The Facebook debacle & other issues

9 hours ago, mizya said:

I don't personally agree with the "customer is god/customer is always right" kind of approach, but Danny is taking it to the other extreme, where the customer needs to read several pages of texts saying "REASONS NOT TO BUY", jump through hoops to even place an order, and then be subjected to scrutinisation to determine if they're "worthy" enough of a smartdoll - or if they'll get their order cancelled and perhaps a ban from the website altogether if they give "wrong answers" in the scrutinisation email. Which is just completely ridiculous. And that is why I keep saying he shouldn't make his dolls commercial products, since he clearly wants to handpick his customers.

I don't agree with that either. There's a nice middle ground for how to handle business. But ultimately he's tied his ego too tightly to the dolls and so he's being hypersensitive toward any criticism of them which is the reason for all the rigamarole. So I think it's just as much about protecting his fee-fees as it is about being elitist. Obviously there will always be customers who are rude or didn't read the fine print, but in DC's case...there's too much fine print to slog through. I'd truly like to know how involved it is to buy a Smart Doll these days. IIRC it wasn't this involved when it started. I wouldn't be surprised if there's some kind of secret easter egg type code buried deep in the depths of his various tomes that will let you gain the ability to buy a doll.  

25 minutes ago, RozenGermain said:

Haha that makes sense! What projects would those be anyway? Customizations? I have toyed with SmD customs before since I've seen people do them! But at this point I think the best option for me is second hand Smarties (or dealers), due to me posting on this thread and being critical of Danny in general....

yes customization mostly. then they resell everything else.

Edited May 3, 2024 by DollyDearest

1 hour ago, SonataAvalon said:

Project S sounds like an anime lol

with Gundam's lol

On 5/3/2024 at 5:28 PM, RozenGermain said:

Haha that makes sense! What projects would those be anyway? Customizations? I have toyed with SmD customs before since I've seen people do them! But at this point I think the best option for me is second hand Smarties (or dealers), due to me posting on this thread and being critical of Danny in general....

I prefer second hand anyway or fabric friends and dolls.

Edited May 5, 2024 by DollyDearest

14 hours ago, mizya said:

And I said "I want to say specifically in the US" because Danny himself says the majority of smartdoll owners are in the US, and the maps he posts tend to feature the US the most. Also, he attends a lot of cons & events in the US so it seems like he's mostly focusing on the US market. And I feel like the creators he features the most tend to be US based.

Not to be political, but what really gets me about his heightened focus on the US market is that we're gonna be going into a recession, and his inability to gain tangible traction in other markets (due to the combination of his marketing approach and his grating personality) is going to be a bullet right to the foot. Not just because we're his main focus, but because a lot of the worlds economy is tied up in the US dollar's influence on the market (even though the US dollar is losing power, however slowly), so if we go down, so do a lot of his other markets, which would mean he would have an extremely hard time pivoting to focus on a different market to save himself financially.

The purchasing power of the average American right now is extremely limited. A full basket of groceries for a single family right now can cost nearly more than half of what it costs to buy a SmartDoll (not including the accessories and clothes), and the monthly average rent for a single bedroom apartment in the US is $1.5k, which means less and less people can be marketed to, because if we can't afford the basic necessities for survival (food and shelter), how are we supposed to afford a luxury item without skipping multiple meals to save what little money we make? The average American is one paycheck away from homelessness.

On 5/2/2024 at 3:30 PM, SonataAvalon said:

I am from US, can tell you that this "approach to marketing" does and wouldn't work. Even if being polite is an aim, you should see your customers as just "customers." people with a genuine interest in your service/item you offer.

And usually a businesses here goes for the "you'll buy it because you're falling for our marketing ploy lol"

See, my only issue with this is that we do have companies who think and act like this on a frequent basis, it's just that they have PR teams that keep them paletable for potential customer consumption. Danny refuses to get a PR team, which would buffer us from a lot of the things he says and does if he had one; but even when a rogue US CEO says some off-the-wall bullhonky (like the Kellogg CEO suggesting poor people "just eat cereal for dinner" to survive record inflation and low wages), that behavior doesn't always automatically translate into losing the market. Kellogg is doing just fine, shockingly enough, despite basically saying 'let them eat cake' during one of the most difficult times modern Americans have faced financially.

Americans, unfortunately, are also fickle. We are slaves to our creature comforts and the convenience of our surroundings, and we will always choose those over having to be a little uncomfy to make a point. Not to mention that, as consumers, we tend to make our purchases somehow be a part of who we are as people. Like alcoholic drinks, for example: someone who drinks Budweiser often refuses to drink anything else on the firmly held belief that their subjective opinion on how good Budweiser is outweighs anyone else's opinion, and thus everything else is 'p***y beer', for either being too sweet or just not being something they personally enjoy. The same thing happened with SmartDoll, which is why there are so many sycophants who will fight tooth and nail at Danny's behest, because they believe that their subjective adoration for this particular doll brand means all other doll brands are inferior.

It genuinely can't be said that companies in the US abide by the standard 'the customer is always right' motto (in the sense that they will placate to the customer's whims) when they actively pick sides in divisive situations and put out ads to target specific demographics while ignoring other demographics entirely due to reputation and market data. They only follow that motto in the sense that the customer is only right if they fit the demographic they want to sell to, and everyone else is just bonus money if and when those people opt for their product.

Also, yeah, the pandering to select demographics during specific times and in a limited capacity solely to make more money is very annoying (speaking as a minority who's pandered to every single June and only during June)

TL;DR: America is gonna be in a recession soon, which is gonna effect Danny's financials because he isn't as focused on his other markets, and US companies can be just as bad as he can be, they just have a PR filter that Danny refuses to get.

Didn't he also ruin his rep with the Chinese doll community too, by making some insulting comments about them as well?
It really sadly seems like he's been his own worst enemy, beyond the 'nasty customers' that he wants to blame for everything.

7 hours ago, Blueberrie said:

Didn't he also ruin his rep with the Chinese doll community too, by making some insulting comments about them as well?
It really sadly seems like he's been his own worst enemy, beyond the 'nasty customers' that he wants to blame for everything.

I never heard about this... Do tell....

8 hours ago, Blueberrie said:

Didn't he also ruin his rep with the Chinese doll community too, by making some insulting comments about them as well?
It really sadly seems like he's been his own worst enemy, beyond the 'nasty customers' that he wants to blame for everything.

I have been looking at getting a SmD for some time but would randomly see some negatives popping up.... What happened for this one?

I found this...wow.

 

24 minutes ago, ZandurFox said:

 

I found this...wow.

 

Looks like the OP's account was deleted though, and that makes me a bit hesitant to take the post at face value. 

29 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

Looks like the OP's account was deleted though, and that makes me a bit hesitant to take the post at face value. 

As weird as it sounds, it's really not that odd to see people deleting their reddit accounts, especially if they've essentially made it as a throwaway for one thing.  I've seen tons of users in hobby subreddits delete their accounts after getting an answer they don't like/regretting the post/etc.  It's super easy to trash an account there, so I don't doubt the possibility of a user feeling guilty initially but then regretting their post for whatever reason and opting to nuke the whole thing.

I have no leg in this race personally, but it's been a wild thread to read through! I used to browse Culture Japan casually and browse Figure.fm, but began to lose interest when Danny's doll profiles started seeming weirdly...defensive?  I simply stopped following since I was more in the resin scene anyway, so to read all this years later feels almost surreal.

Edited May 5, 2024 by mmmuguet
typos

2 hours ago, ZandurFox said:

I found this...wow.

 

Although I read many of the drama about Danny, but some just seems off and feels more like he got bombarded so much by the nonsense that he got really annoyed.
Like that reddit post... wanting to return and get a refund just because of a post that the OP read? hummm...

Sounds more like the OP wanting to feel socially accepted by the groups that he/she is in... Even mentioned the SmD being "like her daughter". Looks like he/she would also refund her IRL daughter if someone said something negative about her? hummmm....

1 hour ago, HongBee said:

Although I read many of the drama about Danny, but some just seems off and feels more like he got bombarded so much by the nonsense that he got really annoyed.
Like that reddit post... wanting to return and get a refund just because of a post that the OP read? hummm...

Sounds more like the OP wanting to feel socially accepted by the groups that he/she is in... Even mentioned the SmD being "like her daughter". Looks like he/she would also refund her IRL daughter if someone said something negative about her? hummmm....

The way the post is written makes it seem like the OP might be a teenager, so I wouldn't put too much stock into it. Some people are very socially sensitive.

On 4/30/2024 at 8:44 AM, RozenGermain said:

Now you're making wonder.... How much of my two big issues with Volks (boy bodies not being easy to get, colorism with how hard the darkest option is to get and how that's just a light tan) can be traced back to it's target audience of otaku subculture? Otaku are pretty looked down on in JP if I'm being honest (as someone who called themselves an otaku before despite my problems with the subculture), but that's not really the point. If you're familiar with the "otaku fantasy" genre of light novel/anime, you'll notice certain tropes (the stereotypical otaku fantasy plot is that a Kirito-sue goes to another world where women fall for him despite being a loser, and any man who could threaten that is an evil creep). This, coupled with me learning on this forum (don't remember the thread though) that the main demographic in Volks' fanbase in regards to Dollfie Dream is male otaku, had me thinking about that. Like you, I have no idea why Danny would pivot to a more "playline doll" market anyway, but it would make sense for it to be that he's not able to compete with Volks in the otaku market. Maybe the increase in diversity/variety with his dolls is part of an attempt to distance himself from otaku, even if the consequence is that SmD is friendlier in regards to owner customization than before. Someone earlier did say that SmDs have more mainstream appeal, likely because Danny's marketing of stuff that otaku stereotypically don't like. Doesn't excuse Danny's current "boys are icky" mentality in regards to the dolls though, or his behavior.

it's like reverse misogyny, or uncle ruckus syimdrome.  ( "boys are icky mentality). So I guess David so macho is just another April fool's joke. shoulda known.

1 hour ago, DollyDearest said:

it's like reverse misogyny, or uncle ruckus syimdrome.  ( "boys are icky mentality). So I guess David so macho is just another April fool's joke. shoulda known.

When I mentioned the "boys are icky" mentality, it was toward the dolls. I mean the fact that he favors the girl dolls over the boys. Now, this is a general problem with doll makers, something I attribute to men's fashion being boring (It really shouldn't be). But what the hell is "Uncle Ruckus Syndrome" anyway? I never heard of it... I'd say it's not so much reverse misogyny so much as a general assumption that boy dolls don't sell, neither with girl or boys, which sucks for us boy doll collectors (if you ignore the blind box and fashion dolls, my crew is all boys)! XD

4 hours ago, RozenGermain said:

When I mentioned the "boys are icky" mentality, it was toward the dolls. I mean the fact that he favors the girl dolls over the boys. Now, this is a general problem with doll makers, something I attribute to men's fashion being boring (It really shouldn't be). But what the hell is "Uncle Ruckus Syndrome" anyway? I never heard of it... I'd say it's not so much reverse misogyny so much as a general assumption that boy dolls don't sell, neither with girl or boys, which sucks for us boy doll collectors (if you ignore the blind box and fashion dolls, my crew is all boys)! XD

uncle ruckus is character from the show boondocks. he hates other people of color, cause he believes has reverse vitiligo. he's believes he's actually a white dude.  I just felt in my own opinion, that Danny hated boy dolls cause he's a cis male. plus they do sell well, when their available.  My crew is mostly dudes and two girls

Edited May 6, 2024 by DollyDearest

8 hours ago, DollyDearest said:

it's like reverse misogyny

Misandry is the male version of misogyny.

11 hours ago, BeyondTime said:

Misandry is the male version of misogyny.

oh okays thanks for clarifying 😊

On 5/6/2024 at 5:57 AM, RozenGermain said:

When I mentioned the "boys are icky" mentality, it was toward the dolls. I mean the fact that he favors the girl dolls over the boys. Now, this is a general problem with doll makers, something I attribute to men's fashion being boring (It really shouldn't be). But what the hell is "Uncle Ruckus Syndrome" anyway? I never heard of it... I'd say it's not so much reverse misogyny so much as a general assumption that boy dolls don't sell, neither with girl or boys, which sucks for us boy doll collectors (if you ignore the blind box and fashion dolls, my crew is all boys)! XD

I think its likely how the companies view "boy" toys and "girl" toys. Also their intended audience.

The dolls are mostly intended to be pretty. So from my perspective as a guy, i want and will be attracted by a pretty girl. Unless of course its Grimlock, a Sharticon or a guy in a rubber suit. In that case i want big teeth, a hoard of them and Ultraman.

Personally, I cant see myself having a male doll. I spend most of the time staring and combing my Mizuki and feels strange if it is a "he". But if we are considering and categorizing them as "toys" then I do have figurines of the same size category and are "male". My wife however because of the type of figures she collects they are both male and female. They also come as a typical family.

22 hours ago, HongBee said:

My wife however because of the type of figures she collects they are both male and female. They also come as a typical family.

Does she collect Sylvanian Families? But anyway, it does make sense that the way companies view "boy toys" vs. "girl toys" plays a huge role in why boy dolls are less common compared to girls....

1 minute ago, RozenGermain said:

Does she collect Sylvanian Families? But anyway, it does make sense that the way companies view "boy toys" vs. "girl toys" plays a huge role in why boy dolls are less common compared to girls....

Yup thats right. The house is crawling with little critters... Some even bigger than SmD or DDs haha

We've had a lot of off-topic in this thread recently, so let's try to stay on-topic. Talking about SmD policy on boy dolls is totally fair game, but let's move social conversation to the forum's off-topic section. You can talk about anything there as long as you follow the guidelines regarding inappropriate content. 

On 5/3/2024 at 10:38 AM, Monty said:

I was a bit confused by this remark because it’s not..completely true? If by ‘Tenshi stores’ ragnamuffin meant any of the stores with ‘Tenshi no Sumika’, those are just all their stores that sell doll stuff, period. Of them, the only ones that are exclusively for SD are Tenshi no Mado in Harajuku and Tenshi no Sato in Kyoto. They’re very SD focussed stores, so I kinda don’t really know why you would want to take a DD there anyway (speaking as a fan of both). Once apon a time they actually were allowed in Sato, but the popular rumour (although it’s spoken about so much it’s more like an open secret at this point) was that a bunch of very rude, perverted DD fans ruined it for everyone else by taking NSFW photos and bothering both patrons and staff. They’re still allowed in the private photo rooms that you can pay to book - but again…id rather use the ones in Akiba Doll Point for free. (Anyway, since the infamous DD banning incident was so long ago and the fanbases are less distinct from eachother, I do wonder if they’ll allow them back soon? They did allow DDs at the private party at Sato recently…) As for all other ‘Tenshi stores’ (Tenshi no sumika’, DDs are welcomed - I mean they’d have to be, theyre sold there. I used to take mine to the Fukuoka one every other weekend. If you take a look at the regular group photos at the different Tenshi no Sumika shops throughout Japan you can regularly see DDs participating - and some you only see DDs.

The rules for the SD photo booths explicitly ban entanglements of two or more bodies and risqué clothing, so I suspect there's some truth to the rumour.

2 hours ago, Kemonomimicry said:

The rules for the SD photo booths explicitly ban entanglements of two or more bodies and risqué clothing, so I suspect there's some truth to the rumour.

God I hope that the entanglement thing isn't a ban on hugs.....

1 hour ago, RozenGermain said:

God I hope that the entanglement thing isn't a ban on hugs.....

I'd think cute, sweet, and friendly is probably fine.