Participant Judy Gao, 20, said she met Saito in a dorm at New York University. Gao moved from Singapore to New York in 2021 and quickly experienced the isolation of a new school, a new city and a new country. She said she had difficulty coping with her fears of COVID and rampant hate crimes in Asia. “The worst part was that I moved to New York alone,” she said. “It was so lonely.”
Everything changed when she met Saito, who had moved from Japan and was experiencing many of the same emotions. One day, Saito brought Gao the Son of an Angel. “It reminded me of home,” Saito said.
Cynthia LaForte, a psychotherapist who practices an attachment and object relations approach, told BuzzFeed News that objects can offer a tangible form of security. “When children have a doll or a blanket, what we call a transitional object, that object helps the child. And as the child grows, the object becomes internalized,” she said. “There is a lot of discussion about how things like phones are transitional objects that give us a personal sense of security, love and peace.”
The meeting seems to be about dolls, but not really. People hugged longtime internet friends, finally met in real life after chatting on Discord, or swapped social media handles for new ones. Some said hello to their favorite Sonny Angel influencers by offering their bags of hot dolls.
