Curses! Foiled Again...

I don't know whether to laugh or be deeply disturbed by the article I found on msnbc.com this morning, with the headline:

China Bans Voodoo Dolls, Starts Craze

My first thought was, "Wow, so banning voodoo dolls has become the trendy thing to do in China!" Which was the part that made me laugh.

Then came the following paragraph, which was the disturbing part:

The dolls have become increasingly popular among the Middle Kingdom's misanthropes and trend-conscious teens. Customers purchase a doll (pin included), attach a piece of paper bearing the name of their enemy to the doll and then stab away. Voodoo Dolls Online offers a wide range of dolls in assorted colors. "Do you want to make your enemy feel as if someone is always stalking him behind his back?" reads the caption next to a doll clad in black. " 'The Magic Shadow Killer' will thoroughly destroy his spirit." (emphasis mine)

Yikes. (But I have to admit, "Magic Shadow Killer" is kind of a cool name.)

Well, I'd be worried about the fate of most of China, except that the article goes on to reveal that voodoo dolls aren't all about hurting people. For every "The Magic Shadow Killer," floating around amongst an apparently revenge-hungry populace, there's a "Little Angel," which, according to the article, ...purportedly brings good luck and helps its owner find true love.

What a relief.

But the most intriguing aspect of the whole story, to me, is in this paragraph:

When officials first cracked down on the import of dolls from Thailand two months ago, Chinese entrepreneurs filled the growing demand by making the toys themselves, wrapping colorful yarn around wire skeletons and adorning each with a crude felt heart. The toys were a marvel of marketing: told that one doll could not be used to harm multiple enemies, the youths who bought them kept coming back for new ones as their hit lists grew in length. (emphasis mine)

Er, ok, aside from the obvious problematic mental state of Chinese youth who have growing hit lists, I'd just like to point out that these dolls don't seem hard to make. I don't mean to encourage voodoo, you understand, but it does seem to me that perople could just... well, save their money and make the dolls themselves.

Of course, logically (there's that annoying word again!), that would make it kind of ridiculous to think that the dolls have any intrinsic power, wouldn't it? Or am I way off base here?

It reminds me of that "pet rock" phenomenon that I remember from my childhood... where savvy marketers and gullible people colluded in the popularity of having rocks for pets. I don't know what made a rock that you paid for, which was packaged in a box with a little message about how to "care" for it, any better than a rock you could dig up in your garden and pet away to your heart's content for FREE, but apparently they were a pretty hot item for a while.

As were Chia pets, which really deserve a frogg files post all their own. Some day, no doubt...