Disclaimer: In Real Life is a platform for everyday people to share their experiences and voices. All articles are personal stories and do not necessarily echo In Real Life’s sentiments.
I never made it official when I officially started cosplay as a hobby, but it’s fair to say I am making it semi-official, that I’m done with cosplay.
Cosplay is about wearing a costume to portray a character from pop culture (movies, TV, comics, video games, or books). Some people make their own costumes, others buy them. There’s no right or wrong way to do it, it’s just about having fun.
I wanted to be like the cool kids
I started to cosplay way back in 2010 when cosplay was very niche, and I got back from my first ever Anime, Cosplay, and Game (ACG) event at Sunway College: Animangaki. Back then it was a venue filled with Japanese food, merchandise, and a small stage for some performances. What caught my eye and held my attention, however, were the cosplayers.
They were the stars of the event, striking a pose, laughing, smiling, and taking pictures with other attendees. That was the moment I realized: I want to be one of them: The “cool kids” at these events.
My first cosplay was “Zoey” from the game Left4Dead. I was a high school student with no income at that time and it was simple enough to pull off: Jeans, a white t-shirt, an old frayed zip-up red hoodie jacket. My brother lent me some of his airsoft guns and helped me mock up a few additional props.
Image from jmnettlesjr at Deviantart.com.
I got some love for my efforts from other cosplayers and even a few of the attendees who recognized my character. A whole new world was suddenly open to me – it led to me getting a part-time job so I could buy materials and begin to learn the basic DIY skills for costume making and prop construction.
I would be an active cosplayer until I graduated from Sunway University, and as part of that, learned to balance the demands of cosplay against the needs of the ‘real world.’ I also won a few small competitions here and there which were great when slanted correctly on my CV and as a part of my creative multimedia portfolio.
Image from RPF.com – https://www.therpf.com/forums/media/doom-reaper-right-bench.49549/
Cosplay made me feel that many of my dreams were within reach, even if I was living in sci-fi and fantasy worlds of gunblades, zombies, swords skills, phasers, and lightsabers on many weekends and evenings.
The pandemic made me change my focus
The pandemic put me in an amazing place to launch my career. I poured all my energy into that, leaving little for my passion for cosplay. I went from intern in 2020 to Assistant Department Manager in about 2 years.
I still have a few half-completed props and folded costume patterns and though my love for the hobby has not changed, I have. Working life has changed my priorities and my focus. But that’s not a bad thing, because it lets me reflect on how the cosplay scene has changed from the inside.
The “influencer cosplayer”
Cosplayers cosplay for many reasons but for certain people, it’s the start of their “career” of becoming a popular model, and then being hired as a social media influencer. Cosplay has started to become the latest incarnation of “America’s Next Top Model,” or another one of those trashy reality shows to get the best photos to build a cosplay portfolio.
Cosplay was once a medium to share your love, appreciation, and even passion for an anime, a character, or a fictional universe. It is being reduced to a medium to gain attention for the career hopeful. The fastest way to gain that attention: The lewds.
The perfect body can get you far
“The Lewds,” are also known as softcore pornography. You can find these so-called cosplayers concentrated on social media. The Lewds promote on Facebook. The Lewder hang out on Instagram, Tumblr and the Lewdest of the Lewds is on Patreon and Onlyfans.
Cosplay is no longer about love or passion. It’s now a path to stardom and to the devil with the consequence and the resulting negative perceptions of cosplayers and the community.
The cosplayer models, cosplayer influencers, “booth babes” whatever you want to call them have and continue to infiltrate the scene. These individuals opened my eyes to the fact that cosplay can be very lucrative if you are blessed by the gods with the perfect body and pretty face.
I’m not gatekeeping. I’ve no longer got any skin in this game and I still believe that anyone can cosplay. But the problem is there, it’s growing and it’s called sexual harassment.
Sexual Harassment is still rampant in the community
The ultimate dark side of cosplay is those two words: Sexual Harassment. Nerd and gaming culture has always been plagued by the stereotyped asocial who shuns human interaction, valuing depraved sexual fantasy with a dose of sadistic cruelty.
It’s been there since the inception of cosplay and its spread. Go online, and it’s easy to find in online forums and even on cosplayer social media accounts. It’s racial, it’s sexual. It’s misogynistic. It’s endless.
Cosplayers have dedicated accounts for their cosplay passions for this very reason: to keep these people as far away as possible. Convention and event security has been ramped up significantly, but it’s becoming harder to police this behavior at public events.
Most of the time, these perpetrators are thrown out, but otherwise, get away with it. Filing a police report can feel rather pointless as well. Those operating within the cosplay community say the issue, by and large, stems from outsiders rather than cosplayers and the community That’s why there is a mantra: Cosplay IS NOT consent.
Cosplay is not consent
This has been around the Malaysian cosplay scene since 2015 and it still holds true today. Cosplayers are viewed as the character, and not as real people, and that makes it okay to harass us, verbally and oftentimes physically as well.
That this has to be shouted, repeatedly is an indictment that there is a problem in the community that is not being addressed. Yet why are we, the cosplayers, the ones who have to address and control the inappropriate thoughts, feelings, and actions of others?
My journey from before the pandemic to retirement
I have been a part of the cosplay scene since it was a niche hobby some two decades ago and watched it grow into a more widely and generally accepted pastime, embraced by anime, gaming, and even pop culture fans.
It has been a really fun hobby where I got to learn a lot of arts and crafts skills, meet a lot of like-minded and passionate people who share the same passions and interests, and of course, act and be the fictional character at events.
But in the years before the pandemic, and despite the pause caused by the pandemic, I’ve come to see that the growth and acceptance of cosplay has also encouraged aspects of the hobby that I just don’t like, and don’t want to be a part of anymore. This is the side of cosplay that nobody wants to talk about.
Having given almost half my life to this hobby, it is sad that these are the reasons I’m leaving it, and not because of the time or monetary cost.
Know anyone with an interesting story to share? Drop us an email at hello@inreallife.my and we may feature the story!
For more stories like this, read:
Cosplayer Harassment In Malaysia: From 2010 to 2022, It’s Been a Decade of Degeneration
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