You know what’s depressing? When a person being an asshole about cosplay goes viral, a lot of my friends begin to doubt their abilities, even if they think the OP is a worthless bastard. It plants a seed of doubt that eats away at them. At least a dozen posts showed up on my feed and my dashboard asking…. am I good enough? Am I fat? Is there something I could be doing better?
So this is for my cosplay friends and my followers and anyone else who cosplays.
Your ability to cosplay shall not, and will not be judged on:
- Gender
- Skin color
- Waistline
- Cup size
- Height
- The size of your wallet
- The amount of time dedicated to the cosplay
- Fandom choice
- Variation choice
- Amount of likes/follows
- Amount of shares/reblogs
And anyone who decides to judge you based on the above doesn’t understand you, and doesn’t care about you or cosplay in general.
You know what your ability to cosplay is judged by?
Your passion and your dedication to it.You know who’s opinion matters toward your cosplays?
The people you ask, and most importantly, your’s and your’s alone.These people who dub themselves elitists and decide to mock an entire community based on their idealistic standards have no understanding what it is to be part of a community, and probably never will. They have such low self esteem that they cover it up with an inflated ego and bring other people down in order to feel better about themselves. They attack those around them to make themselves feel superior, alienating themselves as well. Proving them an asshole is a lost cause. Attempting to make them regret their actions makes them a lost cause. Attacking them does nothing because they feed off of that hate.
Ignoring them and removing them from your lives completely is the healthiest way to remove plague from your hobby. Eventually, the word will get that the person is a virus, and their own words will drive themselves alone in a hobby about being unified with others. Yet their words still sting.
But you know what you have? Friends. For every person that writes that X cosplayers blow because of Y reason, there are 10 other people you know who will tell you: Fuck that person! You’re amazing!
There are 5 more friends who will PM you: Don’t listen to that asshat they don’t know what they’re talking about and they just want to hurt you.
And the 1 person who will call you up and go: I will murder on your behalf. But JK (OR MAYBE). Seriously are you really listening to that person? You are the most amazing person I know and anyone else who tells you differently doesn’t understand and doesn’t care!
Remember always: Cosplay for yourself and no one else. Cosplay to make you happy not to make others happy.
And if you’re ever unsure of if it makes you happy? Talk to one person, and you’ll remember all the love you’ve gained in this hobby, and shared with cosplay. Post a message on your feed, get something up on your wall, or maybe even just text the one person who you know inspires you.
Suddenly, that one person’s opinion becomes drowned out by hundreds, or maybe thousands.
And suddenly, that ‘elitist’ cosplayers’ opinion doesn’t really matter anymore.