would you be my friend if...

i was into Reborn dolls. so check it. my rant about the greatness of the BBC is based off of many years of listening to the World Service but a recent documentary called My Fake Baby from BBC4 completely blew me away (check it out on youtube under My Fake Baby). the one hour documentary focused on a bizarro (I love you) subculture of people who collect hyperrealistic baby dolls. these dolls look pretty damn real, from their hair to their tiny plastic fingers and toes. some even have breathing apparatuses. the documentary focuses on the women who love these dolls, they range in age from youngish to middle age. no, the women do not think that these are real children...thankfully they can differentiate plastic from flesh, but they hold them so tenderly. one women says that she likes the dolls because they so close but so far from a real child aka no cleaning, no crying, no growing and only the initial cash investment, though she does by her multiple dolls expensive clothes and strollers. the woman who makes the dolls puts it well, her product is for women to be a new mom everyday of their lives. these women have entire rooms dedicated to these dolls and speak in hushed tones in their presence. all of the women except the one who makes the dolls are married and the reaction of the Reborn husbands is of general disapproval and with some of the men even being disgusted by their wives' "hobby". one women even goes all the way to america to pick up a doll. this was a particularly riveting moment in the documentary seeing her waiting in a hotel room in D.C. with her mother. her mom looked heartbroken the whole time, as though she wanted to support her daughter but in the end just did not understand her own child's logic. from the scene in the hotel room the most intense moment arrives as the viewer and the "mom" to be unpacks her doll. seeing this tiny little thing whose outline looks like a baby's entirely covered in bubble wrap and its face and feet protected by diapers made me edgy. i felt like the baby was suffocating even though i knew it was fake. once out of its plastic swaddling, the doll looked fake but in the creepiest way. the woman was elated calling it beautiful and cooing over it. anyways, you all have got to see this shit cuz it is out of this world, but oddly so human. i personally think that it is a strange hobby but if it helps these women with whatever it is they need then props, but i think that it is a bit weird. holla back at me with thoughts and comments. as the 12 tribes would say "let's rap".