"toxic Smart Doll community"?

19 minutes ago, lucidium said:

It's worth noting that this is the same dude who made a buncha option hands, one of them was a middle finger hand. I'm guessing that's why danny banned him because he doesn't like what the dude is doing to his dolls...

If it’s who I am thinking of, I kind of doubt that it was the middle finger hand. The issue might be the SmD to DD hand conversion part that allows SmD hands to be used on DD frames. If it is who I am thinking of, then now he can fight fire with fire and make a head conversion part that allows SmD heads to fit the DD neck peg. XD

1 hour ago, BeyondTime said:

If it’s who I am thinking of, I kind of doubt that it was the middle finger hand. The issue might be the SmD to DD hand conversion part that allows SmD hands to be used on DD frames. If it is who I am thinking of, then now he can fight fire with fire and make a head conversion part that allows SmD heads to fit the DD neck peg. XD

I'm inclined to agree with this, and I hope he does! I don't have any milk SmD heads, but it would be tempting to get one second hand and stick it on a DD body.

1 hour ago, Deyja said:

I'm inclined to agree with this, and I hope he does! I don't have any milk SmD heads, but it would be tempting to get one second hand and stick it on a DD body.

I have the middle finger hands and the mod. Works like a charm, and it was easy to install the mod onto the Volks wrist. 

Now Sailor Mercury can flip people off. 

I started to think, I've come across with heavily modded SmD heads in Facebook sales pages. Does somebody know what does Danny think of this? Have people gotten banned from buying stuff or is he ok with the fact that people are modding dolls (and selling then away)?

I would sincerely hope that Danny wouldn't throw a fit over a custom hand, adult gesture or not. We're talking about a guy that made big-as-possible boobs with and without headlights, and referred to them as such.

Volks sure doesn't care if their stuff is used with SmD. It's like a one sided fight, and I'm picturing Danny as a little yapping chihuahua biting at a big ol retriever's ankles.

Volks also doesn't give a crap what people do with their dolls. Limited or not, you can do whatever you want. There are even the uh...really 'special' mods and I've never seen anything from Volks about that, but I could've just missed it.

8 minutes ago, DreamDollDesign said:

I would sincerely hope that Danny wouldn't throw a fit over a custom hand, adult gesture or not. We're talking about a guy that made big-as-possible boobs with and without headlights, and referred to them as such.

^This. -.-

@DreamDollDesign The single major difference in this particular area is that Volks doesn't condemn modding and customization - they celebrate it. Hell, they even periodically hold contests where owners can design face-ups of their own even with modding, and the three favorites get rewards.

And while I can't speak for Danny himself, his community flies into rages over custom faceups, so I'm willing to bet they would probably rage over any mods, too.

Would making rude gesture parts warrant a ban? I know Danny is trying to clean up his brand *somewhat* and make it kid friendly. If people are snitching each other out for Doll Privileges wouldn't it be something more private? I don't think he's banned anyone yet for mere criticisms, mostly "egregious" customer service complaints or product QC or partaking in something that could be construed as hateful (like the photoshop FB banner thing but then the whole lot was punished wrongly for one person's poor joke). So idk, maybe he was ratted out as having said something hateful in private (since a Discord server was brought up) or made some sort of QC complaint that rubbed someone the wrong way if we're to believe that Danny did have a reason.

Edited April 27, 2021 by Kotone

@Kotone Couldn't say for certain, to be honest. But knowing his community, they would likely rage over them, or take them as a 'slight' against Danny. (I think they're funny, but ymmv.)

21 minutes ago, Kotone said:

So idk, maybe he was ratted out as having said something hateful in private

If it’s who I think it is, this person seems too polite to say something like that. I don’t know them as well as Billy, but in all my interactions with this person they have never come off as rude or discourteous. 

11 hours ago, Katsudon said:

So, @baldylox, sympathy with having to watch it all slowly unfold. I still love the dolls so much, despite a bit of snark, and wish the scene was more chill.

Thank you.  Luckily I'm able to distance my dolls from the brand and the antics so I still enjoy and love the Smartdolls I have.  I also enjoy seeing other owners SmD girls too.  I don't NOT like the dolls.  I don't like the actions of the company they come from.  

 

 

Billy

2 hours ago, baldylox said:

Thank you.  Luckily I'm able to distance my dolls from the brand and the antics so I still enjoy and love the Smartdolls I have.  I also enjoy seeing other owners SmD girls too.  I don't NOT like the dolls.  I don't like the actions of the company they come from.  

 

 

Billy

Same ^^; I'm really glad I can maintain that cognitive barrier, I guess, because they are pretty dolls. I wish I could share my Justice; I like her enough that she's out sitting on a table next to me. 😄 I like seeing all the creativity and the custom dolls people make. And I really hope maybe one day people will be able to share their work without worrying about bans or backlash.

Kinda on the original topic, it's really odd to see hate for custom dolls. There's people doing custom stuff with chaos heads all the time! After all, what else are people going to do with them? (I know this situation is different, but I hope no one is put off trying stuff.)

Don't mind me o_o I'm getting overly sentimental and empathetic. Bleh, feelings.

Edited April 28, 2021 by Katsudon

7 hours ago, BeyondTime said:

I have the middle finger hands and the mod. Works like a charm, and it was easy to install the mod onto the Volks wrist. 

Now Sailor Mercury can flip people off. 

lol This has to be a picture taken someday by someone, anyone!

37 minutes ago, Katsudon said:

Kinda on the original topic, it's really odd to see hate for custom dolls. There's people doing custom stuff with chaos heads all the time! After all, what else are people going to do with them? (I know this situation is different, but I hope no one is put off trying stuff.)

That's the problem. Because there are chaos heads now, there are those who believe that customs should best be done on chaos stuff so that the original, non-chaos dolls can be preserved and saved for those who can appreciate them in their un-customized glory.

13 hours ago, Veravey said:

That's a very important detail for context. I try to remind myself I'll typically never know the full story unless I'm involved, who knows what the true information is.

Yeah he made them for sale and posted them several times on his IG so danny could have seen it there. Though someone else did bring up that he made DD to SmD hand converter pegs, which i totally forgot about. That most likely sealed the seal lol

7 hours ago, Selenae said:

@DreamDollDesign The single major difference in this particular area is that Volks doesn't condemn modding and customization - they celebrate it. Hell, they even periodically hold contests where owners can design face-ups of their own even with modding, and the three favorites get rewards.

And while I can't speak for Danny himself, his community flies into rages over custom faceups, so I'm willing to bet they would probably rage over any mods, too.

Yep, that's exactly what I was thinking of - the contests.

Danny is just shooting himself in the foot, and allowing his fanbase to do the same. I find it hilarious that he thinks he could possibly be some kind of exception to customization. Barbies, Monster High, Nendoroids, resin dolls, Volks dolls all get customized lmao. How big, exactly, can his ego get? 

Be interesting to see if the new frame he is designing has features that make hybridization harder. 

2 hours ago, BeyondTime said:

if the new frame he is designing has features that make hybridization harder

To offset some recent personal dissapointments ... I cant help myself:

carry on... (*goes back to tinkering with Jurassic World Evolution ....*)

Edited April 28, 2021 by finnleo

On 4/27/2021 at 8:20 AM, lucidium said:

It's worth noting that this is the same dude who made a buncha option hands, one of them was a middle finger hand. I'm guessing that's why danny banned him because he doesn't like what the dude is doing to his dolls... Which should be none of his BS IMO especially because it's pretty harmless.

Thank you for the info! I'm pretty new so while I've seen those hands on IG I didn't know it was the person on Facebook. He certainly portrayed it as just a stray comment or something.  

Hmmm, this does change my view of the situation. While I do agree it shouldn't matter if one person is making customs for themselves, I can see how DC would be upset if it's being sold to others as a product when he's trying to be family friendly. I'm not saying it is right, it would make more sense to reach out and ask that person not to sell them. It's a tricky situation because I can understand how a creative wouldn't want their art to be changed in a way they might find distasteful, but on the other hand dolls especially have always been a customizable product. 

1 hour ago, ladyroselie said:

Hmmm, this does change my view of the situation. While I do agree it shouldn't matter if one person is making customs for themselves, I can see how DC would be upset if it's being sold to others as a product when he's trying to be family friendly. I'm not saying it is right, it would make more sense to reach out and ask that person not to sell them. It's a tricky situation because I can understand how a creative wouldn't want their art to be changed in a way they might find distasteful, but on the other hand dolls especially have always been a customizable product.

That’s kind of the thing though, the doll industry has been filled with third party creators since before Culture Japan existed. On top of that, third party vendors regularly attend Volks Dolpa as dealers, and occasionally Volks sells their products directly. AFAIK the Obitsu centric events are like that as well. Sadly, in the West we only see a fraction of what is available in Japan at doll events. I believe the dresses sold with the Volks charity auction dolls are made by dressmakers who aren’t Volks employees. 

Culture Japan isn’t Volks, and isn’t forced to do it the Volks way, but IMO any notion that SmartDolls wouldn’t be customized in ways their creator didn’t intend is his own private fantasy - or possibly that of his fan club.

My own feeling is the hand conversion was the issue and not the hands. The owner of CJ has a long history of making borderline obscene mods for his own dolls, and making numerous juvenile jokes involving female anatomy, so I just can’t see middle finger hands being an issue. 

Our own speculation has been that cinnamon skin replaced milk skin because it prevents people from making hybrids.

tl;dr

The guy who made the hands isn’t doing anything everyone else hasn’t been doing for ages, but CJ doesn’t want bits of his dolls mixed with other dolls. 

40 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

tl;dr

The guy who made the hands isn’t doing anything everyone else hasn’t been doing for ages, but CJ doesn’t want bits of his dolls mixed with other dolls. 

I can see what you mean for sure! I don't think he's in the right here, and he's definitely immature no doubt. I just think it's also worth considering his actions from the perspective of an extremely emotionally sensitive person. He's probably too sensitive to run a company like this and really should delegate a lot more of it then he does, but I think I can see the roots of a lot of these actions. The online community in pretty much any fandom can go between extremes of awesome friends and bat crazy nasties. It seems like he's more hung up on the bad then the good right now.

Ultimately it makes me feel kind of sorry for him that he's got some issues with trust and self-worth to engage in these behaviors. I truly wish he would get a business manager and maybe some therapy or self-help material to deal with what seems to be a lot of personal insecurities. His product is good, the company morals are (at least espoused to be) good. He just needs to let it breathe and heal. 

Edited April 28, 2021 by ladyroselie
Grammar

1 hour ago, ladyroselie said:

I just think it's also worth considering his actions from the perspective of an extremely emotionally sensitive person.

We’ve gone that route in various threads before, but any attempts to empathize with his situation invariably get negated by the story that gets told by the casualty of the next tantrum. 

There is also something to be said about an inability to learn from mistakes or recognize that behavior that repeatedly produces bad results as a problem. After that goes on for awhile it’s not unreasonable for people to ask the question is the bad behavior representative of the real person, and the outward good behavior an act?

56 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

We’ve gone that route in various threads before, but any attempts to empathize with his situation invariably get negated by the story that gets told by the casualty of the next tantrum. 

There is also something to be said about an inability to learn from mistakes or recognize that behavior that repeatedly produces bad results as a problem. After that goes on for awhile it’s not unreasonable for people to ask the question is the bad behavior representative of the real person, and the outward good behavior an act?

That's a very good point. I've read through some of the more recent pages on the Facebook debacle thread, but not far back enough to see that part of the discussion. I apologize if I dragged up an old argument. 🙇🏼‍♀️

I do feel that some of his recent social media posts appear to be virtue signaling 😒

 

 

48 minutes ago, ladyroselie said:

I apologize if I dragged up an old argument.

No worries, here old debates meet new members all the time. I’m just explaining some of the cynicism you are seeing. For a lot of us it’s gone beyond giving second or third chances. 
 

48 minutes ago, ladyroselie said:

I do feel that some of his recent social media posts appear to be virtue signaling

There has been some very ham fisted virtue signaling in the past. 

56 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

No worries, here old debates meet new members all the time. I’m just explaining some of the cynicism you are seeing. For a lot of us it’s gone beyond giving second or third chances. 
 

There has been some very ham fisted virtue signaling in the past. 

I can definitely understand being worn out with the drama! Smartdolls feel fun and new to me right now, but because of the two sides to the community I'm definitely bring cautious about it. I don't want to get too pulled into anything if I can avoid it. 

The virtue signaling on IG seems to work for some I guess. I just find it pretty transparent and that's why I sought out discussion of the brand in more then one place. 

Edited April 28, 2021 by ladyroselie
Grammar