For all my paranoia about being subjugated to the tyrannical rule of Disney Princesses, and my ongoing efforts to keep Elmo and Barney and Spongebob and Dora and Thomas and Pooh and Hello Kitty from brainwashing our kid, I really don't know that much about characters, how they're developed, and how they impact peoples' lives [beyond the purchase decision, obviously.]
So I can't quite grasp the social dynamics behind PictoOrphanage.com, a "character care programme" that offers up underloved or underleveraged characters for "adoption" for "as little as 300,- ’Ǩ (= $1 a day...)" If I understand it, these are characters that have been created but have never moved beyond the sketch/screen stage. But there are other characters which apparently exist in 3D, but were abandoned after, say, the trade show or TV shoot was over.
Either way, I DO know that adopting a character gives you special VIP registered status at the 2nd Pictoplasma Conference on contemporary character design and art, which runs 11-14 Oct in Berlin. Though they don't mention "grups," the conference website uses the word "kidult" without quotes around it. There seems to be no discussion at all about actual kids or parents, just about prolonging the childhoods of the "adults" in the room.
PictoOrphanage and Pictoplasm Conference sites [via wmmna]
