Comments on: Bloggers vs. American Girl Place

By: Brenda

Brenda — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:32:24 +0000

I have read several of the comments and responses. I, like Ann Marie, think that the problem seems to lie with the customer. I would think that the parents would have discussed the probability of the company refusing the hair styling for the doll, since they may not be familiar with the type of material used for the hair. Although the company is ultimately responsible for its employees, these hair stylists are not well-trained professional hair dressers. I have visited the American Girl Place in New York with my grandnieces and have been surprised at the differences in the skills of the various hair dressers. Some were exceedingly rough, producing hair loss and applying undue pressure on the neck area. Others were gentle with the dolls, producing smooth, elegant hair styles (not unlike our own stylists).
As far as the dolls are concerned, I do not think they are terribly over-priced. Twenty-five years ago, I paid as much, and could afford it much less, for a large baby doll for my daughter. Since then I have purchased several American Girl dolls, first for my granddaughters and now for my grandnieces and myself..
However, I digress. The main point is that is is a profit-making business, and I am a customer. I need not praise nor condemn the company; I need only to purchase or not purchase their products.

By: Alecia

Alecia — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 04:10:17 +0000

Heather commented on the absurdity of wasting good outrage on a story about a mere doll. While I can certainly appreciate her perspective, I think there’s a larger issue at play here. These dolls are all the rage with our daughters but the prohibitive price of the dolls, not to mention the myriad of costly accessories, encourages a debate on exclusivity. The very idea of a hair salon for dolls is self-indulgent. I don’t pay $20 to get my own hair done! The original concept of the American Girl was of an age appropriate, semi-educational answer to Barbie. Sadly, the existence of these dolls has now spawned a brand of class division in our elementary schools. There are the “haves” on one side with the legitimate AGs and the “have-nots” on the other with the cheaper Target models. Letâ€™s face it; children can be vicious, especially if their mothers are modeling elitist behaviors. This story is representative of an ugly trend and thatâ€™s what hit a nerve with most people posting here. I hate to sound trite, but the value of a doll lies only in whether or not it is loved. I coddled a rubber mouse for years as a child and wretched was the fool who pointed out its worthlessness. My six-year-old daughter was desperate to have an AG like her best friend’s. Luckily, she adores the Springfield Collection knock off I managed to find for $15 and seems blessedly unaware that her precious dolly might be considered second rate by some pretentious nouveau riche half-wit.

By: Natalie

Natalie — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 02:14:38 +0000

I would just like to comment on a post by Ann Marie. This woman/person has posted the same comment on numerous other website changing her name. My guest is that she either works for American Girl or is a very rude heartless woman. That little girl saved her money to buy the doll herself. What child could afford a $100 doll? And should they really be indulged? What kind of world are we bringing our children up in. It’s one thing to buy your child an expensive toy but to judge others because they cannot afford the same for their child, maybe you should spend more time in church and less in chat rooms.

By: Garry

Garry — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 18:56:04 +0000

Well, I’m a toy collector from Australia and I regretably stumbled across this sorry little state of affairs while searching for a remedy for heat damaged doll hair, nothing whatsoever to do with Big-Bad-And-Naughty-American-Girl-Smack, or poor-little-heartbroken-and-in-tears-etta-sob. I admit I’ve never heard of American Girl Dolls, but I most certainly have no intentions of buying one, if they’re anything like the old American Girl Barbie they must be God-awful!, I mean, who in their right mind, would wish any doll to look like that?
Actually the AG staff aren’t to blame for the brooha, it’s the American Girl Management’s fault, they should have ensured correct signage was in place explaining that ” We do apologize but due to unforeseen variations in manufacturing standards, materials and methods, we only give AG dolls the ugly treatment… blah blah”. And they should adopt it as Store Policy, that way the uppity staff needed only to look down their nose at Etta and point at the sign as they scoffed and tended to the customer standing behind poor litle Etta, as the tears welled, unsolicited from any malcontent, surly shopgirl, wishing it was the weekend and SHE was already at the 43rd Annual Bikers Convention in Vegas.
But it’s always so simple in hindsight.

By: Heather

Heather — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 01:33:50 +0000

Wow. I thought sports were considered the opiate of the masses…
I doubt the American Girl company hired someone to write a stealth defense. This would be the same company that sent identical canned responses to the two or three people who wrote to them threatening to boycott because of the Etta situation.

Does the story sound fake? Heck, yeah. If you want something to be outraged about, how about the fact that this woman’s blog post about a doll has elicited well over 100 responses on her site alone.

Come on, write your congressperson about something…ANYTHING!

By: Ann Marie

Ann Marie — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 20:36:03 +0000

I belong to an American Girl message board, and this story came to our attention. I read the mother’s blog entry and the comments stereotyping AG doll owners as wealthy elitists. I also took the time to read the mother’s other blog entries. She is trying to gain sympathy by giving the impression that her “impoverished” daughter was treated badly by the rich snobs who own AG dolls. That angers me on many levels. I decided to do a specific search for this story in order to share my feelings with as many people as I could. My intentions were to encourage people to do some research instead of jumping to conclusions.

I’m not sure what more I can do to convince you that I’m not an American Girl employee. What proof do you need?

By: Jeannette

Jeannette — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 18:22:10 +0000

Oh my. I must have been mista—–You almost had me there. Almost. But then I noticed that you were doing a search for “American Girl and Etta”. “Etta”. Not a usual name. Not one of the corporately-assigned names given to American Girl dolls. But the name of the daughter in this whole saga.

No one would plug in the search words “American Girl Etta” unless they were looking for content related to this specific story. And clearly, based on your first comment, your goal in finding content related to this story was to defend AG, which is EXACTLY what people in our profession (crisis communications) do.

And while I appreciate your efforts to seem more authentic by inserting a more colloquial-tone into your follow up comments, you already blew your cover in your first post.

By: Ann Marie

Ann Marie — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 15:43:06 +0000

I’m surprised that you haven’t questioned the writing style of the mother. She claims to live in “impoverished brownstone Brooklyn.”

By: Ann Marie

Ann Marie — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 15:25:53 +0000

…and the reason why I’m reading this blog is because I did a Google search for “American Girl Etta” and this was one of the search results!

By: Ann Marie

Ann Marie — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 15:24:40 +0000

Wow, I didn’t expect that kind of response. Well, I’ll thank Jay and Jeanette for their compliments, since I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I won my first award for writing in fifth grade, and I’m a former NY State spelling bee champion. I got married and had kids right out of college, so I’ve never actually had a job that utilized my skills! I’d love to be considered for some freelance work.

That said, Jeanette, I am working-class. My husband works two jobs while I stay home with the kids. I live in Staten Island, which is a borough of New York City, in a crappy bungalow with not enough bedrooms. But I won’t dumb-down my writing because it’s a blog and not the New York Times.