davidd's A Doll A Day 2018

[davidd]

Be careful, little captain! 90 percent of the clutterberg is always under the surface!

That is so true!

And speaking of the "clutterberg"....

30 September – Smart Doll Symphony Arrives... and promptly disappears!

That fanceh new Smart Doll who arrived a couple of days ago isn't actually still in her box, unopened, is she? And the box hasn't been relegated to storage, has it?

Sadly, yes, on both counts.

Arright, so, here's the illogical logic behind this situation, with a little bit of ranting thrown in, just because I haven't used A Doll A Day as a rant forum for a while:

As with pretty much all new doll lines, you can't have just one, now, can you? Well, I can't, anyway. It doesn't feel right. Obviously New Dolly will need a friend.

She will also need some clothes. Winter is coming on, you know. Basic Smart Dolls aren't exactly fully equipped when it comes to stock outfits.

I have decided to not open the new Smart Doll until I can afford to purchase a friend and some additional clothing for her.

So it may be a while before we actually see this Smart Doll.

(That seems kind of... stupid... doesn't it?)

Now we get into the rant portion of our program; or, to be accurate, a "poor me" lament more than a rant.

Relative to my meager toy budget, Smart Dolls are eensive. Like, freakin' eensive. Like, two and a half top-end Pullips eensive, or between four and five Pullips-in-my-Budget (aka Friday Sale) eensive, and that's for a basic doll without clothes.

Adding to that, Smart Doll clothes are eensive. Maybe not to you, but they are to me. Far more eensive than clothes I buy for myself, anyway. Like, "designer jeans" prices for teeny tiny doll clothes jeans, or I Could Buy A Classic Willis & Geiger Safari Jacket for the cost of a little doll coat, or a dozen pairs of socks at Walmart cost less than one pair of doll socks. Don't even get me started on the shoes!

Of course I made the mistake of looking at Smart Doll photos online and on Instagram... and of starting to play the mental comparison game. Smart Dolls are a rich person's hobby. Rich relative to my disposable income, anyway. Rich, as in, able to travel far and frequently to exciting and exotic destinations with a Smart Doll or three in tow. Smart Doll photos aren't just crummy little cellphone snapshots from the back porch. Smart Doll photos are carefully composed "photographs" taken in charming and picturesque European villages or in bustling, colorful Asian cities, or in artistically illuminated fields of wildflowers awash in color, or on the island playgrounds of the rich & famous in the Mediterranean, or in artistically minimalist penthouse apartments overlooking sparkling cityscapes. Smart Doll photographs are stylish and sexy, like glossy fashion magazine photo spreads illustrating the jet-setting life to which those of us not in the Top One Percent aspire, but will likely never achieve.

And nobody owns just one Smart Doll. Three seems to be a minimum. Many owners eagerly await each new release, accruing small armies of half-a-grand (in 'Merican money) dolls, each decked out in another half-a-grand in outfits and accessories.

Why do I even want to be a part of this scenario? Do I even want to be a part of this scenario? Am I even able to be a part of this scenario? Isn't the entire Smart Doll schtick a marketing scheme to part upscale millennials from a fraction of their not-hard-earned-at-all dollars/yen/pounds?

If Smart Dolls are a money-making marketing scheme, and if Smart Dolls are targeting an upscale niche market to which I don't belong, and if Smart Dolls are, realistically speaking, beyond my budget, and if I am aware of all this... why do I want another one before even having opened the box on the first one? Why, in fact, did I buy the first one in the first place?

I dunno. I can't clearly answer those questions right now. That's another reason Smart Doll is gonna cool her jets in the storage shed for a while: so I can cool my own jets, and maybe think about this more clearly.

I find it frustrating to think that I've been doing the toy photography thing for a really long time now, from long before it was socially acceptable, let alone "cool," and yet now I can't even afford to participate at the "cool kid level" anymore. I'm wondering if part of my sudden interest in Smart Dolls is feeling the need to somehow "prove" that I can still participate in a relevant way in the toy photography hobby.

Smart Dolls are currently a not-yet-mainstream niche interest that has a dedicated and extremely active fanbase, very much like Pinky Street figures had between 2005 - 2008, only at a price range several magnitudes higher than Pinky Street. If this analogy is accurate, then I am probably getting in to Smart Dolls either at or just past their peak. Being a Japanese phenomenon, like Pinky Street, Smart Dolls are likely a consumer and pop-culture fad, and the decline in Smart Doll popularity will be as sudden and as irreversible as was that of Pinky Street and other Japanese fads. Appropriately, perhaps, the box in this photo underneath the Smart Doll box contains a pair of the once rare and highly coveted "Dekapin" Pinky Street figures. At the peak of Pinky Street popularity, Dekapins were selling for close to a thousand dollars for a set of two figures. I got this pair of Dekapins earlier this year from a Japanese online auction site for less than $150 USD, including shipping and bidding service fees. I see parallels between Smart Doll and Pinky Street. It's not a matter of "if" a crash will occur, but "when."

In the meantime, will the "fun" of being a part of the Smart Doll fad while it is at its peak be worth the eense? Or will the frustration of knowing I'm a poseur, of knowing that I'm not really rich, of not being able to travel the world with dollies in a designer backpack, and of wearing clothes that cost less than those of the doll I'm carting around like some urban metro wannabe-artist dude eclipse the enjoyment, and ultimately sour the eerience?

But for right now, at this moment: what can I sell on eBay to afford that second Smart Doll and some overpriced outfits for her?