wash and take a shower when I get home. A rare time my anxiety issues have actually been helpful lol.

2 hours ago, Yumeiro said:

He must have a lot of free time to bother blocking people on instagram, for posting on other platforms... 
If only someone could police his actions too

He blocked one of my friends on FB after she suggested that Volks replacement parts might be used since milk is being discontinued. She can't find him on facebook nor see any of his posts, and she's in the Appreciation Society. (She also posted a pic of smartdolls bowing to a DDP Coron, so it could be that too.)

Edited October 29, 2020 by bbotss