Speaker 1: Astonishing Legends Network.
Speaker 2: It's Flashback Friday, and you know what that means. A
Speaker 2: classic episode of Scared all the time's fan favorite bonus show,
Speaker 2: New Fear Unlocked is out of the vault and on
Speaker 2: the main feed.
Speaker 3: This episode originally aired on Patreon September eleventh, twenty twenty five,
Speaker 3: but is being played by you right now.
Speaker 4: Disclaimer. This episode includes the usual amount of adult language
Speaker 4: and graphic discussions you've come to expect around here, but
Speaker 4: in the event it becomes an unusual amount, expect another
Speaker 4: call from me.
Speaker 5: You can't take a week. So it's not the Trump
Speaker 5: with something half feightycent.
Speaker 6: That which is.
Speaker 2: Wait, decent?
Speaker 6: So when do a lime.
Speaker 7: Bonus episode?
Speaker 1: And the name new kind of show?
Speaker 7: Did you read the post?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 5: And now and now.
Speaker 6: Hey everybody, Welcome back to New Fear Unlocked Video edition
Speaker 6: in September.
Speaker 7: Take two.
Speaker 6: Take two, we're learning. You're seeing some new angles, a
Speaker 6: lot of new angles, but some new angles, more of
Speaker 6: Chris's face, a little bit more of my face. I'm
Speaker 6: not completely hidden behind a microphone, not that I think
Speaker 6: you're watching to uh see that good of a look
Speaker 6: at us, but I do feel like it's a little
Speaker 6: weird if one of us is looks human in the
Speaker 6: other looks.
Speaker 7: Like a just a fat guy.
Speaker 6: I was gonna say a microphone stand.
Speaker 7: But oh, because I'm the human one in this, you're
Speaker 7: the human one.
Speaker 6: So I'm holding the mic. Now we'll see how that works,
Speaker 6: and hopefully I'm worried that if I'm holding it, I'm
Speaker 6: going to crunch forward a lot because I'm reading off
Speaker 6: the article here.
Speaker 7: So I think it's a good time for people to
Speaker 7: write in the comments that there is an audio medium,
Speaker 7: that this is a supplemental aspect too. So yeah, because
Speaker 7: you know what we're not. We don't have to play
Speaker 7: these cameras. No one's going to be looking into our eyes.
Speaker 7: They are still going to be driving, They're still going
Speaker 7: to be.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think we're going to play this sort of
Speaker 6: fly on the wall style in the first version, first
Speaker 6: first take the first episode, I was trying to look
Speaker 6: at my at the audience a little bit no way,
Speaker 6: but now I kind of feel like, I don't know,
Speaker 6: maybe that looked weird.
Speaker 7: I can't do any of my legs, so it's like
Speaker 7: I'm not trying to perform.
Speaker 6: Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, well, we aren't here to discuss
Speaker 6: our two cameras set up.
Speaker 7: Which is the whole world has used three cameras. We
Speaker 7: just don't have a third camera. We're already borrowing the
Speaker 7: working on it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we're working on it. No, what we are here
Speaker 6: to discuss today is a very concerning lifestyle creep that
Speaker 6: I think we've just I know we've discussed on the
Speaker 6: show before, the seed of this, which is the reborn doll. Oh. Yeah,
Speaker 6: so in our Dolls episode with Dolls coming out soon.
Speaker 7: Yeah, we'll have a link for that when it's us.
Speaker 7: We're very excited to read it.
Speaker 6: We discussed the horrifying world of reborn dolls, which for
Speaker 6: the uninitiated.
Speaker 7: Are stop right now and go listen to other episode
Speaker 7: top right now and goes to that episode, because we're
Speaker 7: not going to finish the sentence.
Speaker 6: But the reborn dolls are these incredibly lifelike looking baby dolls.
Speaker 7: I'll probably put one up on the screen around here.
Speaker 6: That are theoretically created for women who are suffering sort
Speaker 6: of lost. Yeah, then, and they need some kind of
Speaker 6: a psychological anchor, yeah, tether to the world. But they've
Speaker 6: become extremely popular with there are people who don't have
Speaker 6: these problems and it's a little bit weird because the babies,
Speaker 6: you just gotta go look them up, because if you've
Speaker 6: never seen one of these, they are they are chillingly realistic,
Speaker 6: but they're in that they're in the uncanny valley where
Speaker 6: they seem dead eyed. You look at it and you're
Speaker 6: like a bit.
Speaker 7: And it's from a distance, you saw it in a stroller.
Speaker 7: You're like, that's a real fucking baby. It would be
Speaker 7: a very convincing, like on screen movie baby if it's
Speaker 7: just over their shoulder.
Speaker 6: Yeah. I wonder why Clint Eastwood didn't use one in
Speaker 6: American Sniper because that baby doll they had in that
Speaker 6: movie was I never saw it five dollars baby doll.
Speaker 6: And I know these existed back then.
Speaker 7: Yeah, the baby think baby from Trainspotting on the Ceiling
Speaker 7: is the baby I always go to for movie babies,
Speaker 7: and that was terrifying. Yeah, couldn't use the reborn.
Speaker 6: I don't know if they had reborns for back then.
Speaker 7: No, it's how they got the edge of train spotting.
Speaker 6: But these reborn dolls are taking over social media in Brazil. Okay,
Speaker 6: so I found an article that walks us through sort
Speaker 6: of the weird spread of how these babies are getting
Speaker 6: their toothless little mouths onto the women and I think
Speaker 6: some men of Brazil. Okay, so this is from the
Speaker 6: New York Times, a New York Times feeling New York Times,
Speaker 6: but a much more reputable paper than most of the
Speaker 6: dog shit that we website.
Speaker 7: This for this lawyer's website.
Speaker 6: Yeah, this article starts. A young woman posts a video
Speaker 6: that appears to show her holding her baby Bento and
Speaker 6: packing his bag for a trip to the hospital. She
Speaker 6: calls it one of the busiest and scariest days for me,
Speaker 6: So right off the top, that's why you're here scared.
Speaker 6: She's scared, She's scared.
Speaker 7: He here first after the New York Times.
Speaker 6: She grabs onesies, a bottle in medical documents and tucks
Speaker 6: him Bento in the back of a car. At the hospital,
Speaker 6: he's weighed and lies in a bed where she removes
Speaker 6: his pacifier, bottle feeds him and wipes a few drops
Speaker 6: of formula from his cheek. But this was not an
Speaker 6: actual medical emergency. It was role playing by a content creator,
Speaker 6: and the baby was not a real baby. It was
Speaker 6: a shockingly lifelike doll called a reborn doll, which as
Speaker 6: we just mentioned, is handcrafted to look and feel like
Speaker 6: a baby.
Speaker 7: Sure this might see some of these medical papers she
Speaker 7: had for that she scooped up.
Speaker 6: This video received more than sixteen million views on TikTok.
Speaker 6: It's doing better than us, and is it doing way
Speaker 6: better than us? Maybe that's what we need.
Speaker 7: Is we need to have a reborn with her.
Speaker 6: I get my real baby.
Speaker 7: I just made that little baby outfit too.
Speaker 6: Ed made a good scared all the time onesie for
Speaker 6: Felix in his trip to Greece. But maybe we need
Speaker 6: a fake Felix.
Speaker 7: Yeah, for the show, we'll see a reborn. We'll sponsor.
Speaker 7: It's probably not have the two episodes we've talked on them.
Speaker 6: But probably not. This video over see more than sixty
Speaker 6: million views on TikTok, and it's part of a social
Speaker 6: media craze. It has turned into a cultural and political
Speaker 6: flashpoint in Brazil.
Speaker 7: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 6: Widely circulated videos show women taking hyper realistic dolls to
Speaker 6: the park and strollers, celebrating their birthdays with cake and songs,
Speaker 6: and simulating childbirth, which depending on how well simulated. I
Speaker 6: feel like there's some crimes being committed just to set
Speaker 6: up the simulation.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, I don't know. Fuck yeah, I guess. I'm
Speaker 7: sure we can google that, but I don't want to.
Speaker 6: If you put a reborn baby doll inside someone into
Speaker 6: your own womb, I guess it's maybe not a crime.
Speaker 7: I don't know. I mean how the body works. So
Speaker 7: I imagine if I had to do it, Yeah, I
Speaker 7: guess I would take the head off the baby, put
Speaker 7: that in the vagina, get that shot on camera, then
Speaker 7: cut to the whole thing being taken out, so you
Speaker 7: have the like crowning if we're making the movie of
Speaker 7: this person's reborn doll. Yeah, you get the crowning. Hard
Speaker 7: cut too full baby, because I don't know why you're
Speaker 7: putting the legs and everything in there.
Speaker 6: This reminds me of a I have this memory.
Speaker 7: Discussion we should never have public.
Speaker 6: I have this memory of being at my friend's house
Speaker 6: in like seventh grade and flipping through the channels and
Speaker 6: we passed like a medical documentary or miracle of life
Speaker 6: you'll see, and I as we flip past it, I
Speaker 6: swear to God, this baby there was a woman like
Speaker 6: giving birth and the baby like like shot out. Oh
Speaker 6: this and I but I'd never seen a baby being
Speaker 6: born before and so for like a long time, I
Speaker 6: thought babies had momentum welling out.
Speaker 7: I just had drinks with a friend of ours, yeah,
Speaker 7: who recently had a baby, and they mentioned that their
Speaker 7: baby shot out.
Speaker 6: Oh okay, so this happened in that.
Speaker 7: They were very concerned that the nurse on the radio
Speaker 7: or whomever it was who was there to they barely
Speaker 7: reacted in time like they catch the baby. They said,
Speaker 7: the baby flipped one time, like flipped forward like a
Speaker 7: somersaulted out of our friends.
Speaker 6: This seems like an even more poorly remembered memory than mine,
Speaker 6: because now this this sounds like a Naruto.
Speaker 7: Baby with those weapons arms dude, like running out.
Speaker 6: Damn.
Speaker 7: But yeah, because they were like, is this person about
Speaker 7: the drop my child around? Because it shot out so aggressively.
Speaker 6: You want to see you want to see the champagne
Speaker 6: acting that way, not the baby.
Speaker 7: You know they don't want But I'm just saying that
Speaker 7: maybe that's a thing. That's why they caught it on TLC.
Speaker 7: And then this person just the other day was like, yoh,
Speaker 7: fucking fire out of my wife.
Speaker 6: Yeah no, that's I mean, that's good to know that
Speaker 6: I saw something that was accurate. I guess it was not.
Speaker 6: When Felix was born, he shot nowhere. He was a
Speaker 6: very slow He's just dripped out one at a time.
Speaker 6: A few of these women even simulate the dolls having
Speaker 6: a nosebleed or potty training, which, again, where are we
Speaker 6: getting this blood ship? Where are we getting this ship?
Speaker 6: I assume it's probably not. Maybe they're just using like
Speaker 6: brownies and ketchup or something.
Speaker 7: I would hope, But.
Speaker 6: Then you go, I don't know how easy is to
Speaker 6: clean these things. They're very realistic, but that I don't
Speaker 6: know what the actual I mean, they kind of look
Speaker 6: like vinyly some of them.
Speaker 7: Or Yeah, I don't know what their texture is, and
Speaker 7: I don't honestly want to find out.
Speaker 6: No, I touching them has gotta be well. I think
Speaker 6: maybe that's part of what I I've talked before about
Speaker 6: how I hate the idea of touching a smurf. Yeah,
Speaker 6: because they feel they feel like they'd be dolphin skin,
Speaker 6: and I feel like these babies have similar there's a
Speaker 6: quote here. Yeah, the ones I like the most are
Speaker 6: the newborns, said Juliana Drew's todd. I mean, if you
Speaker 6: look at this photo, we'll put this photo up. These
Speaker 6: are multiple ages.
Speaker 7: Oh, the one in the back is like unless it
Speaker 7: has working legs.
Speaker 6: That one's in daycare. And this one on the side here.
Speaker 7: It just came out of just came just flew out,
Speaker 7: just dripped out, popped through. But the one in the back,
Speaker 7: so the baby, I don't because it's you buy the
Speaker 7: little baby ones, you swaddle it, you hole it, you
Speaker 7: can walk around with it. You buy that one in
Speaker 7: the back, and you're just like drag and its legs
Speaker 7: and shit across it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it looks like just a bratty child that you
Speaker 6: have to pretend to punish.
Speaker 7: Yeah, but it's also big enough. That's the practicing they're
Speaker 7: doing it, just punishing, but it's also fast the corner.
Speaker 7: It's just big enough that people will judge you if
Speaker 7: it's still in a stroller.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 7: So.
Speaker 6: Juliana Drew's Magri thirty six, lives in Kurtiba, the capital
Speaker 6: of the Brazilian state of Piranha, and works in human resources.
Speaker 6: She said she began collecting the dolls in twenty eighteen
Speaker 6: and now has twenty two dolls. Twenty two dolls, which
Speaker 6: still has that one job, which is twenty it's a
Speaker 6: lot of human resources she has.
Speaker 7: She's resourceful in collecting humans.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the world of Make Believes is an escape valve
Speaker 6: for me, she said. And no, I don't treat it
Speaker 6: like a real baby. Oh okay, so that's good or bad?
Speaker 6: Someone brought that up. You were pretty you had that
Speaker 6: in the ready. Yeah, you had that reply and a holster.
Speaker 6: The dolls have flooded into pop culture. They were featured
Speaker 6: this month in an episode of valet Tudo, a primetime telenovella,
Speaker 6: and a rap song trending on social media about a
Speaker 6: gang that walks down the street quote kicking reborn dolls okay,
Speaker 6: which raises a lot of questions about we're gonna have
Speaker 6: to have them on what this gang is kicking usually.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, yeah, they are. They so mad at the
Speaker 7: reborn doll craze. They're just gonna kick reborn dollands dolls
Speaker 7: into a sewer or they like normally kicking. Now, they
Speaker 7: wrote a song about how mad it is that they
Speaker 7: get tricked all the time.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, I guess we come from a culture
Speaker 6: where certain segments of the population like burn their shoes
Speaker 6: and stuff to show that they're mad. So it's possible
Speaker 6: that this gang just doesn't like these reborn dolls.
Speaker 7: I think there it's encroaching on their I'm never gonna
Speaker 7: look it up.
Speaker 6: Maybe they're mad because you can't as easily traffic drugs
Speaker 6: in them.
Speaker 7: If you'd be more easily traffic drugs and a reborn
Speaker 7: doll than a real newborn, well, I was just filled
Speaker 7: a baby with drugs.
Speaker 6: I was saying. I was thinking more like in the movies,
Speaker 6: you always see like a really cheap looking baby doll
Speaker 6: that's filled up with cocaine or something, and these seem
Speaker 6: probably harder to You can't just cut them open.
Speaker 7: No, you might be able to, but I think your
Speaker 7: bottom line takes a hit because they definitely cost more
Speaker 7: than just like a cabbage batch dog.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's true. That's true. This is why you're the
Speaker 6: business half of this equation. That's also why we operated
Speaker 6: a loss newspaper Calmness. Influencers and lawmakers have all weighed
Speaker 6: in with varying degrees of sincerity about what some perceive
Speaker 6: as a threat to the social order and what others
Speaker 6: have described as a harmless hobby. In the northwestern Brazilian
Speaker 6: state of Amazonas, one lawmaker Yao Luise recently carried one
Speaker 6: of the dolls into the legislature and argued without evidence
Speaker 6: that some women have been demanding public benefits.
Speaker 7: From there we go, and I can I see that
Speaker 7: happening here soon.
Speaker 6: His colleague Joanna Dark also voiced concern. Quote, you can't
Speaker 6: just force a doctor in a hospital, for example, to
Speaker 6: treat a reborn doll as if it were a child,
Speaker 6: which is a living being.
Speaker 7: Yeah, this is like on the floor, show me the
Speaker 7: fucking litter boxes. That's what this is the situation here.
Speaker 6: You think this is a rumor more than a real this.
Speaker 7: No, this is a political stance to like.
Speaker 6: Well, I mean this is this next? This is her
Speaker 6: next political.
Speaker 7: Stunt, no different than here with the like kids want
Speaker 7: to be they identify as a cat.
Speaker 6: The next quote is literally that you can't force a
Speaker 6: teacher to accept a child in a daycare center because
Speaker 6: the person wants the reborn doll to start, which is
Speaker 6: basically you can't put a litter box in it.
Speaker 7: No, or but I just think that, like, Okay, show
Speaker 7: me one example of that happening.
Speaker 6: She asked, where would it end with people taking reborn
Speaker 6: pets to the veterinarian to be neutered.
Speaker 7: This is exactly the same argument. This is exactly the
Speaker 7: same argument they're making here.
Speaker 6: What's next, We're gonna marry dogs?
Speaker 7: Yeah, this is this. They're using the same stupid straw
Speaker 7: man argument for the like same thing with like gender stuff. Here.
Speaker 6: In what looked like a bit of trolling, the official
Speaker 6: social media account of Kreetiva warned the quote mothers of
Speaker 6: reborn dolls not to sit in the yellow seats on
Speaker 6: city buses reserved for pregnant women. Quote reborns are cute,
Speaker 6: but they don't guarantee a place in the yellow seat. Okay.
Speaker 6: The post read, Okay, well look that I'll I'm I'm
Speaker 6: for not taking those seats. I'm also for this seems
Speaker 6: more like something the way that somebody might try to
Speaker 6: some This seems like something it might have actually happened.
Speaker 7: But I don't think it's like if you have the
Speaker 7: thing is for sure not happen.
Speaker 6: If you had a reborn doll in Los Angeles, I
Speaker 6: would absolutely keep one on standby to use the carpool lane.
Speaker 7: Yeah, but I mean that's like a Larry David thing
Speaker 7: to do. But I'm just saying that they is that
Speaker 7: on curve He didn't some people do the blow up
Speaker 7: doll thing. I think he just got a prostitute to
Speaker 7: get in hov lane. No reason. But you would also
Speaker 7: wouldn't see this in Los Angeles because America doesn't have
Speaker 7: a yellow seat. There's no like pregnant Lady special seats.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well you wouldn't see this in America. I'm just
Speaker 6: saying this is more believable to me that maybe, oh
Speaker 6: people used reborn dolls to try to sit on a
Speaker 6: bus seat.
Speaker 7: Yes, nobody's doing any other thing except for the mentally ill.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
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Speaker 6: In defense of the dolls, the Rio de Jannio City
Speaker 6: Council proved a proposal to make September fourth Reborn or
Speaker 6: in Stork Day. Okay, that's holiday honoring the artisans who
Speaker 6: make the dolls.
Speaker 7: This is now, This is now. The political gauntlet's been
Speaker 7: thrown here, but.
Speaker 6: Now the political gauntlet gets thrown back the other way.
Speaker 7: Shit.
Speaker 6: The mayor of Rio de Janeiro Eduardo Payees vetoed the proposal, saying, quote,
Speaker 6: with all due respect to those interested, this isn't happening.
Speaker 7: I mean, I'm I'm super for that. Actually, I mean
Speaker 7: i will say it's a day.
Speaker 6: I don't know.
Speaker 7: No, that's a silly day.
Speaker 6: It's honor the people who make them.
Speaker 7: But as is Reborn, a Brazilian company, that's probably not.
Speaker 7: If it's not, then that's insane. If you were in Soul,
Speaker 7: Korea right now and you're like, we're gonna have a
Speaker 7: day on day, yeah, or like honoring the fucking peanut
Speaker 7: M and M people.
Speaker 6: Right, but the manufacturers of the pena eminem.
Speaker 7: But I also have never I've never looked into like
Speaker 7: international days is always like the International Day of Donuts,
Speaker 7: International Day of hot dog skin. Yeah, It's like I've
Speaker 7: never been in another country for that to be like,
Speaker 7: are you guys also or is this just like a
Speaker 7: weird marketing thing in America for stuff?
Speaker 6: Every day is a day somewhere exactly. At least thirty
Speaker 6: bills have been filed in legislative houses across the country
Speaker 6: to bar the dolls from receiving services in public health facilities.
Speaker 6: Again according to the public records.
Speaker 7: Again performative bills. I'm you could submit it and then
Speaker 7: it's not going to get voted in. Yeah, we're enacted.
Speaker 6: I'm kind of surprised. I feel like when they said
Speaker 6: that that they were concerned about the dolls receiving public services.
Speaker 6: I was thinking more like their conspiracy was that women
Speaker 6: were trying to file like welfare claims for yeah baby,
Speaker 6: like the case, Yeah I have two children, I have
Speaker 6: a two child tax credit.
Speaker 7: Or benefits for three children.
Speaker 6: Right, But there appears to have just been one documented
Speaker 6: case if a woman with a psychiatric disorder showing up
Speaker 6: at a hospital to seek treatment for her doll, only
Speaker 6: to be turned away at the entrance.
Speaker 7: What did I say?
Speaker 6: Most bill most of the bills have been introduced by
Speaker 6: members of right wing parties.
Speaker 7: There you go, I seem like an idiot, but I
Speaker 7: can fucking see ship for what it is, like shit
Speaker 7: like this.
Speaker 6: It's nice to know every country does this.
Speaker 7: Well every country now, but like, yeah, it is a
Speaker 7: well there's essentral like a media literacy thing that we
Speaker 7: all need to just go. This is bullshit.
Speaker 6: This also feels a bit this sort of political back
Speaker 6: in fighting whatever feels like an American export.
Speaker 7: Straw man arguments with a strong man like leader stuff,
Speaker 7: so you know, they it's very like performative bill shit.
Speaker 7: But I will say this, I wonder my last question
Speaker 7: on this, which we don't have answers to, is it
Speaker 7: seems like there's been a decrease in births and population
Speaker 7: stuff across the Western world. And I do wonder also
Speaker 7: Eastern because yeah, and so I do wonder if it's
Speaker 7: part of that, like it's part and parcel also with
Speaker 7: like low birth rate. Now we've got these cat lady.
Speaker 6: Well, it's part and parcel with it's fucking it's expensive
Speaker 6: to Oh, it's fucking expensive to have a kid. I
Speaker 6: mean now granted I have a kid in a very
Speaker 6: high cost of living area. Yes, but I'm sure you know,
Speaker 6: all around the world, all the prices for all this
Speaker 6: stuff's going up. So I think there is probably no
Speaker 6: small degree of women who feel like they want a
Speaker 6: baby and just can't fucking afford one, but they can
Speaker 6: shell out two grand for a really good looking doll
Speaker 6: in that like it's I mean, it's incredibly sad, but
Speaker 6: it but it, you know, helps it helps them feel
Speaker 6: more complete or whatever.
Speaker 7: And I just was talking to my buddy. His name
Speaker 7: I won't mention right now, but like he was just
Speaker 7: complaining to me about like how they want a third kid. Yeah,
Speaker 7: he was like, the second one has already just become
Speaker 7: such a burden financially and they haven't even gone into
Speaker 7: like the real schooling payment stuff. And he's like, it's
Speaker 7: already bad enough that you got to fly and pay
Speaker 7: the three tickets. Yeah, it's and it's or sort of
Speaker 7: the movies or do whatever.
Speaker 6: It sucks to think, but.
Speaker 7: They want the third kid badly because they're both one
Speaker 7: of three, and they were just like, we want it.
Speaker 7: We loved our dynamic growing up. But they're like we
Speaker 7: and they do well.
Speaker 6: I'm one of they do well, and I wish I
Speaker 6: had never been born.
Speaker 7: So yeah, but they do well financially. And I'm saying,
Speaker 7: we are living in this world, you know where they
Speaker 7: do polls, which is like how many kids you know
Speaker 7: do you want? And people say, I want three kids,
Speaker 7: And then the second question is how many kids do
Speaker 7: you think you can have? And people always just go one.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean I really in the modern era, Yeah,
Speaker 6: unless you really make a lot of money or you
Speaker 6: live in a very low cost of living area. I mean,
Speaker 6: I can't imagine having more than one kid, honestly. I
Speaker 6: mean two kids maybe, but everything becomes So we're dealing
Speaker 6: with flying with Felix right now, and he's still young
Speaker 6: enough to sit in our lapse, but that's becoming an
Speaker 6: issue because he doesn't want to sit still. But the
Speaker 6: only other option is buy him a seat on an airplane.
Speaker 6: So suddenly a family trip is now a twenty five
Speaker 6: hundred dollars round trip to these coasts.
Speaker 7: Yeah. I mean even back when we were kids, you know,
Speaker 7: my family only took one family vacation ever, and I
Speaker 7: can only imagine that, No, we flew, and I can
Speaker 7: only imagine like what the drain was. And then back then,
Speaker 7: you know, money went a lot further. Yeah, but still
Speaker 7: it's like and then, you know, I'm sure we have
Speaker 7: listeners who are like, I have thirty eight kids and
Speaker 7: it's fine, but yeah.
Speaker 6: My sister has ah has eight kids, maybe nine someday.
Speaker 7: If there's nine, what are you doing but.
Speaker 6: Starting a farm? I think, yeah, I will.
Speaker 7: Say I have a lot of farm friends Becky's too,
Speaker 7: who like, yeah, they do have big families. Let's have
Speaker 7: free labor.
Speaker 6: But I mean, and in her case, they're very much
Speaker 6: a part of the Catholic community and they're really I mean,
Speaker 6: you do see the benefit of the it takes a
Speaker 6: village kind of thing where you know, there is a
Speaker 6: lot of free work or labor put in by babysitters
Speaker 6: or the church or people driving people, but it's all
Speaker 6: no one's keeping tabs and going, oh, i've you know,
Speaker 6: it's just part of how you live and raise a family,
Speaker 6: and there's there is something nice about that, but it
Speaker 6: is it becomes a huge, a huge burden at a
Speaker 6: certain point.
Speaker 7: That's why I always get annoyed when I see the
Speaker 7: or like I agree with when I see the things
Speaker 7: that I'm annoyed by what brings about but the lake.
Speaker 7: Everybody says it takes a village. Unless that village is
Speaker 7: like snap benefits or welfare or like, unless the village
Speaker 7: is provided by taxpayers, then all of a sudden you're
Speaker 7: on your own, right. That's that's so fucking greasy. But anyway,
Speaker 7: we're talking about these these realistic dolls.
Speaker 6: VV Laurencini, an actress from Kuritiba thirty years old, has
Speaker 6: been making reborn dolls, makings bespoke since twenty twenty, including
Speaker 6: some for the Brazilian productions of Wicked and Matilda. My
Speaker 6: life has turned into chaos with this boom, she said,
Speaker 6: referring to the frenzy around the dolls. It's been good
Speaker 6: exposure in this sense, but it's an exposure that is
Speaker 6: causing so much stress.
Speaker 7: Well.
Speaker 6: Yeah, people are kicking your creations.
Speaker 7: Down, Yeah, and writing songs about about it.
Speaker 6: Camilla.
Speaker 7: There's like TikTok challenges probably.
Speaker 6: Yeah, TikTok challenge, break into this woman's house and steal
Speaker 6: her reborn dolls, yeah, Camilla and Fanger, a doctoral candidate
Speaker 6: in political science at the University of South Paulo, said
Speaker 6: there had been a noticeable difference in the response to
Speaker 6: hobbies associated with women and those associated with men. Because
Speaker 6: women are doing it and women are the principal actors
Speaker 6: in this, it's been stigmatized differently, she said, adding that
Speaker 6: the backlash was quote just another way to regulate women's lives.
Speaker 7: I agree with that.
Speaker 6: It does. It does sound that way, yeah, but also.
Speaker 7: But also, don't do this.
Speaker 6: Don't do this just like I can.
Speaker 7: There can be it's weird, it can be mutually exclusive,
Speaker 7: like we can agree that this tactic is that. Yeah,
Speaker 7: but we can also agree this is in a response
Speaker 7: to something.
Speaker 6: It's the girl version of carrying around an AR fifteen
Speaker 6: in public. I think it's that it's like I look
Speaker 6: at that and go, this is weird. Why are you
Speaker 6: doing this?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean that's probably they're both costplaying at that point. Yeah,
Speaker 7: they're both at one's costplaying as a parent, one's costplaying
Speaker 7: as like a soldier.
Speaker 6: And they're both filling a void. One is lonely and
Speaker 6: the other is a coward.
Speaker 7: So I will say I own more guns than I
Speaker 7: own reborns.
Speaker 6: For sure, But I'm just saying exactly. I think I
Speaker 6: think that's sort of the it's the look some people
Speaker 6: need to heal. But there is something these dolls. Again.
Speaker 6: Part of my pushback against these dolls is they just
Speaker 6: it feels like carrying around a dead body. Basically, it
Speaker 6: feels like carrying around something that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you're not wrong that you're just like, that's why
Speaker 7: you got to make them bleed every once in a while.
Speaker 7: They're alive.
Speaker 6: Yeah. The dolls this article tells us have been around
Speaker 6: since the nineteen nineties, when people started stripping the paint
Speaker 6: and hair off of store bought vinyl dolls and painstakingly
Speaker 6: reworking them to be more lifelike, and the interest in
Speaker 6: them is not limited to Brazil. Dave Stack of Cleveland,
Speaker 6: the owner of reborns, an online marketplace for reborn dolls,
Speaker 6: which I believe that's the website and.
Speaker 7: We went to to look at those monstrous things, said he'd.
Speaker 6: Seen a slow and steady increase in sales since he
Speaker 6: started the site in twenty twelve. He now sells forty
Speaker 6: to sixty dollars per day, up from about ten per
Speaker 6: day five years ago.
Speaker 7: But he's a reseller, though he's not like I imagine.
Speaker 7: You can also buy things from reborn, Yes, but you
Speaker 7: can go to him and be like the site we went,
Speaker 7: he's are slightly selling site. I think these have been
Speaker 7: wheeled around in the strollery. Yeah, these have been kicked
Speaker 7: down the street. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Most costs around two hundred to two hundred and fifty dollars
Speaker 6: and are made of vinyl. Okay, well, a few limited
Speaker 6: edition dollars made of softer silicone have sold for more
Speaker 6: than four thousand dollars. You want a soft baby, you
Speaker 6: do want a soft baby. You don't want a vinyl baby.
Speaker 7: You don't want a baby made from melted down records.
Speaker 6: Yeah, if you put this baby on a turntable, you
Speaker 6: can hear the sounds of the strokes. Percentage of the
Speaker 6: dolls are purchased by mothers who are grieving the loss
Speaker 6: of a child.
Speaker 7: Which, by the way, I'm not trying to hurt the
Speaker 7: reborn business. Yeah, but I almost kind of feel like
Speaker 7: it should have pretty early on been like a what
Speaker 7: do they call that thing where you're allowed to bring
Speaker 7: your fucking dog on a plane.
Speaker 6: Annoying, Yeah, but I'm saying.
Speaker 7: Like people always abuse it. Oh oh whatever animal.
Speaker 6: Yeah, your mental health or your service animal.
Speaker 7: Yeah. I almost feel like this should I imagine I
Speaker 7: would like to think you have to submit some sort
Speaker 7: of paperwork to get the service animal like recognition, like
Speaker 7: hey you know, hey, you can't bring that on here.
Speaker 7: It's like, well, actually have a dope for my doctor.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah you do. But those are really easy to.
Speaker 7: Get, That's what I'm saying. It seemed very like scammy,
Speaker 7: But I almost feel like rebirth should have that same
Speaker 7: level of like one extra step, yeah, where it's like, hey,
Speaker 7: I had to submit it's like medical.
Speaker 6: Marijuana, like the way it used to be. People just
Speaker 6: want it, But hey, you gotta go through the hoop
Speaker 6: at least of saying that you have a macular degeneration.
Speaker 7: You got to talk to a twenty two year old
Speaker 7: doctor in a fucking lap coat and a hoodie. Yeah,
Speaker 7: so like, do you know what I mean? Like, make
Speaker 7: someone do at least one extra step? Yeah, because I
Speaker 7: think you can right now be like add to cart
Speaker 7: now I have a psychosis.
Speaker 6: Yeah. So honestly, the small percentage of dolls purchased by
Speaker 6: mothers who are grieving the loss of a child, I
Speaker 6: sort of feel like, is the only percentage that should.
Speaker 7: Be exactly, you should get a thing that says, hey,
Speaker 7: you can't stop me, I have a thing.
Speaker 6: Others have been bought by memory care facilities, Oh that's interesting,
Speaker 6: lawyers who use the re court room renactly, show they touched, Yeah,
Speaker 6: got it? And people making movies and televison and shows
Speaker 6: obviously which.
Speaker 7: Obviously should just makes sense. We want to keep putting
Speaker 7: hot lights on top of these kids in real life.
Speaker 6: But most buyers are quote just people who love babies.
Speaker 7: People who missed the the beanie baby boom.
Speaker 6: But that and that is the problem. Just people who
Speaker 6: love babies. I a guy. Okay, I don't know. If
Speaker 6: my wife wants to me sharing this story.
Speaker 7: I can't cut it. This is a new If you're
Speaker 7: on larned, it's fine.
Speaker 6: We were at a coffee shop with Felix the other
Speaker 6: day and this guy in his like sixties maybe who
Speaker 6: I had clocked, because I'm pretty sure I had seen
Speaker 6: him watch like two twelve year old girls walk past
Speaker 6: him on the street. He was sitting at a coffee
Speaker 6: table outside.
Speaker 7: So you clocked it the same day, not like, yes,
Speaker 7: oh he lives in the neighborhood.
Speaker 6: No, no, no, same. I'm wearing the coffee shop, I'm out
Speaker 6: looking out the window and I see this guy and
Speaker 6: it kind of out of the corner of my eye.
Speaker 6: Was like, I think he just checked out those two children. Yeah,
Speaker 6: he But then he came in and he was like
Speaker 6: doing something. He got out a cup of coffee. On
Speaker 6: the way out, he stopped and started talking to Felix and.
Speaker 7: He's a baby though he's not gonna talk back.
Speaker 6: No I know, but he was.
Speaker 7: He was.
Speaker 6: He was like, oh, he's such a bright eyed little boy,
Speaker 6: and I will see he had his phone in his
Speaker 6: hand and I was like is in a picture. I
Speaker 6: was looking at the screen to make sure he wasn't
Speaker 6: and then I was getting ready for him to ask,
Speaker 6: and he didn't, but he did ask if he could
Speaker 6: squeeze one of Felix's toes.
Speaker 7: Sir, And I don't want it to be like this
Speaker 7: is me stigmatizing. Yeah, but like if you're a lady, maybe,
Speaker 7: but I don't want a guy, a stranger guy, Oh
Speaker 7: touch it, my baby touched anybody's toes well, but and
Speaker 7: that the lady. I might give you like a seconds
Speaker 7: more grace on this.
Speaker 6: But I tell this story to say, obviously, we said
Speaker 6: yes because we were He said yes, we were super uncomfortable,
Speaker 6: and we were just like, I mean, we were. He
Speaker 6: wasn't get a kidnap. You know, we're in a busy coffee.
Speaker 7: I mean, what did it pass your cross your mind
Speaker 7: at all to be like for eight dollars?
Speaker 6: Not until after he left? Okay, But I bring this
Speaker 6: up to say, a this guy might have just been
Speaker 6: a creep, but be it. What did cross my mind was, oh,
Speaker 6: this is like a person who loves babies and like
Speaker 6: also might be a pedophile, but like this this is
Speaker 6: a guy who like you hear about people who love babies,
Speaker 6: but I feel like I don't really come across them
Speaker 6: in day.
Speaker 7: To day life, especially not in the modern era.
Speaker 6: No, because it's a little weird, A.
Speaker 7: Little yeah, it's a lot weird. And that's why I'm saying,
Speaker 7: old grandma, ass lady, you got some baboushka rolling up
Speaker 7: being like, oh you can see this lady probably raising kids,
Speaker 7: has grandkids, gets excited. I want to eat them up
Speaker 7: energy in a goodish way. I'm saying. You know how
Speaker 7: the aways people always referring to like cuteness of babies
Speaker 7: as like an edible thing. It's they're always saying it,
Speaker 7: and so I'm fine with that. But if I'm just
Speaker 7: like a man alone, you know, who doesn't accidentally on
Speaker 7: purpose drop his wallet to be like, oh those are
Speaker 7: my grandkids pictures that flopped out. Yeah, so like buy himself.
Speaker 6: Stops on his way up and goes look at these
Speaker 6: little toes.
Speaker 7: Yeah. I just feel like you can go through your
Speaker 7: day without touching toes. Yeah, and so just live your
Speaker 7: life that way. Yeah. Anyway, anyway, your kid's been marked
Speaker 7: by him. He has the market. Yeah, yeah, he's going
Speaker 7: to put a tracker on him.
Speaker 6: This article continues that some popular videos made by content
Speaker 6: creators show these reborn dolls getting a bloody nose as discussed, Yeah,
Speaker 6: going on their first outing to target spaon con or
Speaker 6: throwing up in the car.
Speaker 7: Sure, what I have to imagine there's some cuts in
Speaker 7: these videos. There are some medits. Yeah, I think so
Speaker 7: if it throws up on its own, this is a
Speaker 7: totally different video about a possessed y'all.
Speaker 6: This is a religious miracle.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, your baby has stigmata.
Speaker 6: Jennifer Granado, forty three, who makes the dolls with her
Speaker 6: husband and daughter in Indiana, said about half of her
Speaker 6: customers or collectors, and about half are coping with some
Speaker 6: type of trauma or loss.
Speaker 7: I mean, I even watching this video if you're not
Speaker 7: just listening. I mean, obviously I'm a collector of things.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but luckily they're not not lifelike children dolls.
Speaker 7: Yeah there, I mean the things I collect might keep
Speaker 7: you childless because no one wants to date someone who
Speaker 7: lives this lifestyle. That's not true, but like it's definitely
Speaker 7: better than whever. This is.
Speaker 6: One customer, Miss Granado said, takes her dolls shopping into
Speaker 6: the doctor's office feeds them baby food and takes pictures
Speaker 6: of them with Santa Claus on Christmas. I mean she
Speaker 6: is unable to have kids, so this is as close
Speaker 6: as she can get for her and her husband. Miss
Speaker 6: Granado said there's definitely a large group of people who
Speaker 6: don't understand why a grown adult would be playing with
Speaker 6: a baby doll. But they don't see it as a
Speaker 6: baby doll. They see it as a baby.
Speaker 7: This is the woman who also makes them in the
Speaker 7: airh Okay, got you.
Speaker 6: I mean she's just selling her wares.
Speaker 7: That's what I'm saying. That's a little bit and she
Speaker 7: could have gotten into it for this purpose, yes, but
Speaker 7: I think once you're in there, it's a nice sales pitch.
Speaker 6: MSS Drew's, the collector from Kuratiba, called the dolls a
Speaker 6: calming fun I would even say innocent hobby a damning sentence.
Speaker 7: Like that's a yeah.
Speaker 6: I would even say totally normal and very innocent.
Speaker 7: I will say a lot of people have hobbies, very
Speaker 7: few of them have to defend the hobby.
Speaker 6: As being totally total yeah. She said she was frustrated
Speaker 6: with being judged for her interest in them. Quote. I
Speaker 6: hope that after this is all over. We can continue
Speaker 6: our collections in peace and do what we like without
Speaker 6: being labeled. She said, I think that reborn dolls are
Speaker 6: an art, and art deserves to be appreciated. I'd like
Speaker 6: to point out that the tree. Yeah, this photo, which
Speaker 6: we'll put up on the screen is haunted by demonic tree.
Speaker 7: In that tree. Whose hobby was to make that?
Speaker 6: I don't know, but I mean I do like this.
Speaker 7: Picture, and it'll be either on the screen or in
Speaker 7: the show notes if you're just listening. There is a
Speaker 7: sense of community here. It's nice to have.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a community of witches worshiping a sentient tree.
Speaker 7: Yes. Babies, yeah, yeah, but I'm saying anything that gets
Speaker 7: people out that getting them touching grass, yeah, maybe that's good.
Speaker 6: And so that that is the end of the article.
Speaker 6: That's the end of the article.
Speaker 7: Is at the end of the episode.
Speaker 6: Well, we can discuss these babies a little bit more.
Speaker 7: I mean we've discussed them a lot. We've discussed them
Speaker 7: another episode if you want to hear it. Probably some overlap,
Speaker 7: just a.
Speaker 6: Little not much, just a little bit. Yeah, go check
Speaker 6: out the Dollars episode if you haven't, and let.
Speaker 7: Us know if you are a collector. I don't think
Speaker 7: we said anything that was to me.
Speaker 6: If you collect reborn dolls, we would love to hear
Speaker 6: from you.
Speaker 7: Yeah, we'll have you on and we won't make fun
Speaker 7: of you.
Speaker 6: Pick your brain and donate it to science.
Speaker 7: Pick your brain and a reborn doll and see if
Speaker 7: it comes to life.
Speaker 6: Well while we try that experiment, friends, fans out there
Speaker 6: in podcast world, I'm Chris Calari and I'm ed FORCLA
Speaker 6: And this has been New Fear Unlocked.
Speaker 7: Almost do we say new Fear on lot the last one?
Speaker 6: I think so? Okay, this has been New Fear Unlocked.
Speaker 6: We'll see you next time.
Speaker 7: Bye bye, bye bye.
Speaker 1: The theme song may say this show has no name,
Speaker 1: but as you know, it actually has a name, New
Speaker 1: Fear Unlocked. The thing you guys always say, that's the name.
Speaker 1: The name is New Fear Unlocked. But now it's over,
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