Cosplaying the Mommy Wars

A niche internet community devoted to lifelike baby dolls has become a surreal hotbed of ideological debate. Here, a peek at the trouble brewing in uncanny valley.

- By Jessica Lucas

Getting hit with severe COVID-19 should have been the most stressful thing to happen to Kiersten Haley last January. In a feverish fog, the 28-year-old military vet could think of little else besides fighting off the virus-even as she was at the center of a separate raging war. The latter was happening on TikTok, with hundreds of strangers swarming her account, denouncing her as selfish, telling her she deserved the hate flooding her comments ("You should be ashamed!!! ASHAMED!!!!"). As she physically recovered enough to read them, emotionally her brain was on fire. How were so many people this worked up about her "parenting" choices?

Kiersten is a mother not to human children but to dolls-specifically "reborn" dolls, a specialized class of hyperrealistic faux babies that inspire spooked curiosity in casual observers and fanatical devotion from a growing group of young superfans (see: #Reborn Baby on TikTok, currently with 3 billion views). Price points for the dolls range from around $250 for a basic model to more than $5,000 for limited-edition versions with hair strands hand-rooted one by one and hand-painted layers of skin mottling, veining, and blushing. The community comprises tens of thousands of collectors and doll artists, many with very active social channels.