Jim Taylor on Boys and Barbies do mix

“I remember my dad telling me when I was 12 or 13 that I was too old to play with toys,” reports internationally known Barbie collector Jim Taylor. He opened Season 4 of Smart Sex, Smart Love by talking about why he began collecting Barbies, and now is the proud owner of more than 3,000 dolls. 

“I played with traditional boy toys growing up,” he points out. “I loved transformers.” As he got older, his desire to play with toys never diminished. Finally, when Taylor was well into his 20s, he decided, “I can do what I want, and I’m going to buy toys if I feel like it.” 

He has no “scientific” process for doll collecting. “Some people collect celebrity dolls; others collect ball gown dolls or Kens. Buy what you love, and you will love your collection,” he announces. “It’s what makes me happy.” 

He urges others: “Follow your bliss. I no longer say to myself, ‘you’re a grown man, you can’t buy that.’ Buy yourself a doll if it makes you happy!” 

Learn more about doll collecting and Jim Taylor’s story in this Smart Sex, Smart Love podcast. 

Transcript

JOE KORT  0:05  
Welcome to Smart sex, smart love, where talking about sex goes beyond the taboo and talking about love goes beyond the honeymoon. My guest today is Jim Taylor, and I'm very excited because I know him from Tiktok, a prolific collector of all things Barbie. He has traveled the world for her attending events in Milan, Paris, New York, Tokyo and across the United States. He co chaired the 2020, and 2021, national Barbie doll collector conventions, the largest gathering of Barbie enthusiasts in the world. He was chosen twice by Mattel for its collectors advisory panel, and he received the Barbies best friend award in 2020 in recognition of his contributions to the Barbie community. He resides in Palm Springs with his partner, Brian and their four cats and several 1000 dolls, which I'm so jealous today he will talk about boys and their Barbies. Welcome, Jim.

JIM TAYLOR  0:59  
Hi, thanks for having me. Yeah, it's so great

JOE KORT  1:02  
to have you here. It's so we were talking before. It's like we know each other, right? Because we talk so much. We've talked so much on tick

JIM TAYLOR  1:08  
tock, right? You chat, and you see each other, and you see each other's videos, and you feel like you know this person, even though, in reality, you really don't, but you know, right? It feels that way. It does feel

JOE KORT  1:18  
that way. And I love your videos. They're so well made. You have a good voice for it. You're it's fun to watch. But I have to ask you, I never thought about this. I guess I didn't know you had several $1,000 where do you keep them?

Speaker 1  1:30  
It's a struggle. For sure. I am lucky enough to have, I have a modest it's a four bedroom house, and two of those bedrooms are dedicated to Barbie. Yeah? Several

Speaker 2  1:40  
$1,000 are in two bedrooms, yeah, put away

Unknown Speaker  1:43  
or and I do have a display in the living room as well,

JOE KORT  1:46  
okay, but I mean, are they put away in those rooms? They're all out. No, they're

Speaker 1  1:50  
all like, like this. I would say I have probably about 1000 that are displayed, yeah, and then I have another 1000 that are in boxes and need to find new homes or something. Oh,

JOE KORT  2:01  
all right. All right, now that makes sense. All right, good. All right. Well, let's get started. The first question we have here is, how did your Barbie collecting begin? What fascinated you about this type of collecting? You

Speaker 1  2:11  
know, I think I'm, unlike a lot of collectors, in that I sort of fell into it. I didn't intend to start collecting Barbie, but I've always loved toys. The story I always tell is when I was younger, I think I was maybe 12 or 13, and my dad came to me and said that I was too old for toys. Now, you know, you're a man, you're too old. And I was devastated. So I didn't get any new toys, really, but I would go and I would look at them all the time, and I never stopped that all into my early 20s. And at some point in my 20s, I thought, I'm a grown person. I can, I can buy this if I want. And I decided to make myself a little gay toy shelf. And I had a shelf on my bookcase that was, you know, like Tinky Winky and Wonder Woman and all these, you know, all these sort of gay icons and and then I said, Well, I can't have a gay shelf and not have Ken. So I started looking for a Ken, and it was all downhill from there.

JOE KORT  3:08  
I love that. I love that, you know, my mother always would never let me play with dials, you know. Say I did it privately. My sisters never wanted to play with her dolls, so I did it by myself. So when eBay came out, what was that? 9799 or something, I went and bought all the dolls. Like, in behind me, you can see I just, like, went crazy myself, and I wanted the growing hair share doll. I wanted that so badly. And every one of them are broken. Some little girl played with it to death. And every one of them are broken. You don't happen to have a working one. Do

Speaker 1  3:40  
I have one in the box just like, that's her behind you, right? Yeah, but

JOE KORT  3:44  
does the growing hair work because the key doesn't or ear won't move?

Speaker 1  3:48  
You know, to be honest, I haven't tried it, but I I'm the same one. Yeah, now I have to go check.

JOE KORT  3:53  
Now you'll have to check. If you do, I might want to buy that from you for any price, whatever it is. All right, so did you play with Barbies growing up? And if so, what was the reaction from parents, siblings and

Speaker 1  4:04  
friends? You know, I think my story is very different from every other male collector that I've met. Every every male Barbie friend that I have has that story of playing with dolls in secret, or, you know, having them at their grandma's house or at their aunt's house or at their neighbor's house, or hiding them under their bed or in their closet, but I didn't really do that. I do remember playing with a Donny Osmond doll. I'm Gen X, so I remember watching the Don the Osmond show, and holding the Donny Osmond doll and watching it, but I think that was probably my sister's doll. I just assumed it was mine, because I was a boy, right? I did have the $6 million Man and bionic Bigfoot, which I loved. But outside of that, my sisters weren't even really into Barbie. It wasn't a big thing in our house.

JOE KORT  4:49  
So you didn't have, like, a secret interest in playing with them or doing their hair or dressing them. No,

Speaker 1  4:54  
I love transformers and he man and all this sort of stereotypical boys. Toys. Yeah, yeah. I don't know where I went wrong, but so, but now I have a house full of Barbies, so I'm making up for it.

JOE KORT  5:05  
You're making up for it. Now we used to do here. I used to do Gay Men's retreats in the 90s, and we had a part of the retreat was playing with toys, and I went to the store, I was in charge of it, and I got all these girl toys. And it turned out like there were a lot of gay men like you that I had no idea that gay men like would have the interest in male toys, you know, male figures and all that. And they were, they were, like, upset with me that there weren't any. So did you always know that you were gay? I'm assuming you're gay, but you had to tell us. You said you have a partner named Brian.

Speaker 1  5:38  
Yes, I identify as gay. So when I was a kid growing up, I grew up in it shouldn't be hard to explain, but it kind of is. I grew up in northern West Virginia, which was pretty close to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So in the Ohio Valley, it's kind of like if you went two miles left, you're in the Midwest. If you go two miles right, you're on the East Coast. But everybody says, I'm from the south. The point was, there wasn't anyone that looked like me in that town, so I was always different. And I honestly don't know if my sexuality was part of that or not, but, you know, just by virtue of of being half white and half Filipino, I knew I was already different. So that was kind of hard for me to figure out. I don't really have any clear memory of that, until I was, you know, 12 or 13 and started to figure all that stuff out, okay,

JOE KORT  6:29  
right? Because you didn't have any other indicators you weren't into girl things, right?

Speaker 1  6:34  
And, you know, to be honest, when I was growing up, I didn't consider myself gay, because, since we're on your podcast, I'm just going to be frank, and Sam, I didn't have any I didn't really identify as gay, because if you were gay, to me, that meant you wanted to put on a wig and a dress and lipstick and be a girl. And I had no interest in any of that. I I just wanted to suck dick.

Speaker 3  6:56  
Yeah, right, yes. So I so obviously

Speaker 1  6:59  
I wasn't gay. I just thought I was the sort of anomalous thing that, you know, nobody else in the world really was. It's

JOE KORT  7:07  
so interesting how we try to make sense out of that, right? Because we don't know. Nobody's telling us what it is to be gay or not to be gay, right?

Speaker 1  7:13  
And we didn't, you know, I'm Gen X, like I said. And we didn't have that on television. We didn't have those examples growing up, or very few, and most of them were not positive stereotypes, right,

JOE KORT  7:23  
right? Do you remember the gay Bob Doll? Are you too young for that? No, I do

Unknown Speaker  7:27  
remember it, and I have him, and I love him.

Speaker 2  7:30  
You remember the commercials for him? Though I remember their actual commercials. There

Speaker 1  7:33  
were commercials for gay Bob. I swear to god, yes, that's how I knew. Wow, that's amazing. It's kind

JOE KORT  7:41  
of amazing that in the 70s, that would be a commercial, isn't it?

Speaker 1  7:45  
Yeah, like, for those who don't know gay, Bob was the first openly gay doll. He was quote, unquote, anatomically correct. He came with a purse and boots and a plaid shirt and an earring. All the ways that you know someone is gay, because if you know, if they have an earring in their on their left side, I think it was right that, yes, we're gay, that's how everybody can tell, besides carrying the purse right,

JOE KORT  8:08  
and he had an arm that went like this, you know that? Remember that? Yeah,

Speaker 1  8:13  
what I love bested on him was his booklet. He came with a booklet inside that had all these different fashions. There were sort of gay stereotypes. It was very kid, very tongue in cheek, yeah,

JOE KORT  8:23  
very offensive. Today, in today's world, they would eat him alive,

Speaker 1  8:27  
yeah, if you came out now, that would be, yeah, that would be, I see that would be right,

JOE KORT  8:32  
right, but our image is right. We had nobody. I heard a comic one say my role models as a kid was Dr Smith from Lost in Space and poor Dr Smith wasn't even gay. I don't know if he was campy. Um, did you find it was harder to come out as gay or come out as a Barbary? Oh, come out as gay or come out as a Barbie collector.

Speaker 1  8:53  
So these days, I think, you know, granted, I live in Southern California, in the Palm Springs area, so it's a little bit more of a bubble. I understand, that's why I live here. But here, truly nobody cares if you're gay. I mean, it's like, big whoop. Half the town is gay. They really don't care. But a Barbie collector, you still get a little bit of that stigma from people. Most people smile. Most people are, you know, approving, but there's always a little bit of a raised eyebrow, although, you know, there's some questions and you know, it's different. It's different. It's much easier to come out gay, I think, than it is to come out as a Barbie collector.

JOE KORT  9:30  
Now, when you say you're getting now those looks from other gay men or straight people everyone,

Speaker 1  9:34  
I would say, you know, most of those interactions are with random straight people like it, you know, at work, or friends of friends, or those sorts of things. And I think it has gotten a little more accepted since the Barbie movie came out, and that was so big, and she was in the in the sort of pop culture moment that she had last year. So that definitely helped it become more accepted, weirdly, but, but, yeah, you still get some. You still get a look here and there.

JOE KORT  10:02  
I know when my clients come in, they say, Oh, do you work with children? And I say, No. I say, they're mine, and don't touch them.

Speaker 1  10:10  
Yeah, exactly. I've been at the cashier before. It's hard and like, Oh, are you buying this for your daughter, for your niece? I'm like, No, this is for me.

JOE KORT  10:19  
How do they respond, they probably are polite, right?

Speaker 1  10:21  
They usually laugh, or they chuckle. You know, they're fine. The first time I got asked that question, I was caught off guard, and I don't even remember what my response was, but you know, now you sort of mentally prepare yourself, just just in case. Just right?

JOE KORT  10:34  
Yes, how many Barbies Do you have? Oh, you already told us. But and How involved is the collecting process.

Speaker 1  10:43  
You know, the collecting process. I It's not complicated. You know, people ask me that a lot on my tiktoks. They want to know, like, what should I collect? Or should I buy this doll or that doll, or what about this or that? And my answer is always the same, buy what you love, and you'll love your collection. That's it. It's it's not, it's not hard. It's not random. You know, buy what you love and you love your collection. If you like a doll, I you know, I say buy it. This is where I spend my stupid money. People spend their money on they buy fancy bags, they take trips around the world. They live in a big house or drive a fast car. That's all great. I don't do any of that stuff. This is just for the most part, this is where I spend my stupid money. Is on dolls, because it's what makes me happy.

JOE KORT  11:25  
I love it. And I'm telling you, I can't say enough. I'm not trying to just promote your channel. Your tick tock is so well done. I love to watch how you unpack things. I like to watch how you the angles you do. I don't know you. You do all your own photography, right? Yeah,

Speaker 1  11:40  
I just sort of wing it. And I mean, it's really nice of you to say thank you for that later, as they say, but I, I'm just doing what I like. I'm just doing what I love. And at some point, when I first started that, that tick tock, I just wanted to make content. And I honestly thought if 10 or 20 people watch it and follow me. That's, that's all. I'm here. I'm gonna make it for me. And I genuinely had no intentions of it blowing up or doing anything else. I'm like, I'm gonna do it, and I'm gonna find the dozen people that are enjoying it too, and we're just gonna play dolls together. That's, that was my only intention ever. And I thought,

JOE KORT  12:17  
Yeah, you did get like, if you do well, do you ever think about writing a book about it?

Speaker 1  12:22  
I actually have thought about doing sort of reference guides to different aspects of the Barbie world, Barbie collecting, because there are a lot of different ways to collect and different ways that I always say that we all collect Barbie, but we all collect completely differently. Like some people are more focused on Celebrity dolls, some people I know people that only have black dolls, or people that only collect Ken or people that only collect ball gowns. You know, even though we all collect Barbie, we all do it differently. Yeah, everything.

JOE KORT  12:52  
Yeah, yeah, you do. And I like that. You do because, and then sometimes you'll put something up. I didn't even know existed recently you did that. I don't even know what it was, but, yeah, it's good to know. So yeah, we already talked about this to a degree, about are there gay Barbies and Ken's? We talked about gay Bob, but what about gay Barbies and Kens?

Speaker 1  13:09  
So I think there are a lot of dolls that are sort of iconic in the gay community. I think most, most queer people probably know about earring magic Ken. I actually brought him out. He's he's sitting up here in the purple vest. Oh, okay, behind me. But he had a, he had an accessory that looks very much like a cock ring that was on his vest, and it was supposed to be for earring place that you could attach earrings to it and charms and things like that. But it's very gay coded. I mean, most people have a hard time believing that there wasn't somebody in the know at Mattel at the time who was sort of making these tongue in cheek, yeah, gay COVID. Understatement for that sugar daddy is also, I think, one that people are more familiar with now that the movie came out, because the movie carried, carried him. He was a Palm Springs sugar daddy, you know, and he had, he had white hair, and he looked very affluent, and he had this nice, you know, beautiful jacket, and his little dog, but he would say, No, I'm not, I'm not a sugar daddy. I'm sugars daddy. Sugar was the name of his dog. But so people like that. But I also really like to say that, I think now. So I also really like to say that Mattel has made dolls of many different gay celebrities and gay sports figures and things like that, but I have the only one that I kind of think is like the gayest of them all last year, or actually this year, in 2024 they made a one of a kind doll of Kate McKinnon who played weird Barbie in the movie. Oh yeah, but they did her in an outfit that was that she wore by on the red carpet, or on the pink carpet from a gay designer. But what I love about it, and she's actually, you know, if Joe's watching me there, she's here behind me in the in the pink you. But her label on the inside is labeled gay Barbie. Oh, I love that. Yeah, it actually says gay Barbie on the label inside her vest. So as far as I know, she's the only one that officially has a gay Barbie label. Now

JOE KORT  15:14  
I want to get her, and that's another thing you probably know ahead of time, like by the time I find out there's a really good Barbie like Stevie Nicks came out, and they're gone. They're just gone. It goes so quickly. Do you get ahead? Do you get like, known know about it ahead of time?

Speaker 1  15:28  
There are a lot of leaks in the doll community, and a lot of stuff gets around, and things that aren't supposed to get out, get out and you know. So I think most of the hardcore collectors are in the know, and they're ready, but, and you're right, it can absolutely be really frustrating and very hard to get a doll that's really popular, that you really want. It seems happens every day, but, oh my god, yeah, you know that's that's part of it. You just have to let it go at some point and say, I can't have everything. I can't

JOE KORT  15:56  
the one thing that I struggle with is the share with the whip from her master share. I am so angry. And when you get online, it's two to 3000 those guys are, who's ever selling it? I get it, but two to $3,000 it's because they only made a limited edition, right?

Speaker 1  16:13  
They made less than 1000 of that doll she was originally sold on Toys R Us website for 35 bucks. And she went, she went super fast, and her price has been pretty high ever since. I know, yeah, I actually had that doll at one point. And I hate to say this, but we just didn't bond like I don't know what it was. I liked her, but I looked at her and I couldn't stomach what I paid for her, which I don't even remember what it was. It was probably $1,000 or something at the dollars or something at the time, and I she just wasn't worth it to me. So I re homed her. I'm like, you're gonna find someone that will love you and appreciate you. I love this, and I'm gonna get my money back.

JOE KORT  16:51  
Well, the reason I didn't get it is I didn't like it at first, and I actually went to her Las Vegas, my husband and I went to Las Vegas, and they were selling it there. And I was like, Yeah, but now that I can't have it, I want it. Wow, yeah,

Speaker 1  17:03  
a story my life. That's how all collectors are. That would have been amazing, though, to buy it at her show. Wow. I know

JOE KORT  17:12  
it was there. I swear I remember it, but I had all the rest of them and I remember, well, we could go on, but share all right. So who is build Lily.

Speaker 1  17:22  
Build Lily was the precursor to Barbies. Actually the doll that inspired Barbie So to go back for a second, there was a German newspaper called the build and they had a comic book character, a comic character there called Lily, who was in very racy, male centric, misogynistic cartoons. Because this was the mid 50s, and she was hugely popular in Europe. So they actually made novelty toys of her, of dolls that were meant for grown CIS hetero men to buy and say, Oh, look, I have this, this sexy doll from the little cartoon. Ruth Handler was on vacation in Switzerland and saw that doll, and ultimately it inspired Barbie. And if you look at them, it's very, very clear where Barbie comes from. She's basically a copy of them, so much so that they actually, the owners of the lily comic strip, actually sued Mattel in 1961 and they later settled a couple years out of court. Oh, yeah. But Mattel kept, kept that aspect of Barbie pretty quiet until the last, I'd say, probably the last 10 years. They always denied that she had anything to do with it.

Speaker 2  18:27  
Oh, well, isn't there something in the movie about that? Or no, yeah, they

Speaker 1  18:31  
did mention it in the movie. Yeah. You know, Mattel does tend to downplay it, because she was a sex toy, basically. But, you know, look at Barbie. I mean, come on,

JOE KORT  18:40  
yeah, right, right, I know. And then they got rid of pregnant Barbie. Is that was, am I right about that? There was, she was in the

Speaker 1  18:47  
movie. That was Midge, her best friend, yeah, pregnant Midge, yeah. But

JOE KORT  18:51  
then it was, they were, somebody came after them, right? Just to get rid of it, when

Speaker 1  18:56  
that's all came out in the, I think it was the early 2000 she was very controversial, because, because she was pregnant, because, you know, people have an issue with that, and some people said it's because she didn't wear a wedding ring. So Mattel quickly shifted and added a little gold band to the doll. They just painted it on. Even though she was married, she, you know, she was having a family, she had other kids, but people just didn't seem to like it. I you know, people are, they get puritanical for the strangest reasons. To me, I know it's just a doll. It's just, I know

JOE KORT  19:25  
I thought it was cute. It was a good idea. Is the collecting community different? On Facebook, Instagram and Tiktok? Wow,

Speaker 1  19:33  
so different. Totally different. I think on Facebook tends to be for the boomer generation, Gen X, Instagram is a little more millennial Gen X, and then Tiktok is definitely Gen Z, Gen outfit. You know, obviously they're all different people from all different ages on all these apps, but those are the ones that sort of tend to dominate. And it, you know, it follows those generational lines. I think. Think on Facebook, I hate to say it, but I think the community there is a little more negative towards Barbie, just in general, they collect, but there, you know, there's a lot of complaining about what could have been and what should have been, and how much things cost, and that sort of stuff. And that's how I ended up on tick tock. Honestly, like I wanted Barbie to be my place of joy. I wanted it to be a positive thing. I just, and that's why I fell in love with it. I went there and I could post a video, and people would just ooh and on and say, Oh, my God, she's so pretty I love and that was, that's all I wanted to do. You know, a lot of people wonder, how you what do you do with Barbies as a collector? You know, always we sit and we play, no, you know, but you take pictures and you share them with your friends, and you post stories, and you unbox things, and you make videos. And it's just a way to connect with other people,

JOE KORT  20:48  
yeah, and it gives them a little bit of a life to you, you know, a relationship with, like you said you didn't bond with that one shared out. There's a bonding that has to happen, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1  20:56  
If, if, if I don't like tall, then, yeah, they have to find somewhere else to go in collecting Chase and collecting taste change over time. The way I've collected has certainly evolved over the last 25 plus years I've been collecting, and that's why I have 1000 dolls that need to find new homes in the garage.

Speaker 2  21:13  
Like, how has it changed? I think in the beginning,

Speaker 1  21:17  
I was much more focused on I consider myself a Ken collector at heart, and I think I still am. In fact, the first year that I was collecting, I only bought Ken dolls. I didn't buy Barbie because Barbie was for girls. Why would I want a Barbie? I just wanted the boys because I'm like, I'm gay. I just want Ken. But then in 1999 the Wonder Woman Barbie came out the first one ever, and that broke the floodgates open for me once I had heard then I just went and I bought everything.

JOE KORT  21:47  
I love this. I'm smiling and laughing because you have no idea how nice is. I don't think I've ever talked directly to somebody else who loved Barbies the way I do. I mean, you love them, bet more than me, but never. Most people tolerate listening to me. They don't, they don't share what I feel. Yeah,

Speaker 1  22:02  
that's pretty common. I mean, that's the great thing about we were talking earlier about conventions and stuff, and when you go there, it might be 800 strangers, but you all have something big in common. You all love Barbie, and you can always talk about that no matter where you spend. The elevator, you're sitting in the lobby, whatever you're doing, you know you have at least one thing in common.

JOE KORT  22:21  
Yeah, right. So talk about your travels to these Barbie events. Well, your world travels, what have they been like?

Speaker 1  22:28  
It's actually been pretty great. I've been fortunate enough to attend some events overseas. This year, I went to the Tokyo fashion doll Convention, which was a lot of fun. Was amazing. I've been to Milan a couple times, that's put on by a couple friends. And all these are officially sanctioned by Mattel. They're not run by Mattel, they're fan run, but they are licensed by Mattel. You have to have a contract, and they have to approve everything, and it's very complex, but it really is a lot of fun, and it's great to to go to these other places and meet people. I always say it's just like a big party that's all in the United States. There's one called the National Barbie doll collectors Convention, which is 800 to 1000 people. It lasts about a week. And I always say it's, you know, 800 menopausal women and gay men just getting drunk together for the week.

Unknown Speaker  23:20  
It sounds so much fun. Yeah, it

Speaker 1  23:22  
really is. There's, there's nothing like it. It is it is it is fun and it's nice, because since the pandemic, it has shifted a little bit more, and with Barbie's social media presence really blowing up the last few years, she is much more of a presence, and the crowd is getting younger at those conventions, they're absolutely dominated by by middle aged women in their you know, 60s and 70s and other people of all ages, of course, but the core group is quite a bit older. So it's been nice to see the last couple years that these young social media people coming in and having fun and making their own place in it, because otherwise, you know, it can't last forever, right

JOE KORT  24:01  
now, you've been chosen twice, as you said, by Mattel for its collectors Advisory Council. What is that?

Speaker 1  24:07  
So that's really every collector's dream. I wish they still did it. They ran that program for many years. They basically would pick eight you would fill out an application, and they would pick eight collectors from across the country, fly them into El Segundo in LA where Mattel headquarters are, and you basically have your dream fantasy Willy Wonka day at Barbie. You get to see how the dolls are made. You get to know the design process. You get to meet all the designers. You get a full tour of Mattel, and you get to see everything that's coming out for the next year and a half and give feedback on it. That's really the main part, is to sort of give one on one feedback. But I was fortunate enough to do it twice, and it was absolutely amazing, like two of the best days of my life, for sure. Did you watch

JOE KORT  24:52  
the reality show where they did the houses in Barbie Do you remember that HGTV. Okay, did the barbecue? Yeah, did you like that? Yeah, it was

Speaker 1  25:03  
a really, that was really fun. I had a couple friends that were on the show in different roles. I knew some of the people. I actually got invited to visit the house after the filming was over, before they tore it down. So I was able to see it in person. And that was really, that was really a lot of fun.

JOE KORT  25:17  
That's what I thought, that you might have been a part of it in some way. They tore it down. Yeah, it

Speaker 1  25:22  
was temporary once the filming was all done and stuff. Then they took everything down and put it back to its regular and, you know, it's, it's here in LA if anybody you know wants to visit it. Oh, there's, there's really nothing to see. It's not even more. I don't think,

JOE KORT  25:36  
wow, that's terrible. I didn't know that because I was just thinking about how Laverne Cox said, when they made her into a Barbie, she said, I used to play with Barbies, and now I am a Barbie. And I was like, Oh, I love that. I don't know why they don't make a Barbie out of RuPaul. Did they?

Speaker 1  25:50  
One of Mattel's biggest collectors, called integrity toys, has made several RuPaul dolls. I have them. They're not Barbie, but they are. Mattel has never Ru Paul's never been officially a Barbie. She

JOE KORT  26:03  
needs to be, though, took down to Ross. No, it didn't. They did her in the 70s. It doesn't look anything like her, even in the 70s. But the later one, the one I have up there, looks just like her. Do you agree?

Speaker 1  26:12  
Yeah, for sure. Well, see the one behind you? I think that came out in the early 2000s that Ross was the first. That was the first one that Mattel did. The other ones, I think, were done by Migo.

JOE KORT  26:24  
Oh, you're right. You're right. That was not a Barbie. You're right. It might

Speaker 1  26:28  
have been Mattel, but I think it was Migo, yeah, I know you're right. Even the Cher was wasn't Cher, even Migo, yeah, Cher was definitely Migo. And I love those dolls too. They they have their they have their own charm. I love 70 celebrities. I have a lot of those. I think that's how you and I first really bonded, right? Talking about Christy McNichol dolls, and, yes, you know, all kinds of strange things like that. But yeah, and

JOE KORT  26:50  
the captain and Tenille doll, how about your line and on? Yeah, you also received the Barbie's best friend award for your contributions to the Barbie community. What are your contributions? So

Speaker 1  26:59  
that was, that was really nice. That was a really special day. The Barbie's best friend Award is an award given by Carol Spencer, who was a longtime designer at Mattel, and it's been tradition for 40 years for her to present it to someone in the community at convention every year. It's, it's like getting a Lifetime Achievement Award. It's really nice. I think mine was mainly because I was the chair of the convention in 2020 when the pandemic hit. And then suddenly everything got canceled, and we had to pivot, you know, the last few months. And we ended up being able to pack and ship everybody's swag out because Mattel, at these conventions, Mattel usually provides a doll free, which is really nice. You have gifts, you have souvenirs, you have all sorts of stuff. It was quite intense and quite a journey. I mean, it took my life for many, many months, and luckily, I had a lot of great Barbie friends that came together over the last several weekends to help ship all that stuff out. We shipped out more than 1200 packages, wow, and they weren't all identical. Each one was different. So it was quite an undertaking, because, you know, we got to make sure that people get their doll, you know, we if we all think back to 2020 it was very it was a sad time. It was very isolating. It was very hard. It was new for everyone. It was very stressful. And I really wanted to do that with my other co chairs. My partner did it with me, and luckily we were able to do that. So it was, it was nice to be recognized for that.

JOE KORT  28:32  
Oh, yeah, right. I think you should be recognized. I think you should have a TV show. I've always thought that because your videos are like a TV show and they you do them, they're very educational, they're entertaining and they're informative. Oh, thank you. Um, what would you like in the last few minutes we have here? Um, any final things you want people to know about you or your Barbies?

Speaker 1  28:53  
No, I, you know, I think I just want people to follow their bliss. I, you know, I know it's a cliche, but I'm a big belief cliches are cliche for a reason, right? You know, do what makes you happy? Because I spent so many years just going up and down the toy aisle and looking at all the different things, and I kept up with it all. But I'm a grown man. I can't buy that, you know? But if you get over that, that stigma, because the only person that really cares, nobody cares, that's that's the point. That's true. Buy yourself a doll. There. There are worse things in the world to spend your money on. Buy yourself a doll. Have fun. Buy you know, whatever it is that makes you happy, that's that's what you should do, because life is short,

JOE KORT  29:32  
right? Well, you don't have the same history I had. I was shamed so bullied and shamed by my own family and by my friends who Joe Joe wants to play. Joey, I was called, wanted to play with dolls, and there was something wrong. And, you know, it's called fagola and all these terrible names. And so it took me a long time to finally say, Fuck it. I like dolls. I do, and I always did, and I'm gonna play with them. I'm gonna have them

Speaker 1  29:52  
exactly. Fuck it. That's, that's the short version. That's what you should say. If you like it, play with them. Yeah, yes.

JOE KORT  29:59  
I. Right? Well, thank you so much for being on my show, and it was a pleasure. And hopefully we'll do maybe again, we'll have you back. I don't know, talk about more things if our listeners want to learn more about you. And collecting Barbies, how do they find you? My

Speaker 1  30:13  
biggest account is on Tiktok. I'm at er, but call me Jim. U, double R, Double G, double H, but call me Jim. You can also find me on Instagram at erg. U, double R, Double G, double H,

Unknown Speaker  30:27  
why did you name yourself that?

Speaker 1  30:29  
I always tell people it's like when Charlie Brown would kick the football and miss it. But in reality, it was a sublime song, which, you know, is very 90s of me. But Oh, all right, okay,

JOE KORT  30:40  
look up the song. All right. So um, you can hear more of my podcast at Smart sex, smart love.com and you can also follow me on Twitter, tik, Tok, Instagram and Facebook, and you can go to Joe cort.com um, J o, e, K O, R T, all of my social media is at Dr Joe court and thanks for listening, and until next time, stay safe and stay healthy. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai