Cosplay, Social Media, and "Fame"

I started writing this post a long time ago, but I couldn't decide what direction I wanted to take it in until recently, thanks in part to Chaka Cumberbatch's article on Nerd Caliber titled "The Pursuit of Cosplay Fame". Cumberbatch writes about the positive and negative effects that today's modern, easy-to-use social media has effected the cosplay community and the way we see each-other. She points out how social media has both brought cosplayers together and also unfortunately spearheaded it into a beauty contest.

It could be argued though, that cosplay was always a beauty contest, it just wasn't as in-your-face. After all, cosplay is a visual media, with the common goal being to represent a character, who usually has a pre-determined look. While that look might not always be, and usually isn't, conventionally beautiful, the closer someone gets to that look, the more appealing it is to fellow fans. How has social media influenced this?

First and foremost, social media is intensely in-your-face, and it's constant. An article on cosplay.ph on ways to become cosplay-famous raises an interesting point, "3. Persistence - ...This also applies to online presence as well, especially if your internet name is firmly connected to your cosplay costumes or any cosplay related activities." Social media makes it easier to cosplayers to promote themselves, as opposed to before the mass outbreak of social media, when a cosplayer had to be remembered by only being seen for a day or two at a convention. Now a cosplayer can make a cosplay-specific fan page on facebook or a cosplay-specific tumblr or twitter, and you can follow them without invading their privacy the way you would if you had to follow their personal social media site or if you could only contact them via e-mail.

Personally, I love cosplay fan pages on facebook, even though I don't have one myself. I enjoy seeing other people's updates without having to see their personal updates. I also like the fact that I can 'like' pages of cosplayers across the spectrum of skill and experience. If only spectacular cosplayers were socially allowed to have fan pages, I would only see those who have skills vastly superior to my own, and while inspiring, it can also be discouraging. Sometimes, seeing cosplayers who are far beyond my skill range makes me think, "I'll never be that good, why do I even try?" Luckily, I can also see cosplayers who have around the same amount of experience and talent as myself, and even a few cosplayers who are just starting out. Sometimes the newer cosplayers are even my favorite, because I can watch them grow, but it raises the question of why someone just starting out would make a fan page (or similar social media account) for themselves if they haven't really done much for people to be fans of.

Besides the obvious reasons, like wanting to keep their personal social media accounts separate for family and job security, I think that the basic reason comes down to validation. I hesitate to use the words "validation" or "praise" because they're usually used in a derogatory way, but I can't think of any better words. We all enjoy praise for our work, we like our efforts to be recognized, whether it's in cosplay or in everyday life, it's nice to get recognition. Normally with cosplay, we get that praise from our friends, family, and occasionally a random convention-goer or two. If you compete, you'll get praise from the judges and probably a few more people who watched you compete. For the most humble of people, that's more than enough, but where's the harm in getting a little bit more recognition?

With the help of social media, a cosplayer can get compliments from strangers on any random day. For me, it's nice to log on to the computer and find a comment here on this blog or on cosplay.com, it encourages me to continue cosplaying (and writing about cosplaying). It's not that we need the attention, but it's encouraging. In addition to compliments, with a fan page or other public profile, you can easily ask people for help on something you're stuck on, and you'll get many more responses than if you were limited to only asking people you know. Similarly, if you're stuck and look up how to do something on the internet, you can find other cosplayers' public profiles where maybe they've already posted how to do whatever it if you're trying to do, or at the very least you'll find a method of contacting them to ask. The perceived "problem" here is that people can become cosplay-famous (pseudo-famous, or e-famous) largely in part to their social networking, and some people don't like that.

Personally, I think that most of the hate toward famous cosplayers is jealousy. Of course there's a good amount of exceptions to this generalization, but it's as good of a place as any to start. The most common complaints I see and hear about e-famous cosplayers are things along the lines of, "He doesn't deserve the attention, he's not that good," or "She didn't work that hard on her costume, why is she receiving so much praise?" The underlying context here is clearly, "I can do better," or "This other person has done better." It's hard not to get frustrated when we work so hard on a cosplay and someone else gets more attention, not because they're cosplay was more work or looks better, but because they're better at social networking.

There's really not much to be said on this. People who are, for whatever reason, better at social networking and meeting new people will always know more people. For some people it comes naturally, and for others it takes a bit of work and effort. Some people don't have time to devote to social network, with making their cosplay, a job to fund cosplay, personal life, sometimes school as well, there aren't enough hours in a day. It's safe to assume the most avid of cosplay social networkers, arguably the most well-known cosplayers, make time to do social networking, presumably by cutting out one of the previously listed activities. Some are lucky enough to get well-known enough that their cosplay funds itself. Isn't that something we'd all really love? So couldn't it be rationalized that hatred toward that is mostly jealousy? (It should be noted that professional cosplaying will not make you enough money to support yourself, at most you could support your hobby, you'd need another job to afford living expenses.)

So ultimately, is internet social networking a positive or negative thing when it comes to cosplay? I stand by my previous implications that it's positive. We can communicate with other cosplayers, and even get non-cosplayers interested in the hobby. We can share construction techniques or buying information freely, and we can keep up with each-other's cosplay lives without intruding on personal lives or having our personal lives intruded on. Yes, there are drawbacks to posting all of your cosplay business on the internet, it makes it easier for people hiding behind a screen to insult you, and when cosplayers get e-famous, we see them on multiple social networks whether we like them or not. In the end though, it comes down to eat of communication, which in my opinion, is definitely a good thing.

Conventions as a "Safe Space"

Recently, there has been a lot of talk in the cosplay community about "Cosplay is not Consent", the idea that just because someone is in cosplay (revealing or otherwise), that does not mean that it's okay to sexually harass them. While I'd really like to write more about this and add in my two-cents, it's being talked to death already. I'd like to bring up a related note instead. Why do people feel that it's okay to harass others at conventions (aside from being jerks in the first place)? It seemsrare to hear about someone going out of their way to harass someone else in everyday life, but we hear about it constantly happening at conventions and cosplay events, and we're always surprised by it.

We generally think of conventions as "safe spaces". We're all brought there by a common interest, be it anime, video games, comic books, or what have you, so it seems reasonable to assume that we're all like-minded people. We can think, "I like anime and am a generally good person, so these people who also like anime are generally good people too." Most of the time, this works out, we meet awesome people, and make good friends. However, this thinking works in reverse too, "I like anime and don't mind when strangers touch me inappropriately. These people also like anime and must not mind when strangers touch them inappropriately!" The "safe space" way of thinking can be pretty dangerous. It lets us think that we can do whatever we like, and people will be okay with it. (Which is also how you get people running around blasting music ans screaming memes, by the way.)

This is clearly more common with younger convention-goers (and people in general), and aligns with the thinking of, "That'll never happen to me!" We hear all the time about lewd comments others receive and people who get too close for comfort, but it's easy to think, "Well I've been cosplaying/going to conventions for [X-amount of time], and it hasn't happened! It'll never happen!" along with, "People aren't that bad, it was a one-time incident!" Whether or not it'll happen has nothing to do with probability, it's all about where you're at, who you're with, and whether we like it or not, what you're wearing.

Before I get into this, here's my disclaimer: I am in no way, shape, or form saying that those who dress in less clothing are "asking for it", I'm not saying that people who dress scantily should "know what they're getting into", or any variation of that nonsense. What I am saying is that it's easier for people to sexually harass someone who is wearing less clothes. They're an easier target, and they catch more attention. I'm using the term "they" here, but I do include myself in the instances where it applies (Yoko from Gurren Lagann, as an easy example). Harassment offenders always use the argument (in addition to "she was asking for it"), "I'm only human, I have eyes and urges, I can't help myself." Yep, you're human, which means that in addition to human "urges", you have the capability of forethought, and you can stop yourself from behaving inappropriately. I'm getting way off track here, but that about sums up my disclaimer, back to the matter at hand.

We often think that we can wear whatever we like in a convention/cosplay setting because of this "safe space" way of thinking. It's generally accepted to dress in out-of-the-norm ways at conventions and push the limits of cosplay and fashion. We wear bizarre clothes that would be vastly inappropriate in everyday situations, so it seems reasonable to assume that varying the amount of clothing would be accepted too, and it more or less is. Of course, this comes with the idiots who take that as an invitation. The ones who think, "This is a safe space, if I showed my body, I would want someone to comment on it or touch it. Let's do that to these strangers that we just met!" This goes beyond staring or even objectifying, we're parading around in costume for goodness' sake, of course people are going to look, and it's "easy" to forget that there's people behind the costumes at first glance, but the thing that makes us human is our ability to take a second before opening our mouths or reaching out our hands and think, "Wait a minute, this is another person, and this might make them uncomfortable."

So as normal human being who don't go around grabbing at each-other just because we feel like it, what can we do? Internet public service announcements and blog posts are only going to get us so far, and there's only so many ways to tell people, "quit being a jerk, you're making us afraid for our safety," but it's certainly a start. Hopefully some day soon we can change other people's way of thinking so that sexual harassment at conventions (and harassment in general) are no longer an issue, and conventions could truley be safe spaces, but that seems like such a long, long way off, and may not even be an entirely achievable goal. In the mean time, stay safe. Convention and cosplay events are still public events that anyone can participate in, even unsavory types. Keep yours wits about you and speak up if someone is making you feel uncomfortable. It's much easier to stay quiet because you don't want to cause a scene or because you're scared, but it does much more good than writing about it online or talking to your friends afterward. Don't think "Maybe I'm being unreasonable. Maybe I'm just being socially awkward. Maybe this is really okay." That's how things escalate, nip it in the bud. If it's making you uncomfortable, it's not okay.

Makin' Plans & Progress (Days 1122 - 1131)

Progress! Finally! I finished my Isis wings, I'm so excited!

I know it's blurry, I don't care, it's beautiful.

Words cannot describe how excited I am to have these things done. I love them to death. They're also really fun to dance with, which would make sense, Isis wings are intended to be danced with. I also made the necklace for my Ho-Oh cosplay. Originally I was only going to use these great green chains that my mom gave me, but then shortly after my mom's birthday, she was given a gift with green ribbon, which she also let me have. It's so perfect. The beads are also from my mom, haha. (Essentially, yes, I bought nothing for this necklace).

Also blurry. Too bad.

In addition to all of this, while I was doing menial tasks at work, I made a mental time table of what I could finish per-day, and when everything could be done. I was very generous when considering how much time things would take (meaning I estimated things would take far longer than they should), and I figured that, including the embroidery (minus shopping  days), everything would take me 32 days. this day count started about three days ago, and I'm exactly on schedule.

I haven't ordered any feathers yet, and I need a lot of them. I'm excited to work with different kinds of feathers too. I'm going to be using regular run-of-the-mill chicken feathers like you buy in craft stores, which I also have left over from making my Phoenix Down, rooster tail feathers, and ostrich feathers. I've found places to buy them all online, I just have to order them. I also still need to buy beads for pretty much everything. My mom used to be really into beading (not so much anymore, now she does quilting), and she still has a good amount of beads left over, and I've already talked to her about using some of those, but there's no guarantee I'll find ones I'll like, and I know I"m going to buy the beads for embroidery.

Convention Review: Animation On Display 2013 (Saturday, February16th)

My boyfriend and I attended Animation on Display 2013 on Saturday, February 16^th dressed as Black Mage and White Mage from Final Fantasy I, respectively. The convention took place at Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco. We left for the con an hour later than we had intended, but we made insanely good time somehow and arrived exactly when we intended (I guess that would make us Wizards, not Mages though, haha). On the way to the con, we both expressed that it didn't feel like we were on our way to a convention. Maybe we weren't as excited, or maybe we just weren't as stressed as we usually were. Admittedly, we were mainly going to AoD So that we could test out our two-hour-long "Magikarp: A History" panel (more on that later), so there was no staying up until 4am the night before rushing to finish cosplays. I felt relaxed and alert on the way to AoD.

When we arrived, the first order of business was finding a parking space and getting into costume. We've always had pretty good luck finding parking in the garage that's connected to the Kabuki hotel, and this year was no exception. We found a spot not too far from the elevators and put our mage robes on. My boyfriend's is the hardest to put on because it's stiffer and heavier, and he also has the put the head/hat on and have it tucked into his robes.

Once that was settled and we got into the hotel, we set out to get our badges and check-in as panelists. As usual, this involved a lot of running around and having no idea where we're going. For some reason, we never remember whether panelists at AoD are supposed to go to Con Ops, Pre-Reg, or at-con registration. Because of the way it works at Fanime, we took a guess and went to at-con registration. The line for registration was blocking the pathway, so we had to go outside of the building and walk around to get to registration. Once there, we were told to fill out registration forms, but the forms said nothing about panelists, so we finally asked a staff member. She told us to go to Pre-reg. The line went pretty fast, but we hit a snag when the staff member helping us couldn't find my boyfriend's name in the list of panelists. Somehow they had his name wrong, it sounded sort of similar, but wasn't even close. I've double-checked the submission e-mail that I sent this year, and I definitely put the right name down, and they've never gotten it wrong in past years, so we have no idea what happened there. Luckily a nearby staff member knew us, and we got both of our badges anyway.

After we got our badges, we went to the dealer's hall, which was incredibly crowded, hot, and stuffy. We managed to wrestle our way through the crowds to look at booths. My boyfriend had limited vision because of his Black Mage headpiece, but could still see enough to find things he was interested in. We were pulled aside for a quick photo in the cosplay photo spot before I found something I absolutely just had to own; an itty-bitty Victini! (A Vic-teeny, if you will.) Here he is sitting on top of a quarter. He was only six dollars, so I'm not entirely surprised that his arm is already starting to break off. I had him on my phone, but I didn't want his arm to fall off, so he's currently sitting in my room until I can put super-glue on the crack in his arm. Then he'll re-join me on my phone.

Soon, it was time for some lunch. We headed to the mall where I got a sandwich from Andersen Bakery. Not exactly the most exotic convention food, especially for being in Japan Town, but man, it was good. I also picked up some flan for dessert. We took our time eating, since we planned horribly and barely looked at the events list, and had nothing else in mind to get to until our photoshoot with BlizzardTerrak at 4:30. Toward the end of our lunch, someone came up and asked for a photo of the two of us. Normally, I get really annoyed when people ask me for photos when I'm eating, and that should have gone double in this case, since my boyfriend had his hat/headpiece off, and it's a pain to get back on, but for some reason, I really didn't mind this time. We took this as a cue to get moving again and head back to the convention.

a random convention photo
of the two of us found on the internet

We just so happened to get to the Game Room right as it was time for Munchkin! For those who have never played Munchkin, all you really need to know is that it's the best card game in the universe, and my boyfriend and I are hopelessly addicted to it. When we arrived, the main game of Munchkin had already started, and there were quite a few people involved. There were several smaller games going on with different typed of Munchkin, like Munchkin Bites, the vampire Munchkin, and Cthulu Munchkin. My boyfriend and I lurked near the regular Munchkin game, thinking we would just jump in whenever they finished. We forgot how long Munchkin takes when there's more than three people playing; it takes a long time. Another girl came in and looked like she wanted to play with the big group too, so my boyfriend and I invited her to play a game with us using one of the other Munchin games. At first she declined, but we convinced her to play, and the three of us played Super Munchkin, which is like regular Munchin but super hero-themed. She claimed she didn't know how to play well, so I helped her out, but near the end, she had a ridiculous amount of bonuses and super powers. Maybe it was beginner's luck? Haha.

Our game finished up just in time for our scheduled shoot, but the photographer was running late, so my boyfriend and I decided to head outside to the courtyard between the hotel and the second part of the mall to people-watch. People-watching is arguably the best part of conventions, really. I found a rock to perch myself on top of, which other people liked too and took pictures of. We were approached by two photographers who were affiliated with Cosplay Photography, and they wanted to do a shoot with us. Unfortunately, this happened exactly when the photographer we had originally scheduled with became available. I spoke with our original photographer, and he said he was also late for a different shoot with a friend of ours, so that worked out well.

Shooting with the photographers from Cosplay Photographers was a really enjoyable experience. They knew a lot of different poses for us to try, and they also encouraged us to try any poses we liked too. They were very polite, and they helped a lot with my costume too, like when my sleeves turned inside-out at the bottom or when there were twigs on the bottom of my robes. It also  turned out that there were three photographers together. I have no idea where the third one came from, but he was excellent too. I can't wait to see the photos when they're ready. One of the photographers showed me how they looked on-camera, but the other two didn't, and I have no idea what they're going to change in post. It's always exciting to shoot with new photographers.

We finished up just as our original photographer finished with our friend. We met up in the garden area, which was over-crowded by other cosplayers and photographers. As soon as we got there, a different photographer asked for a photo of us. I told him okay, but that we were there with another photographer, so if he wanted to just take a quick photo, that was okay, but we'd prefer to not take too much time. He seemed to understand, but still shooting with him took a little longer than I thought it would. It seemed to be alright with our photographer though, he took a moment to sit down and grab a bite to eat.

We finally got to shoot with our photographer as scheduled. As usual, my brain blanked on poses. Maybe if we had a larger group or at least an enemy to mock-fight, we could have come up with things better, but it is what it is, and I suck at coming up with poses, no matter how much thought I put into it beforehand. At least this time, we got to take some photos as a couple (because I want White Mage and Black Mage to be together so bad)! Here's some of the highlights.

At the end of our photoshoot, we spotted a Yuna and a Lulu cosplayer (from Final Fantasy X). Even though we knew who they were, it's extremely rare for people cosplaying later Final Fantasy games to know character from earlier Final Fantasy games. Heck, it's rare to find people who have played anything before Final Fanstasy VI. I have no idea if they knew who we were, they made no mention of it, but either way, our photographer thought it would be cool to get a picture of the four of us together, since we were all from Final Fantasy. We thanked them for taking a photo with us and were on our way.

Yep, that's Final Fantasy all right.

It was getting close to 6pm by this time, and "Magikarp: A History" was scheduled to begin at 7pm, so we decided to go back to the car to drop off our robes (they're very cumbersome) and pick up my boyfriend's laptop, which has the panel presentation on it. I kept my capelet on just because I felt like it and was a lame "casual" White Mage (haha?) for the rest of the night. We were pretty hungry, so we went to get something to eat again in the mall. I still had half of my sandwich from earlier in the day, and my boyfriend bought a pound cake to snack on. When we were finished, we went back to the convention to wait for the panel before us to end so we could set up for ours.

For some reason, I got unreasonably nervous waiting for our panel to start. We had hosted "Magikarp: A History" six times before then, and I definitely knew the panel material, but for some reason, I was really, really nervous, I felt sick and didn't want to do it, but of course it was far too late to back out. The panel went pretty well, though it did run really short. Some of it was nerves, for sure, since during our test-run, it was much longer, so we must have just talked really fast. I messed up a couple of the presentation ques, and we both tripped over our words a bit, but we muscled through it, and everyone seemed to have fun. The new additions to our panel that prompted us to expand it to a two-hour time slot went over really well, and some of them are my new favorite parts of the panel. We had a lot of extra time left over at the end, so we showed an episode of Pokemon about a Pokemon researcher who dedicated his life to the study of Magikarp. We can only assume that people enjoyed it, because after the convention, we got a handful of new likes on our panel's Facebook page.

After the panel, we wanted to visit the Dealer's Hall again, since my boyfriend was out of cosplay and could see better, but they had already closed up for the night, so we just went home. Going home was quite the journey in itself, the directions that I had gotten weren't nearly detailed enough, and we went at least a half an hour out of our way before turning around and getting headed in the right direction.

Overall, I had a pretty good time at Animation on Display 2013. It wasn't very exciting outside of getting a whole bunch of photos taken of us, but that was okay. It was a very relaxed day in Japan Town in cosplay with my boyfriend.

Cosplay-Related Highlights:
Everyone thought my boyfriend was cosplaying as Vivi.
I got mistaken for some kind of paladin, or just plain ignored sometimes.
Loads of people thought that my boyfriend and I were cosplaying from two different series.

Random older gentleman in the mall: Wow. I think you guys win for best costume.
(Whether or not he knew who we were or just thought we looked cool is still a mystery.)

Days 1106 - 1121

I'm going to try to post more, I swear. School and work are kicking my butt right now (and will continue to do so), but I'm going to try to find time to at least post small things. Of course I've really done nothing as far as cosplay goes except for some reworking of my overall design for my Ho-Oh gijinka. I'm still trying to work out some kinks before I start making certain parts to save time, money, and frustration.

On a side-note, I've been occasionally looking at other Ho-Oh cosplays, and I've noticed that a good handful of them are red instead of orange (like mine). This made me feel a lot better about also doing mine in red, I was worried about inaccuracy, but man, orange just does not go with green, I don't know how Ho-Oh pulls it off. Anyway, when I first saw the other Ho-Oh gijinkas that are red, I didn't think twice about the color, so I'm hoping people will have to same reaction to mine.

Days 1088 - 1105

I actually made cosplay progress! I'm still lying and telling myself that I'm trying to finish my Ho-Oh gijinka by AoD, that way maybe it'll be done by Fanime. Maybe. Hopefully, because I'm making so much progress.

This photo shows the colors the best.

So far, I've pleated both of the Isis Wings and sewn the green strips onto them. One wing's green strips are entirely finished, the others just need to be hemmed across the bottom (though they all need some trimming). The gradient on the green strips was colored on by hand with four different shades of green Sharpie. I wasn't convinced that it would work, but regular fabric dye didn't work because the green fabric is synthetic and more like plastic (not porous), and I'm too intimidated to attempt to mix Sharpie dye. It looks simple, but I'm just afraid I'd mess it up somehow, and I didn't have backup green Sharpies (couldn't find all of the shades I needed). In any case, I really like the way the gradient turned out, I really like that it has different kinds of green instead of just varying shades of the same green. The green pieces are sewn on with gold thread in stitches that basically I just thought looked cool.

I also nearly finished both pieces of the "skirt" (or whatever you want to call the bottom half). Both pieces need to be gathered a little more, I thought that they would sit more on my hips, but they need to line up with the belt, which definitely sits higher toward my natural waist.

The belt is nearly finished, and I'm ridiculously proud of it, I've never made something like it before. I used my dress form to get the basic shape and then fitted it to myself. The gold on the belt is actually ribbon, and it's simply hot glued to the inside. The inside is a complete mess, and since the ribbon is wired, it's kind of... Stabby, haha. I'm going to line it with some fluffy fabric so that it doesn't hurt my skin.

Open Isis wing

I'm trying to completely finish the wings before I move on the finishing the bottom and then starting the top. After that I'll be doing the feather pieces, accessories, and embroidery. I'm hoping that by tackling this huge project in chunks and entirely finishing one piece before starting the next, I'll be able to finish quicker and not forget any details.

Also, "Magikarp: A History" has been confirmed for two hours at 7pm on Saturday of AoD in Live Events 1!

Detail on the green strips

Days 1043 - 1087

Oh yeah, you guessed it, I've done nothing productive. I went to the Norcal Winter Gathering/Christmas in the Park in San Jose (pics to come soon). Shortly after that, I got really sick. I was better for about two weeks, and then I got really sick again. I was really tired of being sick. I think I'm getting sick again, but, mind over matter, I refuse!

In other news, "Magikarp: A History" has been approved for Animation on Display 2013! No official word on which day or what time, but we're currently discussing the possibility of the panel being two hours long this year! It's a daunting task, but we're pretty confident that it'll work out. The main issue right now is that we originally submitted the panel to AoD as a one-hour panel, and it was scheduled as a one-hour panel. Since we expanded to two hours, AoD pane staff would have to re-work the panel schedule to fit us in as a two-hour panel. The head of Panels Staff seems happy to accommodate us, and things are looking positive, but we've gotten no confirmation yet. If they can't fit us in as a two-hour panel, we will still be there as a one-hour panel.

Here's the Facebook event page for "Magikarp: A History" at AoD. If you're interested, please like our Facebook page for updates!