There was once a time when the reborn community was an all-inclusive fun place to be.
Gradually this has changed, no it is a place of putting one another down, stealing and scamming.
All this morning I have been downhearted whilst looking online.
I was scrolling through eBay and all I saw were babies classed as reborns that clearly are not reborns.
The biggest group I saw this morning were IVIta.
These dolls are just not reborn babies, they are factory-made dolls, the likes of which could be found in supermarkets. Not a reborn.

An Ivita doll
The popularity in this new breed of doll and doll collector makes me wonder if really a split within the reborn community is now inevitable.
The split would be based on those people that will support and enable the companies that steal doll kits and then replicate them for a cheap price and brand them as reborns, and those people that will only buy genuine reborn babies.
Yes, a real reborn baby will cost a lot more than a factory-made doll, but isn’t that part of this hobby, to actually buy a reborn.
The other dolls can be cheaply made, mass-produced, but that does not make them reborn babies and people that own them will not be as welcomed into many reborn groups.
I know of many groups that will block and ban anyone that posts pictures of the fake reborns in the group.
Now, this may make many people that own these dolls feel bad.
I know that it is easy to lean towards the cheaper dolls for many as they are by their definition cheaper and easier to get.
But what message is that sending to others within the community?
The more people that buy these dolls from the stolen kits, and yes, looking at any websites today with sites claiming to be reborns and not being that I recognized several of the kits there and I know that they should not be there.
So, to protect sculptors and artists will there soon have to be a split, separating those that would buy and support the non-reborns and those that will only deal with real artists and buy real reborns.

Top Quality genuine reborn baby.
Personally, I will only buy genuine reborn babies from artists that I know do not support the stealing of kits.
I want my collection to be reborns and not just dolls.
There are “real artists” who do reborn factory made silicone dolls. They put in as many hours and as much energy as any other artist. So yes, some factory produced dolls are reborns. IF a kit is stolen, the artist needs to stand up and tell people. Not everyone, especially newcomers to the hobby, are aware of the issues. But not every factory produced doll is from a stolen kit.
From my understanding, most of the stolen kits were obtained because artists chose to ship their dolls to China to be produced. They wanted to save money for more profit, KNOWING there are reasons that foreign companies can offer such cheap prices. With all the talk of counterfeit goods being produced overseas, they HAD to know they were opening the door for having their dolls “stolen”. You can’t watch a news show without somebody having an episode on cheap China counterfeit products (purses, belts, shoes); so why send your creation you have so much time and money invested in to a place that you KNOW produces counterfeits? The artist orders 100 dolls kits, the company produces 200, sends the artist theirs and sells the other. Is it RIGHT? Hell no…it’s wrong, but artists KNOW this is going to happen when they choose to send their doll there to save a little money. Overseas companies can offer such low prices not just because of lower taxes, but because they KNOW they are going to makes copies of everything they are contracted to produce.
If you want to stop illegally produced kits, stop the artists from sending their dolls to China to be produced. EDUCATE people about where and what to buy. DOn’t be snobs. If someone buys something they had no idea was from a copyright infringement, don’t attack them, don’t metaphorically evict them from the “cool kids club”, don’t tell them to throw their money/doll away, EDUCATE them so the NEXT doll they buy will be a legitimate reborn. NO ONE is going to throw away a doll they spent money on. Telling them to throw it away only leads to them selling it to ANOTHER newbie who has no idea. Encourage them to keep teh first doll so that when they get a real reborn, they will be able to see how different the dolls are. Ignoring the “fake” won’t do anything…show it AS A FAKE so people can see the differences.
If you stop rejecting people and instead embrace them, they are more likely to spend money on a legitimate reborn if they are not treated as criminals. THEY are the victims as much as the artist because they have spent money on something that will NOT hold it’s value the way a “real” reborn will. Stop treating them as the enemy, stop being snobs. You can NOT support the “stealing of kits” and still embrace the people who got scammed.
And if you REALLY want to do something to prevent the purchase of “fakes”, find ways of offering some types of reborns cheaper than the majority. IF there are reasonably priced legitimate reborns, then people will WANT those rather than the counterfeits. But too many of the hobby come off as snobs….they don’t WANT cheaper reborns….if you can’t afford to spend $1000 on a doll, you don’t deserve to play in their playground.
If you want to prevent a split, stop driving people away.
You do realize that when this hobby first started a “reborn doll” wasn’t made from a kit…they were literally “reborned” from an existing dolls…Berenguers were very popular. IN truth, today’s dolls are NOT “re’ anything…they are blank kits that artists create. “re” refers to something that existed in a different form before… so todays art dolls really aren’t reborns at all.