CreatingCutie

“Recasts aren’t putting artist out of business and aren’t a big deal, a company hasn’t shut down yet so stop overreacting!”

Even though they say there hasn’t been a “clear“ connection to a company shutting down due to recasts, but doesn’t mean that counterfeits don’t lasting affects on the artists and everyone else in the community.

Artists are not faceless people. They have feelings and valid concerns and with them seeing other artists in the works stolen people and seeing people would rather support recasters, does effect them deeply and emotionally. It starts with things like these with Lillycat pulling her convention appearance due to recasts becoming more of a prevalent problem and build up over time until it reaches a tipping point.

Companies not shutting down left and right is still not a valid reason to see recast are “harmless” and are not debatable.

There’s no excuse to buy a recasts. You are making a selfish decision that affects the people who make the dolls that made you join this hobby and are supporting theft.

when I first started getting into BJD, people at meetups told me stories about how when the “hobby” first started, some people would be assholes if your doll wasn’t Volks, Fairyland, or Luts.  

I’ve seen threads on DoA about how “offensive” it is to copy someone else’s faceup, or the look/theme they did for their doll.

I wanna be the most special and I’m willing to figuratively shit on anyone who threatens that.

Now that we got that out of the way and I’m the most Valid™️ I’ve ever been let’s move on from that.

This whole argument is centered on one thing and one thing only and that’s elitism.

You’re gripe is clearly with elitism but you’ve got yourself CONVINCED that people who are anti are all elitist, which is why you’ve got elitist snubbing, elitist aesthetic hoarding, and anti thoughts/feelings in the same post.

Like, idk if you think that elitists are complete morons with zero sense of self awareness, but I can’t tell you for sure that the owner with 20 Volks dolls who shits on resin soul constantly isn’t stupid. They KNOW what they’re doing is elitist and that elitism is NEGATIVE, they just don’t care. (Just like how pros that own recast know that in the context of this hobby being a pro owner is a negative, but they just don’t care).

Same thing with the person hoarding aesthetics. They know that hoarding aesthetics is wrong and they don’t care, and they actually go one step further and paint the scene as if it’s a non issue because it benefits them personally whereas shit talking resin soul is beneficial to no one. They’re just being a sneak about it.

Which is literally what you’re trying to do.

Like, I caught that lil wiff of slick that you tried pulling.

You made sure that you were absolutely clear when it came to elitism and even went the extra step to reference two types of elitism, where then happen, when they happen, how they happen, who they happened to, and even name dropped companies.

But when it came to recasts suddenly it’s just “recasts have gotten more attention”.

Attention?

Child please!

Call it what it is.

Like, you really chose a throw away word like “attention” as if that’s what everyone has been talking about lately.

It’s not “attention” that’s hurting the hobby, it’s the morally bankrupt tactic of pushing out legitimate companies from a country while claiming their names that’s hurting us as a whole.

Recasts are getting talked about, there are attempts being made that benefit only recasts, legal action is being taken, people are putting in physical effort on both sides, and you’re really gonna pick such a soft word like “attention” to label it when that isn’t even half of what it is (but you can go full out when you wanna label elitism right??)

And leave the “lots of money” argument behind.

Everyone and their mama has already given every list and resource possible to prove you can be broke and still be legit in this hobby and I personally have bought a high end legit doll on eBay for like $150 so y'all pro folks need to step it up.

ANYWAYS

Idk why you’re asking about secondhand purchases being helpful to artists because neither me nor you even touched that subject here at all, but I’ll totally go with this distraction (for now).

Buying secondhand, in that moment, doesn’t add to an artist’s doll making revenue at all.

OMG HOW SHOCKING!! GUESS THE PRO PEOPLE WERE RIGHT ALL ALONG!

Lmao PSYCH!!

But it’s true, me buying a secondhand Villitunes doesn’t instantly line her pocket at all, but as someone whose spoken with her many times before I know it would make her happy to see it (and I know this because she’s featured other people’s dolls on her IG before and gushed about how great they styled their doll that she casted).

Lillycat loves seeing her casted dolls. Kaye Wiggs loves seeing her casted dolls. Pidgin loves seeing his casted dolls. Popovy loves seeing their casted dolls. Momoni loves seeing her casted dolls. Like, I could go on forever. And I can tell since your only focus is on cost that you don’t see the value in help sans money, but buying secondhand absolutely ~helps~ the artist feel good about their work, it helps them receive customer feedback, and it helps them grow their confidence enough to want to expand.

And tbph the argument that “buying secondhand doesn’t help the artist” is an argument that doesn’t surface often so clearly this is from your bag of tricks and you wanted to snap up any opportunity you could to pull out this unrelated topic, but whatevs.

Like, even tho this is an artist centered hobby the artist doesn’t need to be benefited financially during every transaction for to be helpful to them, because the truth of the matter is secondhand transactions are beneficial to US and that’s still just as valid!

The most “important” kind of help doesn’t need to be us giving well deserved money to the source, because us buying from each other who will end up giving money to the source is just as important and helps the hobby stay afloat which helps the artist have an audience to continue selling too.

Me buying a secondhand Volks head isn’t me directly “helping” Volks, but the person I’m buying from almost exclusively buys Volks, and trust me, that $100 is gonna find its way to Volks eventually. Whether she spends it at Volks right then and there or it helps incentivize her to save up and buy another Volks doll/accessories.

Factor in this: you make a doll for a hobby that’s already small. Not everyone has the same tastes in dolls. This makes the pool of buyers smaller. Some people will like your doll but their collection is complete or they don’t have a “character” for it. Again, the pool of buyers shrinks. Some won’t like that the doll is single/double jointed. The buyer pool shrinks, again. Some people want the doll in only a certain color and you’re not selling it in that color. Shrinkage. After shrinkage… ad nauseam.

Creating and selling a doll is a total gamble and you can never predict how well it will sell in the first place. It’s a labor of love and takes a lot of time and money to perfect to begin with. They’re not factory made. Now after all this: if you sell this doll for $150 and only a few people buy it: you might hardly break even. But if those few buyers that absolutely adore your doll buy it for $300/$600/whatever or more, you’ll actually make a living and can have some leftover to make even more dolls. Do you understand yet now that’s it’s laid out in hopefully the most painfully obvious way? Maybe not. Maybe some of you are still too blind to how a market works.

The way I see it - this hobby needs to be considered a luxury hobby. The time and energy that goes into the mechanics behind a doll take an extreme amount of time and money. The artists aren’t being greedy, they aren’t “large corporations”, they’re simply trying to make ends meet in an already tiny market.

If you can’t afford to be in this hobby, don’t join it. You have that choice. But don’t trample in here with your entitled attitude and assume everyone will welcome you for stealing from artists and destroying a hobby that could be on the brink of ruin at any point with how small it is.

You can have whatever legit doll you want, whether its from Fairyland or Mirodoll. You can have whatever size doll you want, from the biggest giants to the smallest critters. You can make your clothes/do the faceups/make the wigs or you can buy them. You do not have to have a high end, certain sized doll in order to be taken seriously in the community. 

Pair your Resinsoul with an Iplehouse, give that Soom a fabulous sock dress, try doing your first faceup on that Migidoll head, hybrid that Ringdoll with Mirodoll. Its YOUR hobby, just as much as it is everyone elses, and nobody has any right to police you or put rules in place that don’t exist.

Since it has been brought to my attention that some people use the image of my Lillycat doll Melody to promote recasts, well, here is what Melody has to say about this.

Check it out!