Let me explain. I’m 26 years old, I’m a toy collector, and I’m also a classically trained artist and a costume designer. I’ve been around the block a few times in toy collector groups, and I have never seen ANYTHING like what I’ve found here. I was not prepared. The content of every other toy fan community I’ve been a part of has primarily been BST groups that treat their toys like investments. The most carefully taken photographs are ones of box damage or authenticity stickers. On a rare occasion you’ll get someone bragging about their multi-hundred dollar display setup for their thousand-dollar collection. The largest walls of text are dissertations on in-box collecting and scarcity. Pictures of the actual toys have a tendency to be bury or poorly lit, over-exposed flash photography with boring plain white backdrops. People who do custom work on their toys are as frequently criticized for ‘ruining the value’ of their toys as they are complemented on their work - and the work itself is rarely good.
And then there’s Furblr.
Beautiful photographs that demonstrate an understanding of mood, lighting, composition and display a keen and personal aesthetic sense. Furbies are not exactly an ideal photography subject! They have like six facial expressions max, and zero poseability beyond the ears - but here I am seeing hundreds of unique and beautiful photos of them - dressed up in, frankly, incredible and creative costumes and taken to neat locations for photoshoots - these are incredibly loved toys! If that wasn’t enough, the attitude of the fan community itself is just… it’s so good. You’ve taken the best pages out of the BJD community and given your toys names, personalities outfits - I really can’t stop gushing about the outfits, I never would have even considered costuming a Furby and I do costumes for a living! Broken or glitched toys are not seen as ruined or worthless, but are prized possessions, given humanizing descriptions like mute or sleeping or quirky. I read paragraph long descriptions of what others would see as simple programmed interactions described as elaborate unique personalities - the creative writing talent in this community is surprising!
There’s a culture of shared information here that’s really delightful. Robotics are daunting to work with, but our resident techs are helpful and putting out content to make repair more accessible - diagrams and videos and explanations, all that. Custom artists share tutorials and patterns. And, listen, they don’t make old Furbies anymore, they are a limited resource - but I regularly see you all advertising rare or cheap listings you find with the rest of the community, or even offering finding-services for free. Many would see the above as opportunities to make money within the community, secrets to be carefully guarded, but the environment here of helpful information sharing is just something else.
I would be remiss if I did not touch on the maturity I’ve seen here, too. A lot of you are kids, or barely-not-kids. A lot of us are trans people, or marginalized people, and there’s a broad range of financial status represented here as well. There’s a lot of room for friction internally. There’s a lot of room for friction externally as well - Furbies fall into a realm of uncanny valley robotics for a lot of people, and the outside world opinion of our shared interest is not always flattering. What I’ve seen so far is honestly something to be commended - brief, curt, reasonable responses to legitimate issues, a fierce protectiveness of the vulnerable members of the community, and a refocusing on Furby content after conflict is resolved. No community will ever be perfect, but the Furblr I’ve seen is doing very well for itself so far, and I hope to see that continue in the future. Collector communities are not like this elsewhere.
So really, thank you all for existing. Thank you for sharing your time and your talent and your passion with me. Tip your artists well, complement each other’s work, and continue to build each other up. It is an honor to be among you.
tangentwithtanner
janainaart
blakekathryn
ellievsbear
gummygunk
