In the midst of the largest technology boom the world has ever witnessed, it is interesting to find that there are still those among us who participate in the seemingly outdated pastimes of our forbears. Before Secondlife and The Sims, before Gigapets , Tamagotchis, and even Barbie, there were paper dolls.
Paper dolls have never been a typical sort of toy. They embody, simplicity - familiar fashions and faces printed on a barely two-dimensional, flat object. While many historians locate the origins of paper dolls amongst the ancient civilizations of the Chinese, Japanese, and Western Europe, the modern manufacture of paper dolls began in the late 1700s, accompanying popular children's literature in Europe and America.
The Click and Print Age
What is the appeal of the paper doll? While classified as a toy, it is certainly not an amusement limited to adolescents, or even girls. Activities known as "dress-up games," which now includes the printable paper doll, are a popular internet pastime in contemporary America, possibly cultivated by our ongoing cultural obsession with both fashion and virtual reality. "Dress-up games are an ultra-simplified version of the virtual reality phenomenon, which caters to our escapist desires, but also offers a measure of control that is impossible to maintain in realistic life.
The paper doll fascination has never completely disappeared from youth culture in America, but the annual release of PC games and video game consoles, liberally-equipped cellular phones, and virtual reality simulations has produced stiff competition in a developing entertainment industry that thrives on the desire for unlimited options.
Luckily for paper doll fanatics, this delightful diversion has not been utterly abandoned by the technological age, but has been absorbed into the throng of information now appropriated by the internet. Once the rare possession of wealthy families, this paper pleasure has reached the height of accessibility in the form of the printable paper doll.
The images have changed from prima ballerinas and Victorian nobility to Disney princesses and media starlets, but the sentiment remains the same. In fact, paper doll culture has expanded to accommodate the multi-social world of America, responding to the vast and innumerable combinations that make up our individual interests. There are paper doll figures of Audrey Hepburn and Rita Hayworth for Grandma, right alongside cut-outs of Naruto and Paris Hilton for little Tommy and Jessica.
The use of paper dolls has been optimized, targeted even towards more specialized groups - the science fiction and fantasy crowd, Goths, historians, Wiccans, Fetishists, Anime, Biblical, and countless others. Websites like Gail's Paper Dolls, Marilee's Paper Dolls, and Spacestation42 compile a list of printable paper dolls that are sure to offer appeal to anyone and everyone - for Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, Eccentric Uncle Leonard, and children.
instead of disappearing into the abyss of lost pleasures, paper dolls are taken from the paper doll fanatics and solidified his place in popular culture by participating in the production, and eliminating the paper doll to print a single click from other users Internet.
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