Oct 22, 2009
Here’s Even More Ridiculous For The Heaping Plate Of Ridiculousness
When Bossy’s daughter was young enough to play with dolls — which was yesterday and maybe tomorrow and the next day even though Bossy’s daughter relocated her dolls to purgatory the basement but Bossy still holds out hope — Bossy’s daughter preferred baby dolls that look and feel like real babies. Maybe you’ve met her dolls.
Bossy’s daughter never took part in the phenomenon that is the American Girl doll thing, which doesn’t prevent the company from sending Camp Bossy an American Girl catalogue every fifteen minutes. Shall we?
OK, yeah. Bossy sort of gets the appeal of these historically accurate dolls — in this case, a colonial girl. And similarly, there are selections like this:
And Bossy gets how each doll has a story, for instance Kirsten who left her homeland of Sweden in 1854 for the Minnesota frontier because her father was a masochist:
Except while perusing the pages about Kirsten and her $58 bed and $22 friendship quilt and $68 Scandinavian candle holder, Bossy found this rather disturbing Kirsten fact:
But where Bossy loses all patience for American Girl dolls and their expensive accessories is in a situation like this:
And:
I can’t believe they’re getting rid of Kirsten. She was one of the first ones, wasn’t she? She’s one of the few I’d even think of buying. I don’t really know much about the dolls. I just know they recently built a gigundo store in Natick that has the doll/girl hair salon and dining room, etc. A bit much,that.
I used to play with the American Girls PAPERDOLLS. AND I LOVED THEM. But that shizzle’s redunculous. 22 bucks for a BLANKET? That’s how much I (prefer, on sale of course) to pay for blankets MY SIZE. Um. Yeah. Paper Dolls. Where it’s at. Do they even make those anymore?
My 4 year old somehow got on their radar and we got our first such catalouge this week. I had to laugh when I read one page that had a full bedroom collection for almost $200 but if you bought it all at once you save $18! Woo! Sorry, but if I’m going to drop $200 on a bedroom set FOR A DOLL, I need a bigger incentive than saving the price of a pizza.
Maybe I’ll make a bedroom set out of the pizza box instead.
That’s why they are called the “American” girl doll collection.
What other than complete consumerism and hype?
Apparently, American Girl dolls are on the American sub-conscious this week
http://www.postcardsfromyomomma.com/2009/10/21/no-grandchildren-yet-an-american-girl-doll-will-do/
The Natick, MA store is out of control. People stand outside for hours and drop THOUSANDS of dollars. I think it’s the dolls’ glass eyes- they hypnotize you into spending…
There was even an article in the Boston Globe about how well it’s doing despite the recession:
http://www.boston.com/community/moms/articles/2009/05/10/all_dolled_up/
Apparently (two sons so no real clue) there are low rent alternatives called Best Friends, which are being marketed as your down to earth doll as opposed to your Nellie Olsen snotty American Girl type doll.
And listen folks, what the heck happened at LEGO??. Blocks are no about 25c each. 99 bucks for a lego firetruck? Holy mother of Gah!
Ack. ACK! Okay, so I was into American Girl dolls, I’m not going to lie. But my mom would never shell out the bucks for them, because they are way too much. Two years ago my boyfriend got me one for Christmas, Samantha. She was one of the first four, and shortly after they got rid of her. And now they’re getting rid of Kirsten?! I mean, I know Bossy doesn’t care about Kirsten, but I’m upset this is how I found out. I mean, they sent me a letter when Samantha was discontinued.
Have you met the most recent addition to the American Girl Cult? Her name is Gwen Thompson. She’s pretty, she’s blonde and she’s homeless. Apparently, Pops walked out on the family and Mom lost her job. Fall turns to winter and Gwen and her mom are forced to find shelter in their car.
And she costs $95 and not a cent goes toward, I dunno, helping homeless children.
Huh. I wonder how much Gwen’s car turned apartment costs? Wait, I don’t think I want to know.
So many questions………
Will she line her clothes with American Girl catalogues to stay warm?
Maybe Kristen could freecycle her friendship quilt to Gwen.
How will Gwen justify the hair and makeup appointments?
AAAAAhhhhhh thank goodness I was never subjected to such creepy looking dolls. All dolls are creepy of course but those are something else entirely. Shiver.
My daughter flirted with the AG doll idea for about a year and then she was over it. We only got her one doll, but many of her friends had many hundreds of dollars’ worth of dolls and accessories. I took my daughter to the LA store for her bday a few years ago and saw that the “salon” charges $20 to braid the dolls’ hair. I wanted to stand outside and tell the customers I would only charge $19.95 to braid…
Totally ridiculous! But from an entrepreneurship perspective, BRILLIANT.
I LOVED American Girl dolls and the paperdolls. When I was growing up I had a friend who had all the original ones with all their bedroom sets in her basement. It was heaven! I had Molly!
–>It makes me glad my toddler is a Boy.
Although my days of buying overpriced video games is coming down the trail sooner or later.
American Girl = Cult and my daughter keeps drinking the Kool-Aid.
I throw the catalogs out when they arrive in the mail but certain grandmas like to keep them on hand for “gift ideas,” which is code for “I will get back at my children for their teenage years by keeping my granddaughter fully stocked in overpriced dolls.”
As for creepy, you haven’t seen creepy until you’ve seen the My Twinn dolls. Yeesh.
my friend’s mom had a collection of these dolls in her guest room – the guest room i happened to stay in on a very sleepless night. all of those eyes staring at me -the thought of them still sends chills down my spine.
Good comment, BossysMom/4.
I just want Kristen’s painted clogs. In my size. Only comfortable.
We get these catalogues too. Only, seeing the pictures on your blog somehow makes them hilarious in a way that i can’t see while disgustedly flipping through the catalogue over the garbage can.
This is why I have boys. We only have to spend ridiculous amounts of money on matchbox cars and legos. One can NEVER have enough Legos!
I am not going to lie – I was TOTALLY into these and I still have mine. I plan to pass them down. My grandmother bought me several – I have Felicity, Kirsten, Josefina, Addy, Samantha, Molly, and one of the ones that’s supposed to look like me (but totally doesn’t.) However, now that I’m older I can’t believe my grandmother spent so much money on a bunch of dolls that I now keep in a box in the closet. My children can have my hand-me-downs, but I can’t see spending $95 for any of the new ones.
Never in a million years would I have predicted my lazy, hippie feminist self would let any child of mine play with a a hunnerd dollar doll. But now with two girls I can honestly say that compared to what else is out there – yeah, I’m OK with it. Well, technically Grandma bought the dolls, so I’m not being entirely honest. But they come with books, and historically accurate clothing, etc. Most importantly, the clothing is age appropriate and normal. No trampy dolls in my house.
As for the homeless AG doll – that’s not entirely accurate. She’s in transitional living and the whole story is about standing up against bullies who make fun of other people. It sounds bad on the surface it’s a very positive story.
My girls LOVE these dolls. They’ve retired Samantha too and my daughter is heart broken. She HAS Samantha, but is still sad she’s been retired.
The day we bought Samantha my daughter and I spent the whole day at the store in Chicago picking which doll, which accessories, and when the time finally came to buy Samantha, the nice folks at the store took her out of the box and gave her to ME to give to my daughter.
I will never forget the look on her face.
Best. Day. Ever.
We just got the same catalog and my 8 year old saw it and wants one. They are like 3450923 dollars. Hellz no.
My 7 yr old son wants one. His female cousins have them & he thinks they are so cool. My husband is not amused!
I kind of like the original concept of the “historical” dolls, tied into books, not dresed like ho’s and so on. What creeps me out is the “create a doll that looks just like you” doll. And the “American Girl of Today” (see velour pantsuit above). And (freakish and scary) “Bitty Baby.”
And $100 is a lot of money — but people spend that all the time on way more annoying stuff than dolls. Wii, Nintendo, Paystation — these all annoy me way more than the AG dolls.
I typed “Paystation” instead of “Playstation” above. Freudian much?
My granddaughters each have an AG doll. But……they are not allowed to play with them except under strict supervision. Does this make sense? Jeesh…….a little #$%up if you ask this grandma. But alas and alack, the question doesn’t get asked because Mom and Dad know the answer I’ll give them. So I just whisper it under my breath. LOL
We received this exact catalog in the mail the other day…my girls floated around with the notion that they “totally wanted one” and then the husband and I threw up a little at the prices…a lego catalog came in the mail today and I have already taken the AG one out with the trash. So quickly forgotten when enticed with another. (Hooray!)
We got one in the mail this week too! My 5 year old has been carrying it around, drooling over it. She thinks that if Santa brings something, it’s free, so it doesn’t matter that the dolls cost $100!!!!!
I’m glad my girls were more into having stuffed kittens and puppies and horsies. Dolls were too girly girl for my girls. I have a son who took an ugly, bald, naked doll named “BOB” to daycare everyday…but he’s now 7 and playing XBox and “BOB” is no longer with us.
I got an American Doll Catalog in the mail last week. And I have two SONS….aged 25 and 19!!!!
I am helping host a charity event this weekend, and we received an American doll donation. I had to delete her underwear description out of the catalog; honestly; do we HAVE to describe their underwear for the creeps on line to peruse? Blecch.
And thank you Miss Spoken, HOMELESS DOLLS? Gag.
my teenager has a few. I think they were $80 each. they’re all natty in her closet somewhere now.
I can’t believe how much those stupid dolls cost–and then all the stupid accessories.
I can’t comment on how I like to play with dolls.
I wonder how they explain it on page 40. “We’re sorry, but you didn’t love Kirsten enough to keep her in clogs, so we’ve had to stop producing her”.
I’m oddly intrigued that only the young native american girl hides her standard issue buck teeth. What is that about?
We scrimped and saved to help Santa put one of these dolls under the tree one year. Turns out that my daughter didn’t really want “Felicity” so much as Felicity’s horse. (Which Target sells a great knock off of.) But wait! It gets better! We did not figure this out until after my aunt (who wanted to do a once in a life-time special thing for the girl) got her the beautiful “Kaya” who also has…a horse! (Which we did NOT buy!) Felicity got a few hours of novel play for a few days. Kaya has always been neglected.
I wish she could have just figured out to tell us that all she really wanted were the horses. The dolls are big, taking up an entire shelf on the book case. We can not sell/give them away at our daughter’s insistance. (And her aunt would be so hurt.)
My 89 year-old Grandma however has Kirstin and dresses her up at the change of the seasons. It’s a little sweet and a tiny bit sad.
My experience buying these dolls for my nieces is that I am now assured of getting visits when I am in a nursing home. The dolls may be pricey but so is a bag of crapola toys from Wal-mart which will end up trashed in a week.
Eff this. I’ll stick with the books.