vorsprung durch technik

August 29, 2018 4:46 AM

Nazi Sex Dolls in Space (nsfw, slyt)
posted by fearfulsymmetry (19 comments total)

At work, and the urge to click on this is so strong/tempting...alas.
posted by Fizz at 5:01 AM on August 29, 2018

There's a bit of a flying leap from 'the Nazis tried to make sex dolls' to 'the European inspiration for Barbie was based on the barely in production Nazi sex dolls' to 'Barbie was chiefly inspired by a similar European doll'. The extent to which these connections aren't explored, when the video has fairly detailed pans over the evidence for the existence of Nazi sex dolls, suggests that maybe this is punched up for the views.

(Edit: The video makes the same point around 8 minutes in as it happens, and then waves it off as 'well drone pilots use simulations so who's to say?' which is weak tea)
posted by Merus at 5:21 AM on August 29, 2018 [7 favorites]

I'm surprised this isn't an entry in Snopes already. Calling Bild Lily a sex doll implies something about the scale of German male anatomy that seems implausible.
posted by ardgedee at 5:47 AM on August 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

Are you suggesting that this youtube video about nazi sex dolls in space may not be adhering to the strictest standards of analytically rigourous history?
posted by sfenders at 5:47 AM on August 29, 2018 [13 favorites]

IG Farben! Impolex G anyone? Holy Gravity's Rainbow Batman!
posted by fFish at 5:50 AM on August 29, 2018 [6 favorites]

Oh brother. Barbie was based on fashion dolls, something that had been around forever, as large elaborate dress designs are more portably demonstrated in miniature form. That leap from sex dolls was too big to even be clever.
posted by kinnakeet at 5:53 AM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

At work, so didn’t click but will join the discussion regardless.... Roman fashion doll
posted by bonobothegreat at 6:08 AM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

It's a corollary to Rule 34: The American toy industry will eventually create a product based on every sex device or Nazi relic. (Proof: GI Joe, Barbie. QED.)
posted by Cris E at 6:48 AM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

I think some of you guys have to check your farce detector settings. This is a GREAT piece and has its tongue stuck so hard in its cheek, the narrator starts offering you bitten off pieces three quarters through the run time.

The jaunty, arch tone carries you happily forward as your credulity wains and then waxes poetic on the nature of myth and technology. Ahem, unless you're a joyless pedant who watches a fraction of the video and rushes to debunk it. THIS seems super appropes.
posted by es_de_bah at 7:04 AM on August 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

It could be a sex doll if you put it in your butt
posted by Sterros at 7:29 AM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

The cheap production value was a hint that this was not to be trusted.

I skimmed through it (later, in Metafilter) and noticed that the narrator mentions that the doll thing is a hoax. Did not have the time budget to figure out exactly what point Heathcote Williams was trying to make.

Found an easier to digest incarnation with some comments from the original author.

Phew! Makes sense now.
posted by haemanu at 7:33 AM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Barbie was based on fashion dolls, something that had been around forever, as large elaborate dress designs are more portably demonstrated in miniature form.

Maybe indirectly, at best. Barbie was very much based on Bild Lilli directly. As well as the above wikipedia links (and their generous handful of citations on the claim) you can find countless articles from respectable media outlets making that same well-sourced claim.
posted by Dysk at 8:19 AM on August 29, 2018

I think some of you guys have to check your farce detector settings. This is a GREAT piece and has its tongue stuck so hard in its cheek, the narrator starts offering you bitten off pieces three quarters through the run time.

It fell on the wrong side of Poe's Law for me: it was easier for me to believe that someone wanted to tell a nice, tidy story about the barbarism of consumerist Barbie, that happened to be completely full of shit, and felt an obligation to be even-handed-but-not-really at the end, than to suppose that the existence of the story itself was the barbarism and an equivalence was being made between 'Barbie is based on a Nazi sex doll' and 'war is dehumanising', one which I don't think the piece manages to justify.
posted by Merus at 8:44 AM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Both the text and the illustration eventually put the story next to pictures of the Roswell Alien. Poe's Law hardly enters into it.
posted by es_de_bah at 10:18 AM on August 29, 2018

"Made to fit in the kit."

-IG Farben
posted by clavdivs at 11:27 AM on August 29, 2018

It could be a sex doll if you put it in your butt

I smell a tagline.....
posted by y2karl at 11:41 AM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

> Both the text and the illustration eventually put the story next to pictures of the Roswell Alien. Poe's Law hardly enters into it.

In a United States where thousands of people believe in a flat earth because of memes they saw on Facebook, Poe's Law is essential especially for contextless videos like this.
posted by ardgedee at 4:02 PM on August 29, 2018

It could be a sex doll if you put it in your butt

Is it made of coffee?
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:34 PM on August 29, 2018

That narrator is having a really good time.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:54 PM on August 29, 2018