TikTok Cosplayers are at WAR | Video Essay
it is I son of Zeus Hercules the man that did the 12 labors well not actually my name’s K and I do video essays on the internet and instead of having demig Godlike superpowers I wear glasses and I can’t swim but unlike Disney I will not be butchering the story and retelling of Hercules today much rather talking about Cosplay yippee but before we get into that hello there my name is cow does life and if you’re new here we do video essays talking about things on the internet and then all discussing it as a team down in the comments below so if that sounds like fun for you please feel free to subscribe we’re trying to beat this ratio right here and if you’re not new here hello again old friend my shoulders ache not sure why I think I went too hard at Zumba but we do digress let’s get into cosplay yes today my friend we are diving into the complex in interesting expression world of Tik Tok cosplayers while cosplay is an incredible form of you know self-expression and creativity the community recently has been grappling with multiple significant issues from event etia and harassment to racial controversies and problems such as pretty privilege within the community these problems has sparked widespread debate and discussion the aim is to explore these Concepts and discuss them in depth examining their impact into the cosplay community and offering insights on how we can foster a more inclusive respecting environment for all cosplayers if you clicked on this video just cuz you watch my other videos and you have no clue what cosplayers are or you’re just an absolute Maverick and you just clicked on this video for fun this is cosplay cosplay is this awesome expression of Personality creativity artistic flare where people basically dress up as their favorite characters from TV shows movies characters throughout history it’s such an awesome thing people take characters and add their own flare to them you know people even dress up like the Five Nights at Freddy animatronics who doesn’t love Bonnie Bonnie is my favorite FNAF animatronic I love Bonnie I got so many Bonnie figures upstairs in my bedroom I really do love the cosplay Community it’s just a fun one it’s an interesting one and I like being like a silent enjoyer that sounds weird what I mean by that is I’m far too awkward to go these things in real life but I like watching people do it all online and like build the costumes watching people build the like animatronic costumes from start to finish is like such an interesting thing for me to watch and it’s such like a labor of love to you know build these things yourself and it’s just awesome it makes me happy so with that let’s get on to point one event etia and harassment recently I’ve seen lots of videos flooding my for you page on Tik Tok of cosplayers crying out and raising awareness of people just not understanding event etiquette at cosplay events people being harassed people being touched unwantedly people being over familiar with people they do not know content creators getting stalked followed and harassed all these things that just shouldn’t be happening it’s an odd one and this content creator really summarizes the issues going on I do not know if I have it in me to attend bigname Anime conventions anymore cuz the last one that I went to which was MCM London last weekend was so overwhelming and it made me feel so incredibly unsafe and I kind of feel like people have forgotten how to behave when it comes to each other when it comes to creators and when it comes to Anime conventions I got so bad at the anime convention I was attending last weekend that I ended up sitting on the floor with my food I put my noise cancelling headphones on I had two friends around me and I was sitting there in tears and I still had people coming over to me asking for a photo and the thing is I totally understand that for a lot of people this is their opportunity to come and say hello very general piece of con etica is that if somebody is sitting down and eating or if somebody is sitting down on the sidelines you leave them alone I was also stalked for the first day and a half of the convention to the point where I had to hide in the back and basically ask my friends to help me out like this is genuinely weird as hell why would you go up to someone that’s clearly visibly in distress and be like can I get a photo read the room or maybe if you suck at inferring like I do typically if someone’s not smiling at me or we make eye contact and we smile I will not approach them not that I would I would approach someone anyway I kind of just very much keep myself to myself but I understand some people you know want to get pictures with you know their favorite characters and if the costume’s good you’ll be like yo that’s so cool I want to get a picture with them that’s exciting I understand you’re excited but this really isn’t that appropriate is it respecting someone’s personal space is such an important skill to learn you know and I’m not coming at people who you know maybe have made the error of not always respecting someone’s person’s space I think that’s something we probably all have done in our life accidentally but you’ve got to realize at these events that the people behind the costumes are humans they’re not like these characters that seeing the movies or seeing the TV shows or whatever the situation where you know that character is from that’s an actual person right there you know they’ve come through the hours of spending so much time building their costume you know they’re probably sweating buckets because lot of the time they’re wearing lots of different things in these very condensed spaces and they might just need a breather so if you know you see them just sat down for a little bit or you just having some time for by themselves maybe they got their headphones on they probably don’t want to be harassed and another thing I see a lot of these content creators talk about is they’ll be having conversations with their friends and people will be interrupting them to you know try and talk to them and get their attention again common curtesy and politeness here everyone if you see someone talking to someone maybe don’t interrupt their conversation and be like hey there can I get a picture or Worse do this was just trying to film this hooty cosplay and this happened EXC will you marry me I don’t know this person and it made me really uncomfortable I hope they weren’t secretly filming proposing to cosplayers now one would hope that this video is satirical but this is a genuine problem at you know these events I think this sort of humor has been meaned of being like will you marry me or be my queen or you know that sort of stuff that like very like down bad behavior it’s almost meaned and it’s trivialized and people find it funny and I think yes it can be funny when it’s between you and your friends you know you know each other you have that preexisting relationship where you know it’s strictly platonic and it’s is like harmless fun but doing this to a random person genuinely is weird and I know some of you might be like Cal you’re being too overthinking about that it’s not that deep it’s just someone asking to marry you but yeah maybe for me uh a a big a big scary man that that’s a joke that’s sarcasm it might really it won’t really bother me if someone comes up to me like will you marry me but if some like random person that was bigger and scarier than me came up to me and was like marry me I I would get comfortable very quickly and actually thinking about this out loud I would get uncomfortable if anyone did this to me large or small I don’t care I don’t want your marriage proposals I really love con sign I just really love cosplay it’s so fun it’s such a fun expression and also who doesn’t want to dress up like your favorite characters but I would last all like 30 seconds in there you know I’m hearing all these horror stories of people being randomly poke touched and stuff if someone touches me that I don’t know I like straight up freeze up I hate it it’s like just one of my biggest pet peeves I have I have a very clear social bubble and I like to keep people far away from it I don’t know how these full-time cosplayers do it or just people that are really passionate about cosplaying you’re really great people with good hearts that you can keep going to these events despite this stuff happening I truly feel bad for you and that’s why I want to talk about it today so we can try and like get some conversation going about it cuz it’s just not really fair that your passion has to be smeared with people just not respect personal space privacy and following good etiquette really is it and also none of this is to make you feel like a terrible person if perhaps you got a bit too excited and you did you know run up to someone in costume that you like adored or whatever and you’re like marry me I understand sometimes In the Heat of the Moment We do things that ourself and our friends might find funny but if you’re not in on that joke it’s not really that funny for you know the person receiving that it might make them feel self-conscious or make people think like they’re being made fun of and at an event where you might feel you know you’re stepping out of your comfort zone cuz you are dressing up and that’s not something you do in your day-to-day life little things like that can just really ruin your day so maybe don’t do that maybe just keep those jokes to you and your friends people you already have preexisting relationships with and I don’t mean by that I don’t just mean like people you’re dating I just mean people you know like those are jokes for you and your friends and I think that’s very funny and that’s a cool thing to do you know have banter with your friends maybe they’re dressed up like your favorite character or whatever it may be just don’t do it to random people I think you know it’s just odd and it’s not nice and what I did find disturbing in many of these comment sections was the amount of people coming forward and saying yeah I was stalked by four grown men on my walk back to the hotel and this isn’t just like an isolated event lots of them presenting people were talking about like just the weird creepy men there you know just being odd degenerates being like my queen may I get a hug if you ask for a hug at why honestly that’s it own you could make it its own separ video about people asking for hugs at cosplaying events why do you need the hug you know what do you gain from that just take the picture maybe that’s just me and I’m because I’m not a tangible person but I don’t know the hug F always just always gets me I’m just like what do you what are you gain from there I think maybe they just need to like give out like Little Manuals at the event for everyone on you know proper etiquette on how to be just a regular polight person at these events cuz maybe you generally don’t know that you can’t just like run up to people you don’t know I know cuz maybe In the Heat of the Moment you really excited to see all these cool costumes which is awesome it’s great you’ve got this passion but remember that’s a person there so be polite they’re talking to someone else don’t just butt in don’t grab people if you’re trying to get someone’s attention maybe try and get their eye contact and say hello excuse me I just want to say I like your costume but obviously don’t be like where’s your eye contact don’t cuz cuz you know that might make them uncomfortable and they’ll be like why are you glitching out in front of me what are you doing saor zooie Mama that makes me uncomfortable the more I think about this the more I’m just like I would this would be my nightmare because I don’t like I cont so I don’t know how this person how anyone would get my attention at this event I don’t like being touched it would be my nightmare yeah not have like a team of security around me that being said if some you do ever randomly bump into me in public just say cow and I would be like hello and then we could have like the world’s awkward interaction and be like okay cool bye now yeah sweet but yeah maybe like genuinely these like events need to do like awareness campaigns on how to conduct yourself at these events and maybe security need to be trained what to look out for you know are there creepy dudes following random people around and stuff like that and if they notice people hovering around certain cosplayers and just being a bit of a nuisance you know time to step in perhaps because otherwise the space dies because the big content creators that do loads of stuff around cosplaying are now saying they might not even want to go back anymore and that’ be such a shame people that bring so much Spotlight to that world being like yeah I actually just don’t want to be a part of it anymore that would be pretty sad right another big talking point that has been going on in the cosplaying community since like the dawn of time it’s been a big problem in their Community is race baiting and just the General racism across the board in the community a real horrid Trend that happened amongst some Cosa players is Asian baiting and for this people would alter their appearance to make it look like they belong to a different ethnicity which of course is like incredibly problematic and just immoral creators are literally taping their eyes to alter the shape it is mad how someone can just be like this lacking of critical thought of why that could be bad to appropriate features you just straight up don’t have is a very odd Choice especially when they have perhaps not been celebrated in the Western World historically and now it’s just like yeah I’m going to Don it for this cute cosplay I want to do no do better that’s weird you can dress up like a character without having to culturally appropriate or just be straight up racist and weird got to like think of like the Legacy issues of all this stuff like you know dress dressing up like a different ethnicity of stuff you know famously with things like blackface you know going back 15 years lots of famous comedians and actors did blackface so if you did blackface for a cosplay character that is not being true to the character people are going to think you’re mocking the character it’s weird it’s wrong you can celebrate a character and dress up like a character without having to try to change your race and speaking of race racism is a genuinely quite a big problem in the cosplay community like listen to what this cosplayer had to say cosplay Community can be quite racist seriously yes very much so so there’s a lot of people are very accepting but there’s also uh a lot of people that will pretty much if you are of A different race and you are dressing up as a character that is not of that race there are people that will actually critique that and what they mean by that is a lot of people are very racist to basically anyone that isn’t a white cosplayer like this is a genuine problem which is genuinely mental as like the most popular characters that people cosplay a lot aren’t even white so logic’s just gone out the window and what’s sad is that this comment section is littered with people from marginalized communities straight up just saying yeah we stop being cosplayers because the racism they experienced it’s sad the community has deemed some characters as white characters so when people who you know aren’t white cosplay them they get hate which is incredibly dumb because one that’s truly passionate about Cosplay knows it’s not about that it’s literally about the creating of the outfit and just wearing the outfit of a character you like so you can celebrate the fact that you like them people are so weird sometimes and like again I don’t want to show like an actual example of a Tik Tok of this happening cuz it feels weird to spread that kind of hate but we can just take another comment for example it’s sadly so true Howell someone was being racist about this amazingly beautiful woman who cosplayed Starfire and they said she can’t cuz she was black it’s disgusting the racism is disgusting and like there’s follows no logic because like what does that have to do with the dressing up and portrayal of a character it’s not conically correct oh shut up none of these characters are real have fun the whole point of cosplayers to have fun in self-expression screw your conically correct stuff oh my goodness I can’t even give a good point to it because people like this don’t even deserve logic and rationale it’s just a shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up you’re ruining this fun thing this thing that’s meant to be so fun you’re just ruining it I feel like anyone that’s got a genuine passion for it would tell you like the importance of diversity and like the whole thing should be about you know swapping stories about how you made your costume coming together it’s just a celebration of art so to try and segregate it and try and oppress and make it this very exclusive thing instead of a inclusive thing which is what it should be a celebration of like creative minds it just makes me sad I think more needs to be done by the community more vocalization of you know promoting diversity truly showing and celebrating that you can dress up like your favorite characters it doesn’t matter race shouldn’t even be in that conversation you should just be able to dress up like your favorite characters obviously I do say within that quick notice obviously don’t culturally appropriate and by that I mean do some crazy stuff like Asian fishing or whatever or like that Creator did they literally apparently celerate their eyes do you know how like just distasteful that is to be like yeah I’m just going to glorify fetishize this race but not actually acknowledge the privilege that I’m just doing this for fashion and I can stop whenever I want and go back to cosplaying regular white person on the street ly do you’re a bad person another important talking point I want to discuss is like miners within the cosplay community and age appropriate content recently there’s been like very popular shows like has been Hotel great show very entertaining but it’s clearly meant for you know adults some of the themes in it are very sensitive and you know it’s not really designed with children in mind I think because of that however you know regardless of that you know young adults teenagers of course will watch these shows and then of course they will then go and dress up as these characters at cosplay events and the issue some of these content creators have raised is a lot of these costume are you know meant for adults and you know when there’s been hasb been Hotel meetups at these events a lot of the stuff going on there is quite adult themed and you know the songs in the show have some pretty crazy lyrics and a child being in that environment full of you know adults seems like it could get a bit sketchy quite quickly because there’s a chance of being exposed to you know like Predators you know just like weird people that will you know take advantage of of someone enjoying a show that was designed for adults but obviously they’re a kid in that space and then of course there’s a very clear Empower imbalance there where something weird and heinous could happen you know I’m not saying miners shouldn’t be allowed to watch hasbin Hotel because that would be hypocrisy I you know watch shows clearly made for adults when I was you know a teenager I played games that were like rated 18 plus well such a rebel not really I think it’s just normal to kind of do these things right cuz it just happens uh so it’s not like I’m being like you can’t watch it but I think definitely there is conversations to be had as a community of like okay we acknowledge miners are going to be consuming this content how do we make sure when they do come to these events everything’s safe and above board do you try and monitor the meetups for the different fandoms and make sure like it is like an adult version and a minor version so that you know you do protect them from predatory behavior because I don’t want to ruin you know the young people’s fun because you know they’re just doing for self- expression and they’re finding themselves and if you know they like a character they’re going to obviously want to dress up as them another big issue in the cosplay Community is just like also a problem everywhere in life but it does seem to be very focused and highlighted in the cosplay Community is just like the importance of like pretty privilege you’ll see on Tik Tok people who have brought like Sheen costumes bang thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of likes and thousands of views because they are societally deemed very attractive and so their content pops off then you’ll get people who have spent hours and hours and hours making their costumes from hand get little to no views and yes there’s always the argument to be like well Cal maybe the person that got less views just didn’t package their content very well they didn’t film it very well yeah I think that’s a argument to be made but it does seem to be a common theme that there’s lots of people who aren’t even cosplayers they’re just trying to profit off the look and movement who just come in whack on some cheap morph suit type costume and get thousands of likes and it’s just like ah this is must be very disheartening for people that actually are in the cosplay community and actually have this as their passion I can totally see how it must do an absolute number on someone’s self-esteem or you know someone in the community or someone even thinking about getting into the cosplay Community if they’re seeing the only type of people that being perpetuated and being pushed online the know one’s getting thousands and thousands of likes all look the same you know a very specific type of person it must make you feel like oh maybe I’m not well welcomed in this community cuz I don’t look that way so maybe there’s no space for me that must really do a number on you and it must hurt cuz you’re passionate and you want to share your enthusiasm for you know self-expression this community that is all about at its core you know expressing yourself and taking your own artistic takes on things something that should be very fun but of course with apps like Tik Tok where it’s very visual driven I can understand how people can get disheartened very quickly I think maybe more needs to be done in the community to promote a equality otherwise I feel people’s mental health is just going to continue to deteriorate in the community or lots of people will leave if they’re not leaving for other others not respecting etia they’re leaving because they just don’t feel welcomed in the community anymore it’s very natural to compare yourself to others I think in life and if you know the only ones they’re seeing getting likes all look a certain way they will feel outcasted from that so more needs to be done as Community maybe the bigger creators of celebrating the smaller creators they see online you know maybe there could be series of like here’s some other cool cosplay creators I saw this week something like that from a big Creator in that scene I think would do wers for representation and you know highlight that you don’t have to look a certain way you can look however you want the main thing is you just enjoy yourself and enjoy cosplay and dressing up right that should be the fun part that all bonds us together and I think with that I’ve kind of touched on it there I want to talk about my final point which is community Solutions and positive change I think M’s to be done by the actual event makers and also maybe some of the big pillar content creators in the scene to you know actually have those candid real conversations about creating a safe environment within the cosplay community and I know it won’t change overnight but through having this real candid conversations you can foster change and raise awareness whether it be through like celebrating smaller creators or just trying to give the spotlight to other creators that you know normally typically don’t receive it stuff like that can help show other other people that you can look however you may look and still be a part of the community and that may sound so silly to say out loud cuz you might be like Cal of course the logical person knows that or whatever but I think sometimes if you’re new to a community or you just don’t see enough people that vaguely look like you you can end up feeling some type of way so seeing a big Creator be like no look at all these other amazing people I think would be really inspiring and empowering I think cosplayers like this really exciting environment and like I said earlier in my video it’s never about you know shaming the people that maybe have been a bit too excitable at these events you know I understand it’s very exciting to see your favorite cosplayers see your favorite characters see your favorite content creators I understand you’re very excited and perhaps you didn’t realize you were coming across kind of weird because you were so enthusiastic to be there but raising awareness of you know how to conduct yourself even like Little Manuals or something just given to everyone when you go in being like be respectful stuff like that I think it’s really important to Foster this friendly environment where we can all show off our Coe costumes I think at its core it’s a really fun sweet Community I think it’s just slightly lost its way in some ways and we need to just have like a big overhaul and make cosplay wholesome again that probably sounds so like PR statement guys we can save the death if we just try but you know what I mean perhaps influencers and the events can work work in collaboration with each other to set positive example and advocate for change I would now just like to conclude on this matter mainly because I think this is one where I think it’s going to be a really positive interesting discussion in the comments about you know how we can promote advocacy in the community I don’t think I have the answers for this one but it’s more like just the the conversation there and then we can get momentum rolling from that and I do want to stress like the Tik Tok cosplay community and the cosplay community in general is one filled with creativity and passion two amazing attributes that I just Champion I love I think it’s great but with that being said it does have these significant challenges that now really need to be addressed otherwise it will be the demise and doom of the cosplay Community by fostering an environment showing the importance of boundaries the importance of diversity protecting minors and challenging the stereotypes of pretty privilege we can continue to grow the cosplay Community into what it should be which is just a celebration of passion and enjoyment for things which at its core is so wholesome and I’m all four and let’s try and get back to that instead of what it’s kind of turning into now I think cosplay should and always should be an empowering experience for all to just have fun and get lost in fantasy a real joyful one that you know no it puts a smile on my face as I’m talking about it and it should put a smile on your face so with that let’s talk about it and just really discuss it I’m really interested to see what cosplayers have to say about this and I just want to have that real candid conversation with you all anyways I’m absolutely exhausted I’ve been your boy C’s life I shall be in the comment section having a conversation with you and I shall also see you all in the next video essay until then there’ll be another video essay here if you want to click on another one of my videos and uh yeah okay bye he
今日のビデオエッセイでは、TikTok のコスプレやコスプレイヤーに注目し、コミュニティで起こっている課題について話し合います。コンベンションでコスプレイヤーが嫌がらせを受けることから、包括性と多様性の欠如まで。また、美人特権がコスプレにどのような影響を与えるか、そしてコミュニティがこれらの問題とどのように戦うことができるかについても検討します。インスタグラム、TikTok、Twitter で @caldoeslife をフォローしてください。
MAG.MOE - The MAG, The MOE.