Essay On Cosplayers

Cosplay, the subculture that I have chosen to study, is when a person achieves identification by wearing costumes. This involves dressing up as characters from but not limited to works of fiction such as anime. Taken from the Japanese culture, the word “cosplaying” combines “costume” and “play.” Most people who are involved in cosplaying are interested in comics, anime, or video games. I got the chance to interview Becky, family friend, who identifies herself as a cosplayer. We sat down and talked about what it means to be someone who cosplayers. “cosplayers are simply fans. Some people openly say they are obsessed with things like anime and games. Some people, like myself, do it simply to be social.” But why would someone want to take up the identity of a fictional character to “be social” one would ask… Simply because being someone else for a period of time helps give them the confidence they simply do not have in their own body. Most of the characters people choose to cosplay send a bigger out a bigger message. The characters have a characteristic that the cosplayer wishes they had.

But with such a wide variety of characters to choose from it might seem impossible to choose just one character to cosplay. Since most conventions are two to three days long, some cosplayers choose several different characters. “You can be a different character each day or some people have more and change during the day.” Preparing for a convention does not happen over night. People begin planning for the next convention months ahead. The first step into choosing a character is if the character will be recognized. It is crucial that the character is resembled down to the last hairpin. If the cosplayer chooses the wrong color of clothing, or their ...

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...hey have chosen. When I talked to Becky, some of the words she used meant little to nothing to me because I wasn’t familiar with them such as the convention names. The convention names are often abbreviated such as ACEN, comic con, SacAnime, and C2E2. To the average person with no interest or knowledge in cosplay, these abbreviations may be over their head. But for someone who is familiar with cosplay, convention names are something they often use in everyday conversation. I asked Becky if she had any catch phrases to use for her character at the upcoming NIU convention. “Since Marceline is the vampire queen, she has a few catch phrases that I plan to use such as ‘vampire kick’ and ‘my dad stole my bass guitar, Finn!’ Since this convention is much more relaxed and not so formal, a lot of people spin the characters dialogue to how they picture it in their heads.”