Social Issues and Reactions
Almost all reborn customers are women, particularly older women. The process of buying a reborn can be done to simulate an adoption process, rather than a prosaic sale of a product. As part of this, the dolls often come with fake birth certificates or adoption certificates. Many women collect reborns as they would a non-reborn doll, whilst others purchase them to fill a void of a lost child and may treat reborns as living babies. Media features and public receptions use adjectives such as "creepy" to describe the reborns. This can be explained by the uncanny valley hypothesis. This states that as objects become more lifelike they gain an increasing empathetic response, until a certain point in which the response changes to repulsion. Department stores have refused to stock the dolls because of this reaction, claiming they are too lifelike.
Read more about this topic: Reborn Doll
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