Hello everyone,
I'd like to discuss a thing or two about the cosplay scene, also relaying the experience of two cosplayers (both girls) I know well who are both progressive and sex positive.
The first one recently picked up cosplay again, and is into mostly military and action cosplay, from cult series like Resident Evil. Of the two she prefers to do female characters, guns out and such, staying true to the character. She recently (re)made a character and posted it on Reddit, on the game's subreddit. While having a great success, she also has received various questions about when she was posting the "lewds" and such; many mocked her for being not realistic enough, or that things weren't exactly 100% perfect.
The second one has been making cosplay for a while for others and also for herself, but she also likes male characters more (but she does both). She's also streaming much of that on Twitch in the past couple years. While receiving the same shitty toxic questions, she also received some insults on the transphobic side because, not being into makeup or revealing tops, people really wanted to know what is in her pants. And also some minor celebrities have been slightly pervy in private messages, or really really interested if she did nudity, body painting and such. She also complains that now everybody does 3d printing and it sucks for traditional makers...
Both complained to me that since 2014-2015, which mostly correspond to Patreon becoming more and more popular, "lewd cosplay" has been gaining a bigger and bigger share of the cosplay scene. While even I did a couple characters when I was a student, I don't really remember the community being so dominated by cosplayers who also sell nudes and various lewds; sure, it's not new or anything, but the popular cosplay in my preferred fandoms are quite often also made by those who also do "lewds", and this trend has been getting stronger in the last couple years. While one community (I can name it, the Siege one) has a great scene that features all characters about equally - maybe because Ubisoft handles well the community on that side - the niches aren't as cool.
It gives me mixed feelings, which is why I wanted to open this thread. Most of the people I follow on Twitter and Instagram are "influencers" in their fields but also for the biggest part queer and PoC, and all have been speaking out on pride, acceptance and being compassionate, as tech, cosplay and gaming are fields in which there's a lot of toxicity and misogynism; from the classic RTFM acronym (read the fucking manual) to mansplaining, toxic debating, perviness, and eventually people sending "hello cutie" on LinkedIn.
Many of the best cosplayers I've seen in fact are queer and/or non heteronormative. At the same time, while recognizing that "lewd" oriented cosplayers often do a great job at both the lewd and the cosplay, I feel kinda sorry for the vitriol that my friends are receiving. I suppose the biggest fault is from the teenagers who know nothing better and expect "rule 34" to be the norm or something. But I don't see respect for either "styles of cosplay", not being pervy pieces of shit (there's always a couple or more at events "cosplaying" as photographers) being a major topic of discussion.
I guess it's a bit of a niche topic, but I was wondering if you had experiences about this.
I'd like to discuss a thing or two about the cosplay scene, also relaying the experience of two cosplayers (both girls) I know well who are both progressive and sex positive.
The first one recently picked up cosplay again, and is into mostly military and action cosplay, from cult series like Resident Evil. Of the two she prefers to do female characters, guns out and such, staying true to the character. She recently (re)made a character and posted it on Reddit, on the game's subreddit. While having a great success, she also has received various questions about when she was posting the "lewds" and such; many mocked her for being not realistic enough, or that things weren't exactly 100% perfect.
The second one has been making cosplay for a while for others and also for herself, but she also likes male characters more (but she does both). She's also streaming much of that on Twitch in the past couple years. While receiving the same shitty toxic questions, she also received some insults on the transphobic side because, not being into makeup or revealing tops, people really wanted to know what is in her pants. And also some minor celebrities have been slightly pervy in private messages, or really really interested if she did nudity, body painting and such. She also complains that now everybody does 3d printing and it sucks for traditional makers...
Both complained to me that since 2014-2015, which mostly correspond to Patreon becoming more and more popular, "lewd cosplay" has been gaining a bigger and bigger share of the cosplay scene. While even I did a couple characters when I was a student, I don't really remember the community being so dominated by cosplayers who also sell nudes and various lewds; sure, it's not new or anything, but the popular cosplay in my preferred fandoms are quite often also made by those who also do "lewds", and this trend has been getting stronger in the last couple years. While one community (I can name it, the Siege one) has a great scene that features all characters about equally - maybe because Ubisoft handles well the community on that side - the niches aren't as cool.
It gives me mixed feelings, which is why I wanted to open this thread. Most of the people I follow on Twitter and Instagram are "influencers" in their fields but also for the biggest part queer and PoC, and all have been speaking out on pride, acceptance and being compassionate, as tech, cosplay and gaming are fields in which there's a lot of toxicity and misogynism; from the classic RTFM acronym (read the fucking manual) to mansplaining, toxic debating, perviness, and eventually people sending "hello cutie" on LinkedIn.
Many of the best cosplayers I've seen in fact are queer and/or non heteronormative. At the same time, while recognizing that "lewd" oriented cosplayers often do a great job at both the lewd and the cosplay, I feel kinda sorry for the vitriol that my friends are receiving. I suppose the biggest fault is from the teenagers who know nothing better and expect "rule 34" to be the norm or something. But I don't see respect for either "styles of cosplay", not being pervy pieces of shit (there's always a couple or more at events "cosplaying" as photographers) being a major topic of discussion.
I guess it's a bit of a niche topic, but I was wondering if you had experiences about this.
