The Facebook debacle & other issues

1 hour ago, littlebirdzoom said:

 

It's beyond ridiculous. I'm almost certain this dude is violating some sort of privacy laws. Obviously I don't know and can't say he is or not, but it's very suspicious. I'm still ???? at the reseller ban. His dolls are SO unavailable now anyway. Part of me wonders if in a few years he'll just give up on the company entirely and shift somewhere else, or only sells what he feels like at the time to throw the cult members scraps. It's weird. 

I'm a little lazy to look it up but didn't he work for Amazon or some other company, maybe have some background with coding or security? If so maybe that's how he's able to figure out all this. Sorry if that sounds a bit extreme but hearing this is baffling and worrisome...and just plain scary!

6 hours ago, littlebirdzoom said:

 

His dolls are SO unavailable now anyway. 

Wasn't he all about dolls you can always buy and fast shipping? Not like is "worst " enemy (aka Volks)

What is changed? 

Probably Covid and his physical shop being closed. Maybe if he reopened his physical shop and met more people in real life he might be more grounded in everything he is doing. Who knows, but I am still hoping that he stops all the nonsense he’s doing and goes back to all the things he originally promised, not the robot dolls, but the inclusive atmosphere and friendly and easy user face and no immediate ban lists. 

8 hours ago, ladyandlion said:

I'm a little lazy to look it up but didn't he work for Amazon or some other company, maybe have some background with coding or security? If so maybe that's how he's able to figure out all this.

He has a IT background, ran his own main blog site, a microblogging enviroment for a time, of which his main site served as a performance benchmark for any PC of the period, and I believe he also did the awful sluggish and slow to browse redesign for Amiami (which they seemed to push just to the western users in the end), so he is tech savvy enough.

Although there has been speculation that the banlist content is outsourced to more dedicated fans of his. (take this with a grain of salt)

Edited August 6, 2022 by finnleo

Just so people know, URLs on his site have a long string of numbers following them which works as a unique identifier. If you post anything from his site here, remove that number string just in case.

I realise this is paranoid, but owning Smart Dolls makes you paranoid.

wtf happened last night? i couldn't access this site.    were we hacked?    i agree though, that Shoes, should reopen said shop & meet & greet like the good ol days

Site broke for me too last night.

Shoes used to promote Volks and DD in the days of figure.fm. Shame that he has become the way that he is now.

I have read some of his company philosophy, and legitimate customer concerns regarding a relatively expensive product are being dismissed.

Customers can’t always be right, I agree. But from his perspective, apparently the customer is always wrong and any expectations they have over what he states is considered “unreasonable to his employees”.

18 hours ago, littlebirdzoom said:

So now I'm curious if information is being shared, which I'm pretty sure is illegal?

Danny has said before (like somewhere last year) that the hammer list was for the dealers too. So I am pretty sure personal info is shared otherwise it'd be easy to just order elsewhere.

Edited August 6, 2022 by Sebby

7 hours ago, Katsudon said:

Just so people know, URLs on his site have a long string of numbers following them which works as a unique identifier. If you post anything from his site here, remove that number string just in case.

I realise this is paranoid, but owning Smart Dolls makes you paranoid.

I don't think that suffices. Should delete cookies aswell.

Use a VPN and a burner phone 🤣 (kidding)

On 8/5/2022 at 9:23 AM, Audra said:

He's turned off commenting now in his instagram. Typical narcissistic behaviour: if I cannot block/report all those people with genuine concerns, I will make them unable to even respond to me. 

 

 

To be fair, you can't really blame him. After this last debacle I'm sure he's aware that a lot of crap was about to hit the fan in the way of comments on his posts. Let's face it, people can be pretty awful, way more awful than DC himself. I've seen some of the comments and posts on IG.  Apparently some people think this incident gives them permission to be just as big an a$$ (or bigger).  As one person put it (mostly with regard to social media), "our current culture has no sense of Grace."

I'm not giving him a pass, I'm just saying it can be pretty bad all the way around out there.  Yes, he could have avoided it with a real apology, but still.

It's all very exhausting.

On 8/5/2022 at 3:23 PM, fishbuttz said:

Truly, I think Danny would be much happier if he focused more on his inclusivity and his charity (for want of a better term) than he currently does. He's already got some good things going for him as far as disability merch and benign but noticeable skin differences, so lean into that. With permission, talk about the disabled people who love the free prosthetics that match their own, or the children with port wine stains/cleft lips that feel valuable because he has beautiful dolls with those same conditions. When things like the cochlear implant come up, discuss the competing views without judgment and show your commitment to being open to anyone, both the culturally deaf who take great pride in their lives and the children with implants who will grow up never knowing any different. Hell, do some outreach where some part of the profit margin of his disability dolls gets donated to medical research charities every few years. It's not much, but it's something. He gets praised, his dolls sell, the wider community learns to trust him again, everybody wins.

Wallowing in how much your "haters" drive you nuts 24/7 isn't good for your emotional health. Focusing on what you have achieved, not out of spite but out of genuine love and passion for the people you serve, is so much more rewarding.

VERY well said!

On 8/5/2022 at 7:23 PM, That_Dollfie_Dude said:

But the best thing that all these companies have is their professionalism.  You're never going to see Obitsu, Volks, Fairyland, or anyone else's CEO out on social media blasting their customers as entitled, or monitoring what you say about their dolls, etc.  The front of the company is strictly business.  And that's because they are all real businesses, not personal hobby projects funded by inheritance. 

This exactly! I've heard of him being terrible to possible/existing customers, banning people for no reason, and acting in a very unprofessional manner on his smart doll posts.

If he wanted to vent and do that kind of stuff in his private life to people he knew -that I would understand. But to do that on a public platform where he's advertising his products... He's being extremely unprofessional and comes off as very immature. 

 

On 8/6/2022 at 2:12 AM, littlebirdzoom said:

A little off topic from the current discussion, but I'm a little suspicious Choo is digging for information for his ban list. FabricFriends just told me, after I inquired about something, that I was on his hammer list. Yet the only time I've purchased from him was at the beginning, under someone else's name and have moved since then and am contacting under a different email. And I don't have my information online. So now I'm curious if information is being shared, which I'm pretty sure is illegal? I know we've talked about this a lot, but the direct confirmation that something fishy is going on was interesting. Welcome to the club, me lol

That sounds concerning.

On 8/6/2022 at 6:50 AM, finnleo said:

He has a IT background, ran his own main blog site, a microblogging enviroment for a time, of which his main site served as a performance benchmark for any PC of the period, and I believe he also did the awful sluggish and slow to browse redesign for Amiami (which they seemed to push just to the western users in the end), so he is tech savvy enough.

Although there has been speculation that the banlist content is outsourced to more dedicated fans of his. (take this with a grain of salt)

I... don't think y'all realize how much of your personal information is freely available online.

Everyone needs to Google themselves. If you have a Gmail (or other free email) address - is your profile public? Do you sign into other accounts with your Facebook/Gmail account? Can Google/Facebook/Instagram/Meta/Alphabet connect your email address between multiple accounts? Is your phone number publicly listed in an address book? Is your address publicly available on a yellow/white pages website?

This is part of what I do for my job so... you don't need an IT degree to find lots of information about people. Radaris and other people finder websites will list all the email addresses they think are associated with a person.

1 hour ago, MaleficentMrsofEvil said:

I... don't think y'all realize how much of your personal information is freely available online.

I am old enough to remember actual physical white papers at any public phonebooth, and our version of the DMV makes money off selling our information to telemarketers. But I guess some people might forget just how much they put out about themselves, or forget to tick a few boxes in the settings.

you also forgot certain defunct messaging services, I think ICQ was used as a basis for some online people finders.

But there is some valid speculation that there is also some manual cross referencing going on, and also who brings what to who's attention for said referencing.

Edited August 8, 2022 by finnleo

1 hour ago, finnleo said:

I am old enough to remember actual physical white papers at any public phonebooth, and our version of the DMV makes money off selling our information to telemarketers. But I guess some people might forget just how much they put out about themselves, or forget to tick a few boxes in the settings.

you also forgot certain defunct messaging services, I think ICQ was used as a basis for some online people finders.

But there is some valid speculation that there is also some manual cross referencing going on, and also who brings what to who's attention for said referencing.

hot topic sells ya phone # or e-mail to telemarkers   when ya sign up for hot cash.    

2 hours ago, MaleficentMrsofEvil said:

I... don't think y'all realize how much of your personal information is freely available online.

Everyone needs to Google themselves. If you have a Gmail (or other free email) address - is your profile public? Do you sign into other accounts with your Facebook/Gmail account? Can Google/Facebook/Instagram/Meta/Alphabet connect your email address between multiple accounts? Is your phone number publicly listed in an address book? Is your address publicly available on a yellow/white pages website?

This is part of what I do for my job so... you don't need an IT degree to find lots of information about people. Radaris and other people finder websites will list all the email addresses they think are associated with a person.

nope.  my phone # is only known to online stores i've shopped from.   besides, i got meh bases covered lolz

2 hours ago, MaleficentMrsofEvil said:

I... don't think y'all realize how much of your personal information is freely available online.

OOF. I try not to think about it too much because it kind of freaks me out. Makes me wonder if I've made it to the "hammer" list after posting in this thread some pages back. 

Also, reading DC's "apology" actually made me feel a little bit ill. Feel like I dodged a potential (very expensive) missile deciding not to buy a SmD.

I just.....why on earth hasn't he hired a PR team yet?! Having these kinds of scandals/issues constantly is NOT normal for a business. 😐

I still can't get over that apology smh 🤦‍♀️

8 minutes ago, Roserolls said:

I just.....why on earth hasn't he hired a PR team yet?! Having these kinds of scandals/issues constantly is NOT normal for a business. 😐

Because he's a control freak who has to have his hands with a stranglehold grip on every phase of the process, from the inception of the design to the day it leaves the store and beyond.

I'm half-joking. Danny's little empire was built on his personability. Looking back, his Culture Japan blog was really an early prototype of what we would now recognize as the "Lifestyle Influencer" phenomenon, with figure.fm acting almost like a public discord server. People like feeling close to their e-celebrities and Danny's whole brand relies heavily on him feeling like a genuine friend to his audience. If he were to relinquish some of that by having a PR team take over the, well, PR side of things, he'll likely lose some of the loyalty he's built up by being "close" with his staunchest supporters, and some of them certainly do believe they are close. On one hand, this would be a good thing as he'd become more palatable to the overall community, leading to a wider business pool. However, it could also be bad for profits in the same way that too many free unlockables are bad for gacha games. The target isn't the 95% of your audience that will only use freebies/buy a single doll with maybe one or two extra purchases for things they really want, it's the 5% "whales" that will sink obscene amounts of time/money into the game/brand (hello, prototype garage).

55 minutes ago, fishbuttz said:

 If he were to relinquish some of that by having a PR team take over the, well, PR side of things, he'll likely lose some of the loyalty he's built up by being "close" with his staunchest supporters, and some of them certainly do believe they are close.

 

Now that you mention it, this makes quite a lot of sense. The same way that streamers interact with their fans. In those communities the hardcore fans behave the same way, rallying behind the streamer that they support, even if said streamer did something questionable.

A good way to deal with that would be to have separate accounts for DC's personal posts and official SmD product announcements. He can do all the fun pics of behind the scenes stuff and traveling around Japan, and the official account with the PR staff can show new products - but make sure they check the pictures, the text, and the product itself beforehand and present it in a way that doesn't* offend anyone. And then if they do make a mistake they quickly and politely correct it without fuss.

* Or at least is less likely to offend most reasonable people, this is the internet after all.

Then DC would still have a way to express himself and interact directly with his fans, and people who just wanna see the pretty dolls without all the fluff attached can do so.

 

Probably unlikely, but it would solve a lot of problems I think.

Edited August 8, 2022 by monkeypizzasonic

9 hours ago, fishbuttz said:

Because he's a control freak who has to have his hands with a stranglehold grip on every phase of the process, from the inception of the design to the day it leaves the store and beyond.

I'm half-joking. Danny's little empire was built on his personability. Looking back, his Culture Japan blog was really an early prototype of what we would now recognize as the "Lifestyle Influencer" phenomenon, with figure.fm acting almost like a public discord server. People like feeling close to their e-celebrities and Danny's whole brand relies heavily on him feeling like a genuine friend to his audience. If he were to relinquish some of that by having a PR team take over the, well, PR side of things, he'll likely lose some of the loyalty he's built up by being "close" with his staunchest supporters, and some of them certainly do believe they are close. On one hand, this would be a good thing as he'd become more palatable to the overall community, leading to a wider business pool. However, it could also be bad for profits in the same way that too many free unlockables are bad for gacha games. The target isn't the 95% of your audience that will only use freebies/buy a single doll with maybe one or two extra purchases for things they really want, it's the 5% "whales" that will sink obscene amounts of time/money into the game/brand (hello, prototype garage).

whales huh   catchin moby is harder then it looks atm.     i smell blpd in the shoe.

51 minutes ago, DollyDearest said:

whales huh   catchin moby is harder then it looks atm.     i smell blpd in the shoe.

Admittedly, I haven't read Moby Dick... however there's gotta be some parallels about the futility of revenge. 🙃

10 hours ago, fishbuttz said:

Looking back, his Culture Japan blog was really an early prototype of what we would now recognize as the "Lifestyle Influencer" phenomenon,

Most of whom are just grifters, but I will give Danny this: he turned his influencer routine into an actual business that sells products so he’s not a grifter.

He really needs to lose the toxicity of the influencer scene and focus on toy making, but he clearly doesn’t want that.