I still like the dolls I have, but... the Smart Doll community is just miserable to watch anymore.
The whole lootbox mechanic where you can only get new dolls if you literally gamble, all while Danny says the majority of his customers are apparently children, is just toxic. Then there's the fact that certain customers who can afford to drop $10000 dollars on dolls (seriously, they've got like 30 of them) get free bonus gifts, too. (Seriously, three old cocoa heads that you just got as a gift??)
Meanwhile other people have to spend at least 500 dollars just to buy spare parts, because they have to be ~established customers~ to access them- which includes blank heads, which is hellaciously restrictive and is a major reason why the custom Smart Doll market is a drop in the bucket compared to the number of custom DD heads out there. And speaking of, there are all the "prototypes" floating around that people splurge thousands of dollars on, just, at the drop of a hat- like sometimes $2000, $3000 dollars for what amounts to a different faceup.
It's not that I'm jealous, it's that I'm horrified that people are literally defending these hideous practices like they're financially or ethically sound. I see grown adults saying they have parents funding their hobby, that they borrowed money to get a doll, and I just- this is a luxury hobby and I too am a layaway bitch, but if you have to go into debt with someone to get something as frivolous as a doll, that scares me. That's not healthy, and while we all have our unhealthy coping mechanisms, I know first-hand how badly collecting hobbies can spiral out of control.
But Danny encourages this behavior with how he releases things, pumping out doll after doll after doll with names and faces like afterthoughts, seriously, after Monday I can't even remember the new ones and they just keep coming. Even if the dolls from before all reused the same three molds, each doll at least used to feel different from the other. Now I literally can't tell them apart- and if I do see one I like, 9/10 it's some prototype or lootbox release that no one could directly buy to begin with. It feels like shit that even when you do want a doll these days, there's no chance you'll get it because there's like three of them in existence. It's worse than Volks' lottery system, and I HATE Volks' lottery system
Danny Choo reminds me of the guy who peddled the SlapChop -- just full of sleaze to try and get you to buy the next thing he's shit out that's exactly like the last thing but maybe with an arched eyebrow this time, and all the while if you have actual problems with the products, he won't just ban you from buying them for daring to point it out, he'll publicly berate you for MONTHS after the fact, and he NEVER lets it go. He STILL mentions the shoe debacle, the wig debacle, he literally cannot get over it and he has to mention it on every single page of his site about "managing expectations" and only wanting "the right kind of customer" and lest we forget, his absolutely asinine interpretation of the meaning of wabi-sabi.
He portrays himself as this salt of the earth, humble little doll maker, while simultaneously using every predatory tactic in EA's playbook to leech money out of his customers, even to their detriment, all while crowing that he's the most ethical, the most unique, the most beyond reproach of all the doll companies out there. I don't like to get personal with my confessions, but how can I not? The man erased his company stamp on the back of his doll's heads so that they read DANNY CHOO instead of mirai. He's made himself as inextricable from his work as any artdoll creator, but without any of the authenticity home-casters bring to the table. I used to respect and admire this man. Now I just feel like a fool.
This whole community feels like a slimy hype spiral of people spending dizzying amounts of money they don't have on things that fundamentally are not worth the price they're being charged, all to try and get noticed by their Doll Daddy and not because they actually like the products he's selling. And I think that's the crux of my issue, at the end of the day- with the whole blind box bullshit, the fact that you have to get approval to buy most things in his store, the knowledge that if you have problems you're shit out of luck because Danny can do no wrong, it feels like it's all the cult of Danny Choo and not the Smart Doll community anymore. It's stopped being about the dolls entirely. It's all Danny's way or the highway, and I miss being able to just collect dolls in peace without all the other bullshit heaped on top.
I can't be the only one that's fed up, can I?
