Community Lolitas - 1000% more backstabbing than you'd expect.

happened across this bit of salt thought it was kinda funny.
Ah, brilliant! I'm saving that just in case she deletes it. :lol:

"Where's your balls at!?"
"Nanonymous."
"Anonymous-chan, fuck you!"
"Where I'm here to make people smile, 'cept for this video. I'm here to take you back down!"
"And also, may the force be with you! HAHA! BYE!"

The ending with the unexpected Star Trek reference and crazy sounding "HAHA!" just made it for me. Great find!
 
I'm still trying to decide what fascinates me more between how insanely intricate and detailed the whole lolita thing is when you actually look a bit more into it, how there's a lot of vicious catfighting and backstabbing between the people involved in this fandom, or how, in the end, it all ties back into extremely expensive dresses based on a fashion style that's more outdated than Chris's references to Gilligan's Island.

I mean, don't get me wrong regarding that last statement. This entire thing astounds me and I have a lot of respect for the people who put a lot of time, money, and effort into all of this, but... like... it's hard not to blink in confusion when you try to say "Yeah, it all revolves around these frilly little dresses." This is the sort of thing that would kill most conversations if you tried to bring it up.
 
Someone who actually learned how to make these well would have a marketable skill at the end of the process. That's worthy of some respect.
Well, if you're talented at it and you find a niche enough market, you can easily make a tidy profit out of it. I mean, in general I can't deny that the lolita dresses do look pretty damn cute and beautiful and would probably cost a lot even without considering the importance they hold in the fandom, but there are a lot of people with very specific tastes that people who have enough talent can capitalize on. I mean, we have said before that Dobson honestly might've been better off financially and emotionally if he had just fully embraced his CattyN persona and became famous as an inflation fetish artist. There are some people with some weird fetishes and disposable income out there.
 
I think one of the biggest lolcows involved in lolita fashion is Mr. Yan, the owner of Bodyline, a store that sells cheap cosplay, alternative fashions and... lingerie. Mr. Yan is Chinese, and while Bodyline's factories are in China, they operate their stores and etc. from Japan. The lolita community being how it is, there is an ongoing debate as to whether Bodyline clothes are ever "acceptable" in lolita, because ~true pure lolitas~ would never dare shop at a store that sells icky sexy stuff. Realistically speaking though, their non-costumy stuff is actually pretty decent-looking, but not very high quality.

Now every so often, bodyline holds a contest to a find a new model, who will have photos of her wearing all their clothes gracing their website. Unfortunately for the lucky "winner" (who is usually a foreign girl), she is often sexually harassed by Mr. Yan, who basically is using the contest as an attempt to find a foreign bride. The most infamous case of this was with a model named Nadia. He released a dress print called "Love Nadia" to show how infatuated he was with her when she was working for hi, and when she fled from the company, he had a "Mr. Yan is Angry" sale, where the first thing visitors to the website would be greeted by was a video of him angrily smashing mirrors. Really, in general, Bodyline ads are pretty weird, as this ad for a spring sale they had a few years back shows.

Anyways, the bodyline models are often treated poorly-- another case of this is the story of a lolita who is now mostly known by her livejournal name, Yoshiko_sakurai. She was the bodyline model for the longest time, and people often made jokes about her because of the awkward expressions she made in the promotional photos (example: here). Attitudes towards Yoshiko, however, shifted from mockery to sympathy when she revealed that she had left the company due to the poor working conditions making her ill. She lived in a complex that was owned by Bodyline and wasn't able to take all her stuff with her when she initially left, so she asked them to send her stuff back to her, but they refused. Here is Yoshiko describing what happened in her own words. (In case you are wondering, she is Russian and her English isn't the best).

There's also the drama with Bodyline and Venus Angelic, which is detailed in the Venus Angelic thread, so I won't discuss it here.

Last but not least, to put icing on the cake, Mr. Yan released a huggable pillow of himself, which was available for quite some time on the bodyline site for about 3100 yen.

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