Why did you join the forums?

I managed to find a Hatsune Miku, and being new to vinyl dolls, I wanted info.  I googled "vinyl doll forums," and this was the first one to pop up.  I lurked for a bit, saw how friendly (and informative) everyone was, and decided to join.

OOH, my 100th post!  YAY! 😁

 

Ryu

Edited February 17, 2023 by RyuichiSakuma13

Like others I lurked a lot initially because I'm shy, but I also don't have a lot of friends who are into doll collecting and wanted to connect with others who enjoyed it as well. Once my first dolls body arrived I decided to make an account! 

Also being newer to doll collecting there have been so many helpful resources on here which have been very appreciated!

I just wanted to talk to people, to share inspiration and get inspired. 

Bump!

The classic forum / BBS format is my favourite way to interact with people online. It encourages longer, more thoughtful posts, and I find I "get to know" each user as jf it were a real life club, because their profile is prominently displayed next to their post.

Modern social media feels like a wasteland these days with the number of bots, shills and conspiracy theorists running about. The algorithms, of course, contribute to the toxic atmosphere by boosting (or censoring) controversial topics.

I love that I can come here and just... talk about dolls. It's very chill. This forum is free from the baggage that DoA has, which is even better. Like ragnamuffin, I'm surprised at how often I post here.

Seconded! The way forums work and what posts they encourage pretty much explains why I love them so much! Social media like Twitter is more stressful in comparison to here, though tbh I think I mainly learned this after joining DollDreaming and DoA. I mostly wanted to join for doll advice, mainly!

I love having a community that will help troubleshoot and find solutions for any doll problems you might encounter! Nearly any issue or question has already been had by a user on here and they can help out.

I also love old school forums like this and used to lurk constantly back when it was called dollfiedreams. I'm not a fan of newer social media and find it difficult to navigate.

I wanted to support a forum and I love dolls. Social media is hellish and I don't like the internet feeling like it's limited to 3 or 4 websites. It makes me nostalgic being here and I like slowly getting to know the usual faces.

2 hours ago, meteorite said:

Bump!

The classic forum / BBS format is my favourite way to interact with people online.

Agreed on this - I was lamenting the loss of BBS popularity with a coworker the other day haha.  I just prefer it! I really dislike discord, it doesn't fill the hobby communication niche for me; it's too scattered, not intuitive for me, and a chat room doesn't replace a forum imo.

I joined to have a specific place I can browse for photos/information/news.  I'm a bit limited in the topics I can have any real input for (my budding crew is not one of the major subforums haha), but I still enjoy reading through threads~

I’m one of those who joined way before participating in the forums, yup! I think it was the Y’shtola DD announcement that got me interested in DDs again (I really wanted her) although not quite sure if the times line up. Was (still am, I suppose) a figure collector so naturally I’d find myself browsing DC’s blog and figure.fm back when it was younger, then when DDs came around… I was intrigued and lurked most posts featuring them. My spouse and I collected figures together though and he had absolutely no interest so I just admired from afar, I guess? But now here I am with my gorgeous Stoli (yes, a secondhand unused Y’shtola from Mandarake, my poor wallet lol) and have no more reason to not share my love for her and everyone else’s dolls. I especially love seeing the dolls from old figure.fm days showing up… they’re almost like old friends at this point. 

Finally got myself a new SD card and hoping at least some figure photography skills transfer to DDs so I can contribute a bit more but if not they hey, new skill to learn! Plus, this community seems lovely, very welcoming to newcomers and extremely civil compared to most of the others out there. 

Edited May 11 by Zai
grammaaah

Ironically it was originally because I was looking for information on smartdoll Eiji after seeing his page go up on myfigurecollection, all the way back in 2015. The thread talking about his development was one of the first results on Google (back when the forum was dollfiedreams dot com) However this  also happened to be around the same time that the Kagamines were first announced. Back then I was a pure neemo fan that was kinda scared of ‘big dolls’ (as in scared of the price commitment, not the dolls themselves) but the Kagamines especially felt like the sign I needed to finally get one. I actually lurked a lot before making an account, and I remember it was the photo stories especially that helped me realise how much fun these ‘big dolls’ would be. I had a lot of very annoying newbie questions and probably annoyed a lot of people by being overexcited.

I still hang around even though I’m less active these days because despite everything I still love forums. I was always on different forums through my formative internet years and the fact that they’re seen as unfashionable/cumbersome nowadays makes me sad. I like discord groups for chatting with friends, but I think they’re not as accessible a source of info and not as easy to browse old content, which forums are really good for.

10 hours ago, Monty said:

I had a lot of very annoying newbie questions and probably annoyed a lot of people by being overexcited.

I do not think you did, you seemed polite and you interacted well with other members; at least that was my impression. 

  I discovered this forum by chance. A friend and I were interested in buying our first Tinyfox dolls, and wanted to see IRL photos of them to get a feel for what they were like. I did an image search, and found a bunch of images that led me to the Tinyfox thread here. And then I started exploring the rest of the site. Forums are my preferred form of social media, and I've been interested in vinyl dolls for awhile, so I eventually set up an account. I'm still pretty new, but I'm enjoying myself so far!

Edited June 6 by Bad_Luck
Finally able to edit out my typos!

Firstly because I wanted to see some growth in YouTube's smart doll/dollfie dream videos like Miku and Mirai.
Secondly honestly on complete accident and honestly didn't want to join due past forum experience going bad and some people thought I didn't fit in, and it didn't go too well (read signature for how long I'm banished from the forum I speak of)

I guess now I like it here, there's some times that come here and there, but I like it here. Mods are nice.

Edited May 13 by SonataAvalon
updated

I definitely can relate to preferring forums over more 'standard' social media. I feel like that is a big factor as to why I joined here, besides getting my first DD and wanting to be a bit more active within the community. I've come to realize that I just prefer the more structured discussions that come about on forums. The way they are laid out, and the way topics are divided is so useful to me. I've never felt that actual conversations and communities are encouraged on most popular social medias. I also appreciate that my personal identity doesn't have to be directly tied to my account here, like it might be on other sites. Not that I have anything to hide, its just that some semblance of anonymity is nice. The fact that I can always come here and find breaking news related to dolls and people talking about them is what always brings me back. The Facebook groups are great, don't get me wrong, but there is just something about a forum that I am drawn to.

Snow Miku is definitely a good bit of the reason though, regardless of how much I like forums !

I really like old school forums and have belonged to many over the years. I even started a couple, but keeping bots away and the humans away from FB/Insta/Reddit is a hassle.

Forums have also become an odd side hustle for me too.

As for this forum, I think I joined because I wanted a Miku doll, then decided Miku wasn't available so I opted for standard DD model Towa instead. My plan was to buy Miku Miku hair for Towa and turn her into a custom Miku.

Towa was a steep learning curve, with noob mistakes being (i) stopping her legs falling off and (ii) getting clothes sizing that fit.

This place was probably instrumental in making me go down the DD route rather than the SmD route. I knew DC from way back, as I used to post on his blog a lot and was actually one of his first FB friends before he hit the friends limit and they introduced Pages and all that stuff.

I joined up after researching my first DD. I was searching google and a lot of the answers were here so it made sense to join.

I joined mostly to find a place I could post pictures and questions! I planned to get on DoA, since it seems to be more famous, but then I read their rules for on-topic dolls (my first doll was a 3D printed Frappzilla tiny BJD and my second was an Imomodoll...)

Since then, I've really started liking the old-school forum format, especially with a small community. Posts are "new" for much longer, they're easy to search, and it makes it way easier to have long-form content with all the details you want without having to worry about keeping people's attention or being relevant to who's online right now.

I joined because this place seemed to have a much more active and responsive community than DoA for AP collectors. I've completely converted to vinyl and have enjoyed learning more about their care and different molds and makers on this forum. Plus forums in general are so much more approachable than group discords and instagram.

I found this forum because I had no idea how to fix my Saber EXTRA DD's shoulder socket, and posts on here really helped! I've been lurking for a little while to learn more about Dollfie Dreams and how to take care of them properly. This forum really is such an amazing resource.

I decided to finally join once I decided to finalize plans for Dolpa LA. I'm excited to be a part of the community!

I've been on the forums under one username or another since ~2012, if I'm recalling correctly, though I've had this account in particular since 2014. I'm right in that generational cusp to where forums started going the way of the dodo by the time I became an adult, but had been popular enough in my tween/teen years for me to be far more comfortable and familiar with them than the social media platforms of today.

To be very "old lady yells at cloud," I hate how the internet landscape has evolved to assume that we are all connected to the internet all the time. I also hate how algorithms and advertisers have taken over and made so many platforms unusable, rendering them essentially obsolete. Discord is trying to sell itself as the modern alternative to social media and forums both, but it again assumes that users are connected and available 24/7. If you're in a bigger channel with decent amounts of traffic, you'll miss tons of interesting conversations by virtue of having a job or going to school or even just getting a good night's sleep. I don't like my information/selling hub to function similarly to my group chat with my irl friends.

Forums allow me to fully flesh out my thoughts beyond bite-size chunks, adding nuance and tangents as necessary. I also like that I can step away for a day/week/month and I can come back without feeling like I've really missed out on any discussions. Even forums with stricter requirements, like DoA, are a lot more accessible and build communities more easily than something like Instagram or Facebook.

As for dolldreaming specifically, my introduction to BJDs and the like was a Dollfie Dream Sasara. Anime dolls continue to call me back time and again, so here I stay, at least until they turn the lights off for good.