Aren’t you a doll! Toying with avatars in digital playgrounds

Abstract

As recognized play theorist Brian Sutton-Smith points out, we have entered a ‘ludic age’ in which a playful attitude is embraced at all ages and play has increasingly come to mean play with toys. Documentations of the material, creative and social dimensions of toy play are increasingly seen in the playgrounds of digital media such as the photo management application Flickr. Dolls are considered as one of the earliest playthings, and in contemporary dolls, fantasy and reality blend into each other as their materialness and the design-storytelling are challenged by adult players/prosumers. A doll may play a part in self-expression and style; owners may customize, photograph and display the toy or share the visual documentations of their play sessions in various digital spaces. In some cases a doll might even become an avatar for the player himself or herself. This article examines how adults use doll characters as avatars by exploring visual narratives in social media environments. This is done through a visual analysis of doll images shared on the Internet-based Flickr and by analysing player created content on websites dedicated to the popular doll Blythe. Through examining the ways of toying with contemporary dolls in the playgrounds of social media, the aim is to build a new understanding of adult creation of second lives online.

More Than Wargaming: Exploring the Miniaturing Pastime

“…Correspondingly, many also reported that they followed not only discussions about the hobby, but specifically photographs and videos of other people's creations, or what has been recognized in earlier research as photoplay (see e.g. Heljakka, 2012). According to the responses, partly this watching is about learning and bettering one's own craft, but there is also a major component of simply appreciating and enjoying the mastery of others' creativity and skill.…”

Understanding Fantasy and Adult Doll Play Through Regression in Service of the Self

“…The scales or items with loadings of .50 or greater were: my ideal doll looks a lot like me (.84), my ideal doll is similar to how I look (−.81), and my favorite doll looks a lot like me or has the same personality as me (.65). The idea that doll collectors project personal attributes to their dolls was found in a study by Heljakka (2012), which looked at Blythe dolls and how they became a creative resource in adult storytelling. According to Heljakka (2012), the doll can become an avatar for the player and provide them opportunities to explore other identities or alter egos .…”

“…The idea that doll collectors project personal attributes to their dolls was found in a study by Heljakka (2012), which looked at Blythe dolls and how they became a creative resource in adult storytelling. According to Heljakka (2012), the doll can become an avatar for the player and provide them opportunities to explore other identities or alter egos . Hence, the doll could serve as an ‘extension of the self’ that has pieces of the owner’s personality embodied either consciously or unconsciously.…”

“…In this case, unresolved tensions and themes from their personal lives were spontaneously inserted or "leaked" into adult fantasy and play. This correlation also relates to Factor 4, projection of self to dolls from the BJD Questionnaire and avatarial doll play (Heljakka, 2012), in which the doll becomes an avatar (or an extension) of the self.…”

Playful Materialities

“…Descartes posed what I'll call the problem of the external world: How do you know anything at all about the reality outside you?" 3 This questioning of the realness of the external reality, which seemed to consist primarily of material entities for millennia, received a new twist in the mid-20 th century: Technical digitization and cultural digitalization promoted dematerialization-the progressive replacement of analog hardware and material processes by digital software. Since the 1950s, functional mathematization turned more and more materials, tools, and apparatuses of the material world into programs.…”