The Cosplay Community Crashout – What Happened To Anime Conventions
anime conventions and the fandoms that attend have become infamous over the last few years stories and tall tales that used to only circulate amongst the people within these communities are now covered and widely known even by those whose interest in anime is casual at best the iconic Homestuck Sharpie Bath is a tale that has outlived the heyday of its fandom regularly being brought up to the next generation of cosplayers and of course brain rot enthusiasts a certified modern-day folk legend that warns cosplayers against the use of Sharpies and 70% alcohol over choosing a simple stick of gray body paint or who could forget the many legends that surround the Catsukon Gazebo whispers of the Midnight Pooper leaving unwanted surprises for cosplayers trying to get their early morning gazebo photo conventions have grown from just being a place for niche hobbyists to gather into its own localized ecosystem with lore micro celebrities and of course drama i myself have been attending anime conventions for the best part of 15 years taking my first steps onto cons soil in a handmade rather scuffed Miku cosplay and just this past week I got to keep up with my twice yearly tradition of going to the UK’s largest anime convention however maybe I’m jaded by time and nostalgia for a pre2020 community but do cons and cosplay feel less fun now something about this new and more accepted era of fandom somehow feels less authentic and welcoming logging onto social media it feels like every single week there’s a new cosplayer getting called out or a convention that’s allowed poor behavior to take place on its grounds post 2020 many more people have discovered cosplay but seemingly haven’t tried to assimilate to this pre-established etiquette that was shaped from years of trial and error and so today we will be exploring and asking the question have anime conventions and the people who attend them gotten worse so I guess grab your pocky put down your yowi paddle and settle in gug mesh oh yeah cosplay is a hobby that has really flourished in the last few years when it comes to its accessibility props and costumes that used to be incredibly hard or expensive to buy are now often available through popular budget cosplay sites like Doky Doi Cos or UO Cosplay no longer do you have to worry about the constrictive Asian sizing on your polyester costume because on AliExpress and Tao you can get tailored made to measure sets for less than 100 quid this new gen love of anime and pop culture has definitely helped pave the way when it comes to getting into cosplay as a beginner unlike when I was a child there is now no need to deal with the nightmare blunt rotation of a tangled Meiku wig dry contact lenses and a suspiciously stretchy sailor uniform going to conventions in 2025 you will see a hugely diverse range of ages races sizes religions gender and sexual orientation all coming together peacefully to share their love of pop culture and anime but sadly this vision of unity still faces the same push back that you can expect in day-to-day reality black cosplayers for example face an insane amount of hatred both in person and online for cosplaying the same characters as everyone else so imagine I’m just walking as a Jinx cosplayer someone came up to me right they were like I love Jinx cosplay she’s my favorite blah blah blah but I’m going to give you a 9 out of 10 because you’re black kind of black kind of black is crazy i feel like Jinx should only be cosplayed by white people no it’s kind of That’s what he said to me cosplay is anything you know when you know it’s all right i won’t ever forget the fact that I heard oh yeah 9.5 because of your color of your skin i said right and I was like what do you mean he was like it’s cuz of the color of your skin only white people should cosplay drinks and I was like oh the argument often levied by the people harassing black cosplayers is that black cosplayers shouldn’t cosplay non-black characters that them wanting to cosplay characters like Naruto or Konatar is just not cannon enough with this rhetoric mostly being spread by white cosplayers who they themselves are cosplaying Japanese characters if you go online it takes no time at all to see this hatred being regurgitated all over unsuspecting cosplayers comment sections all of whom don’t get the same recognition or fanfare as their white counterparts whenever I will come on to my platform and detail instances of racism that I’ve experienced it will predominantly tell white people but I want to take a moment to talk about the experiences I’ve had within other communities of color i’ve wanted to talk about this in the past but because of the fact people misunderstood it and took it as an invitation to be discriminative allow me to preface that if you come in my comments talking crazy you’ll be blocked immediately racism in the cosplay community is normalized as is but for me to wake up and check my mentions and see that I’m being called an influx of racial slurs by other brown predominantly Spanish-sp speakaking people simply because of the fact how me and other black cosplayers called out an Asian creator for blackf facing not really sure what’s up with that anti-blackness is so normalized in communities of color that whenever we try to speak up about it we are gas lit we are harassed and we are called every other thing in the book the reason why I no longer expend my energy trying to educate and explain [ __ ] to people is because it’s become abundant that they are not listening to understand they’re listening with intent to respond and be argumentative in 2025 racism and in-person harassment is alive and well whether it be making fellow cosplayers feel unsafe or deciding to give Hasbin Hotel’s Alistister blackface yes this cursed cosplay of Alistister from the controversial but popular series Hasbin Hotel seems to be sporting what looks like minstrel makeup a deep shade of black that in reality doesn’t really make sense even in the context of Alistister’s more shadowy and evil moments from within the show and according to those in attendance this cosplayer was indeed allegedly white with one explanation that I’ve heard floating around being that they didn’t realize that the face paint was so dark and so when they applied it it was a lot darker than it was advertised it was meant to be like a gray color but again you would wonder why you wouldn’t just like take it off maybe take that off or even try and maybe add like a white base on top of it to make it look more gray now to clarify I do think that there are some makeup looks or some cosplay characters that maybe this kind of black face paint and body paint wouldn’t fall into the realm of offense over i myself have used black face paint on my neck and jawline when doing my xenomorph cosplay to make the cosplay better blend in to the rest of the outfit but again in the context of Alistister’s character allegedly being Creole and also related to voodoo the choice of black face paint was an entirely avoidable one i don’t think anybody would have really cared if Alistister wasn’t able to have his face paint and you just went out with your normal skin color all of this once again highlighting the community’s issue with the treatment of their black peers but the issues with cosplay don’t just start and end there because although an entirely different kettle of fish the othering of people who don’t fit this narrow anime beauty standard also extends to people who are plus-size or people with disabilities after all fat phobia is back in vogue and its resurgence off the back of the body positivity movement is most noticeable on social media platforms like Tik Tok Instagram and Twitter and I have actually covered this topic in particular on another video so I recommend going to watch that after this video if you have the stomach for it this shift in the bar for mainstream beauty has also spilled over into the cosplay community cosplays are more size inclusive than ever but when a plus-sized person actually decides to wear these cosplays they are constantly reminded that they are not built like bean poles with breast tissue i don’t understand i don’t understand at all i’m just a person who is autistic struggling with mental issues and is a plus-sized person who loves anime sometimes cosplaying who loves K-pop hos Miku and Sanrio especially Crommy but I’m getting attacked and bullied on social media for no reason i don’t understand at all and when I see comments like that it upsets me and why can’t people just be kind and don’t judge people until they know the whole story i’ve been through a lot lately and um yeah so please be kind to other people and yeah and remember cosplaying is for everyone people are allowed to cosplay if they want and people are allowed to post anything they want on social media as long as they follow the rules and yeah so don’t judge others until you know their whole story thank you with comments ranging from the backhanded “Wow I wish I had your confidence.” to the far more direct and hurtful puns based on somebody’s weight and the character that they’re cosplaying i am a UK size 10 or a US size 8 and I’ve even had people attempt to try and body shame me within cosplay with one notable comment that quickly got deleted by the person who left it stating that the character of Kira who I was cosplaying doesn’t weigh four digits i don’t know what to tell you my guy but um neither do I like what these kind of comments can very quickly wear down and lower the confidence of even the most thick-skinned of big baddies leading to many plus-siz cosplayers withdrawing from the online community or even just leaving the hobby altogether these feelings of inadequacy and isolation are often compounded by these rotating Tik Tok trends that pop up every so often with a recent notable example being the all cosplays are beautiful trend something which in theory sounds like a great way to uplift small creators from all walks of life but in actuality only went on to highlight many creators biased towards white skinny young cosplayers now for the rest of the video she proceeds to only show white and skinny cosplayers or if they’re a person of color it’s very light complexion and again skinny how are you going to claim that you love all cosplayers but you only show a certain set of people a certain set of cosplayers in the video and then in the next video you say that you’re rushing to try to do damage control or whatever but it’s not hard to show a person of color or like you know make it look diverse or show inclusivity and diversity even if you were in a rush and when someone who is a person of color tells you that you know this is not inclusive by being sarcastic you’re like “You’re so mad aren’t you it’s okay calm down.” What an odd thing to say and then you proceed to make the video more diverse but again I want to ask you are people of color cosplayers an afterthought to you cuz it really seems like it i would go as far to say that your video perpetuates a harmful idea or ideal or whatever standard that cosplayers are only loved if they are white and skinny because even though you did include people of color in a very afterthought way in your other love your cosplays videos the one that blew up the most was the one where you only posted white and skinny cosplayers when one of these creators was called out by a black cosplayer they chose to double down ignoring the voices of people of color who once again felt like their contributions to the community had been discounted and the creator instead had their new tween audience go ahead and try to mansplain as to why what they were doing was not microaggressive behavior again echoing the sentiment that anyone that doesn’t body twin with a basic anime girl is unworthy of applause or inclusion how many talented and optimistic cosplayers rocked up to a convention only to leave feeling small and insecure all because somebody felt emboldened enough to set out and ruin their day it’s become far easier for people to cast judgment and doubt all due to the mainstream access of social media even big creators who fit the mainstream beauty standard aren’t safe from these cosplay critics has popular musician and newfound cosplayer Baby No Money recently got a ton of Twitter backlash for cosplaying popular pretty boy Silus from the series Love and Deep Space a spicy Otto mobile game that has enthralled a new generation of Mystic Messenger girlies with the fans of this franchise picking apart his cosplay as well as complaining that he kept his beard when it came to doing the character which again is such a non-issue because why should you have to remove something about yourself on a more permanent even semi-permanent basis in order to cosplay play a character for what might just be a couple of hours myself and many of my friends who do cosplay full-time or do cosplay crafting full-time have experienced various waves of hatred and criticism when it comes to our weight appearance or even just the costumes we’re wearing because for some reason people would rather backseat cosplay than do the cosplay themselves unfortunately this new acceptance of cosplay has led to an influx of people who feel qualified to criticize others and quite often these people seldom ever cosplay or get involved with a community outside of judging it and speaking of access to cosplays there is a caveat when it comes to having everything being so easy and ready to buy jumping onto Amazon you can quickly pick up Tik Tok trending character cosplays for as low as £10 on Prime’s next day delivery meaning that although you are covered in a pinch you can also have way too much access to impulse spending you see when I was a kid getting into cosplay the options that I had available were really not all that great it was usually a case of begging my parents to order something in from China over on eBay or perusing what was the OG version of Facebook Marketplace fan-made sales pages that were kind of community-led that allowed people to sell their secondhand merchandise and cosplays to other fans bartering in the DMs at 14 with a woman in her 40s about lowering the cost of her Miku Matraoka costume and when that lovely Facebook lady held firm at £40 for that costume you instead turned to the long practiced art of DIY i remember making this costume in my art class using all of the available supplies because I somehow managed to brag to my teacher that it was part of my school project creating my own stencil and proceeding to use screen printing techniques and acrylic paint to finish off the hoodie a process that really isn’t all that special or technical but really did open my eyes and my enthusiasm when it came to trying to DIY more of my cosplays but now there’s no real need to learn DIY or even try and remake parts of your costume you don’t have to learn how to sew a button or a zipper or a popper how to fix a stiff zip or even just take your own body measurements in order to get a better fitting costume instead your cosplay turns up in a plastic Ziploc bag ready to wear in time for the next viral Tik Tok trend most cosplayers don’t even bother to iron or steam their costume before or aura farming thousands upon thousands of likes on social media not to mention the general trend cycle and influx of gacha characters that promotes a fast turnover of costumes rather than rewearing what you already have i want to talk about cosplay’s contribution to the fast fashion industry and climate change and this is going to be a tough one and there’s going to be a lot of backlash but I think it’s really important for you as a consumer as a cosplayer to know these things fast fashion is buying clothing that is mass- prodduced and is made very inexpensively with very inexpensive materials largely polyester and we know that the production of plastic um harms our climate um our environment um they are usually ready to ship and they’re really affordable as far as like cosplay especially goes and there is so much pressure especially on social media to have the newest and the best and the coolest characters cosplays really quickly um in order to market yourself and to create new content but as soon as that content you’re done creating it it goes straight in your closet until it ends up in a landfill which also contributes to climate change let’s remember that uh plasticbased materials don’t really degrade over time um linens cotton do but polyester does not and that’s not to say that cosplayers who make their costumes don’t also contribute to climate change because there’s a lot of wastefulness when it comes to cosplay and just you know messing up and throwing away a bunch of fabric um and purchasing fabric that is plastic um and kind of contributing in a cycle of wastefulness and that ends up in a landfill which again contributes to climate change and I don’t want you to feel like you can’t buy these costumes or you can’t participate in cosplay because you don’t know how to make your stuff so you do have to buy your stuff but there are other ways to go around it first off if you have the money you can commission a cosplayer to make something for you it does take more time it does take more money um cosplayers who do commissions will often complain about um how mass-roduced cosplays have harmed them um as in like people don’t want to pay money for highquality costumes because they can just go on uh oo wow woo and buy something for a quarter of the price from what the uh cosplay commissioner is charging and there’s a reason why cosplayers will charge high amounts for their art because it’s quality work but there’s also buy sell trade groups on Facebook where you can um put your old costumes up for sale and people will buy them um or you can look for a cosplay you’re look you’re wanting to do and you can buy them on there and they aren’t going to have every character obviously but some of your more popular characters are definitely going to be on there for sale which is a really great option um kind of going into the recycling of cosplays right again I’m not saying don’t buy these things i am trying to help you be aware of the impact that consumerism and your money has on the world at large how many people who now feel lukewarm on Hasbin Hotel or Hell of a Boss jumped over to cosplay sites in order to buy a costume as soon as it was trending on Tik Tok and YouTube or what about the more recent Dante dance trend from Devil May Cry how many people ran to buy a Dante cosplay so they could participate in the trend properly again accessibility is something that I am all for and in this case although many of the costumes are likely produced by fast fashion for the average cosplayer you aren’t going to be buying more than one or two costumes per year and you also have the intention of hopefully rewearing them however with the rise of cosplay influencers and cosplay trends many people feel this pressure to not rewear their costumes kind of in the same way that many people choose to not rewear their outfits on social media many people feel like they can’t gain any attention online if they don’t keep in step with this impossible roster of characters causing them to spend lots of money on polyester that will end up rotting in the back of their wardrobe when it doesn’t reward them with instant virality it feels like a competitive atmosphere where in order to compete you have to keep up you know you really shouldn’t mess with anime nerds connecticut is a term that encompasses a semi unspoken set of rules and expected behavior at conventions kind of like we all now unanimously know that it’s not appropriate to be super loud and obnoxious in a library or that clicking your fingers at weight staff to get their attention is unanimously a crappy thing to do these expectations from the attendees around you are there to make the space fun and comfortable for everyone however post 2020 as new fans are taking their first steps into attending anime conventions there has been a noticeable decline when it comes to self-awareness and the respect paid to the others around you and she was a fairy she was a fairy she was a fairy [Music] london’s dry that’s what I’m saying everyone’s dry this country’s dry it’s become common place to see people breaking cardinal rules of anime conventions things like not pestering cosplayers when they’re eating not grabbing people’s props or their costumes and definitely not trying to initiate roleplay with strangers the tale as old as time as people are rocking up to the convention at 9:00 a.m without a shower or a clean costume to wear it’s a terrible stereotype to reinforce but man some people really do turn up to con stinking and it’s 2025 there is no excuse please bring deodorant or antipersperent or whatever you need to make sure you don’t smell and that includes washing your costumes because they also need to be washed in between we for those who have been cosplaying or attending anime conventions for a good long while this lack of etiquette can quickly become very draining but equally for those who are new to this all sometimes these unspoken set of rules actually do need to be spoken in order for people to understand where the boundaries are imagine how good it would be if anime conventions as a blanket rule had posters dotted around the convention discussing rules that you need to follow things like bathing things like being considerate to people who are resting and eating i know that it should be common sense but sometimes for people who are neurody divergent or those who are new or those who may just be unaware these rules can actually go under the radar of what you should and shouldn’t do actually making the cons draw a hard line over bad behavior or in this case stinky pits and actually speaking of antisocial behavior let’s revisit the Homestuck Sharpie Bath because despite this being a tall tale that very likely isn’t real the Homestuck Sharpie Bath story does actually highlight some of the issues when it comes to con attendees not respecting the facilities or the convention property in the case of this iconic legend the alleged stump pulled did over $700 of damage to the hotel room and apparently we haven’t really learned our lessons since this because in the last few years it’s become an unwelcome phenomena for social media cosplayers to cause issues and chaos at conventions and one particular content creator who is often attributed to this behavior is whole wheat Pete a guy who gained online infamy for his Nzochan stunts look I’m a superhero i’m here wait no wrong way all right remember what you have to do is you see this Nzo and you go Nzo John all right go attack go John oh no you’re supposed to catch her go you come on why are we all Let me show you how it’s done we just got here to the con and there’s so many cool cosplayers look at everybody it’s Wait oh my god i see a Nez already now although the common understanding is that these stunts were done with the full consent of any cosplayers featured within the video the same can’t necessarily be said for the damage potentially caused to venue property not to mention the general obnoxious behavior that his content so often relies on raising voices shouting and taking up space in order to run around and do physical stunts pete’s reputation for this content quickly soured the more that his content got the attention it wanted and if Pete was indeed getting full consent from all the cosplayers and people involved it’s likely that those replicating his formula may not have been so diligent the common consensus around these Nezochan style skits is often negative with many people online expressing discomfort at cosplaying characters like Nezuchan in case Pete or somebody trying to copy his formula tries to involve them in an unconenting skit and if bold Tik Toks were already making you feel uneasy then the influx of mean-spirited convention interviewers may put you off entirely this modern trend of randies with DJI microphones and an iPhone camera going to convention and fandom spaces in order to try and humiliate the people attending them in sincerity for easy clicks from the mainstream public desperate to recreate PT Barnum’s freak show without any of the charm or good looks of Hugh Jackman one guy that’s grown his Tik Tok platform to over 3,000 followers purely from doing these rage bait interviews and street interviews is Tik Tok user Thor Des he decided to attend a Comic-Con in America dressed as P diddy and harass cosplayers oh Tik Tockers yeah can I make one no we’re kind of busy right now bro dang i don’t got enough clout no we’re good bro i’ll give y’all permission to beat Wait I’m not going to do that man guys we’re trying to film right now like wait how does this actually making us really uncomfortable please you’re making us really uncomfortable you have to be like wait why are you tweaking please leave us alone or we will get security we don’t want to be a part of this why are you tweaking there is no reason to tweak yeah guys just turn around nobody there’s no one here thank you for being respectful and I will leave but damn bro wasn’t that serious it kind of is when you’re a camera in our face there’s a camera that’s like 6 feet away from you we in a public space i’m in a Leave us alone leave us alone leave us alone leave us alone leave us alone walk away walk away walk away walk away yes is that what you guys want walk away that’s Wango in this video the cosplayers continually politely declined to be filmed or bothered by Thor death and yet he continues to tell these Final Fantasy cosplayers that they’re tweaking and being unreasonable all while he is still filming them despite them actively saying “We don’t want to be filmed.” The fact he pulled up to the convention dressed as a predator for laughs is bad enough but proudly posting the harassment of cosplayers just to get some extra views and clicks is really just another blow to the community who are just trying to have fun normalizing this idea that it’s okay to turn up to fandom events and bully people for being at fandom events in sincerity and of course he isn’t the only person because why would he be as for some reason alt-right grifter Ariel Scarcella also decided to turn up to a space where cosplayers were congregating to interview them about gender politics and asking them how many genders are there how many genders are there are you gay or straight yes that you’re by how many genders are there unlimited unlimited that’s a fantastic question i wish I could tell you can you name five he she they those are pronouns not genders oh sorry my bad so I know you have he him she her they them those are pronouns how many genders are there can you name five genders uh I wouldn’t have like a name for any of them but I just think like none of it really matters just however many you want there to be it’s a spectrum yeah male female non-binary you have no idea no idea ace is is not is orientation so it’s not a uh Right i can’t keep up with it all but what do you think about the fact that Trump said that there’s only two legal genders now male and female i think he’s completely wrong i think it’s personally I think it’s between you and your medical professional like your medical professional should know what you were born as and but other than that it’s no one’s business like you can identify as whatever you want to identify as and it doesn’t need to be that big of a deal for those who may be unaware of who Ariel is good but also I’ll fill you in she went from creating fairly inclusive content as an open lesbian YouTuber to making YouTube and short form slop that hails from conservative and alt-right values also loving the use of AI in this thumbnail ariel in this video which had since been deleted but I locked away in my vault of receipts because I’m apparently crazy she went around asking cosplayers about their understanding of gender and sexuality something which is not only irrelevant to the hobby itself but also feels like another way of getting extra viewership by inciting people who are watching to point and laugh at the funny people in costumes oh my god look at all these woke people dressed as cats or dressed as superheroes how lame are they all while sitting behind their computer screen with their receding hairline and a heart full of hatred if you behave like this you’ll never see the light of heaven and I hope you know that i hate this narrative of I infiltrated a furry convention i infiltrated an anime convention as if you didn’t just buy a ticket or apply for creator pass and pay for accommodation and travel in order to harass people for clicks online gawking at people who are minding their own business and actually have friends to hang out with for the day she this right here is alt-right grifter Ariel Scarcella in fact she’s one of many alt-right grifters who for whatever reason are infiltrating fandom spaces to ask political questions first of all alt-right is is is a bit much okay I don’t identify as alt-right a classic liberal if you will there’s a lot of lies in this video and I just felt the need to respond cuz I’m feeling kind of sassy on this Tuesday afternoon so glad that Angel Dust right here clocked her tea because they were not having any of it from the get- go actually the person that you’re referring to in that video that was dressed as whoever they’re dressed as was very respectful to me i am a lesbian that voted for Trump that’s okay and that’s okay listen I respect you even more for that now i respect you even more for that have enough free time to take themselves to anime conventions in order to interview cosplayers you’re literally going up to people dressed as demons from hell and asking them about gender identity considering that this is my full-time job and there’s a lot of LGBT damage control that I have to do yeah I do take the time to make sure that I go out and talk to people and get to know like what the hell these people are thinking and where my content has to go next you don’t know what it is with people like this wanting to constantly insert themselves in spaces with people that they so adamantly disagree with i think it’s important for people like myself and people that even disagree with me to have conversations in everyday life with people that may or may not disagree with them if you actually watched the majority of my content I would say about 50% of the people that I interviewed there were quote leftists and about 50% were moderate you know libertarians old school liberals and maybe one or two Trump supporters this was also not an anime convention by the way i was invited to go i had a press pass and everything so I was not infiltrating anybody’s space i also asked these people’s permission before filming them so also super regressive leftist communist whatever this person might be shouldn’t be staking a claim to anime you can like anime and vote for Trump you can like superheroes and be a Republican myself and many others would love to see better restrictions put in place by conventions of all types against people who were there to interview others in bad faith because lines of questioning like Ariel’s can not only just cause people genuine distress and discomfort but if it spreads to the wrong audience can actually put these cosplayers and individuals in danger we’re living in an increasingly conservative world and that is incredibly scary for many queer and minority groups it just takes one of these videos reaching the wrong people to put people who are in these groups in dangerous positions and my friends have even been the target of this kind of behavior as well with interviewers trying to pressurize them into doing interviews all to make them look silly and foolish for viewership i genuinely wonder when it comes to some of the guys who were doing this if they would attempt to do this or get a good reception if they weren’t actively trying to pick on people who were openly neurode divergent or people who were just women smaller than them like low-key pick on someone your own size so often these interviewers have no interest in gaining consent of the people they’re trying to interview and actually speaking of consent we need to have a talk if she breathes she’s a th It is no secret that a lot of media within anime and western pop culture is more adultoriented whether it’s the concerningly accepted big-chested schoolgirl archetype that you see in anime or the goona proportions of female superheroes in comic books pop culture has always been primarily rooted in its adult consumers and contributors cosplaying and conventions as we know it can be tracked back to people turning up in costumes to the world’s science fiction convention which then a few years later turned into Star Trek fans creating a space that encouraged and welcomed costume play aka cosplay the general simplicity of Star Trek costumes allowed a lot of people who didn’t necessarily have a lot of technical skills to still get involved in making costumes or adjusting clothes that they already had also I’m going to say this right now I have always been a long-term Star Trek fan i grew up on it and personally my favorite series is Voyager because we love Jane Way but these spaces were never made to be for kids or involving of children most often it was just groups of friends couples or single adults coming together to mingle and share their hobby and because of the media that inspired cosplay and dedicated conventions for pop culture a lot of the costumes could be at times more adult and risque slave Layer from Star Wars used to be an incredibly popular costume that would be in regular rotation in these spaces but of course if you’re familiar with the outfit you know that it is rather revealing by intention and Slave Layer’s costume has nothing on more recent anime and pop culture designs series like Kill the Kill High School of the Dead and even some characters from mainstream shownen shows like Demon Slayer however something that we should all know by now is that clothing is not equal to consent playing a character or wearing a costume is not equal to a proposition but unfortunately within cosplay spaces it’s still far too common for nearly every convention to come away with a story about an inappropriate photographer or cono behaving badly towards women so I’m going to make a little bit of a video just chatting about something that has happened at Megaon there has been a photographer who was making a lot of cosplayers including myself feel uncomfortable at that con a cosplayer called Von Karmic has started talking about it on Instagram and has been sharing a load of information and I just wanted to join in and make some awareness for it on here there has been a guy who’s a photographer going to a lot of conventions taking inappropriate um pictures of cosplayers this is the guy and this was him yesterday and I can confirm it’s the same guy who took photos of me so my experience was I walked in with my friends and there was four of us and we were just looking around the stores and he came over to me and singled me out of all my friends and says can I take some pictures which is very normal at a convention and I was like yep sure fine whatever so I went over and did a couple of poses as my character would and he took so many and it must have took about eight minutes and this this was when I was starting going “Okay this is like weird.” Cuz usually you get two to three photos and then you move on and he started like telling me what poses to do which I hate being told what to do by a man anyway and at first I was like “Okay yep that’s him character.” Um blah blah blah blah blah then he was like instructing me to show show my character’s shoes off and telling me how to cross my legs in a photo none of it was sexual or like there was nothing like that but I was just like I want to go back to my friends his English wasn’t very good so when he was telling me suggestions of how to move I was just like obviously he’s just trying to have a vision like you know photographers are artists and he wants to have it look a specific way maybe he knows the character better than I do with posing so I followed the lead and then he went to touch my leg to move it into a position and I was like “Please don’t touch me.” And then I kind of got sick of it and I was like “No I’m done i’m going to go back to my friend.” And that was kind of it i didn’t have any like photos of me that he kind of zoomed in on that I know of and I really hope not cuz that makes me feel sick but there are efforts to try and get this man banned from conventions which I strongly am in support of it’s made me feel disgusted in my own black cat cosplay and I’m actually selling it and getting rid of it cuz I never want to wear it again which is a shame but it’s my personal choice like that cosplay has been tainted now that I kind of sit back and know what happened and I don’t know what those pictures are going to be used for just as an FYI for people who go to conventions this behavior is not okay and should not be tolerated i’m kind of sat here kicking myself that I didn’t kick up more of a fuss about it because I’m not okay with what happened to myself or other people if anyone else had that experience please say something a common story that you may have heard or have even been unlucky enough to encounter yourself is that of cosplay toss behaving creepily this behavior often perpetrated by men who target women in more revealing costumes asking if they can take professional photos but instead focus their camera lens on their chest and their private areas however some creeps aren’t even this polite because I’ve heard stories and at times even seen receipts floating around Instagram of cosplay photographers or just people walking around with professional cameras using their phone or even a small action camera and taping it to their shoe in order to upskirt cosplayers i have unfortunately seen this happen a couple times within the UK Convention Circuit but thankfully due to social media the name of the person that has done it and the account they usually use does get rotated around quite quickly hell when I was a young teenager around 13 or 14 I was attending London MCM with two of my friends i was wearing a completely innocuous made Meiku cosplay that I’d bought from eBay and the thing went down to my knees but even if it didn’t I was a child and I was just wearing a costume we walked around the convention center for a good long while but at some point during the day a guy in his 30s maybe older or younger depending on how badly he aged not only approached me but he approached me from behind completely by surprise and cuped my chest in his hands and this man that I didn’t know still holding my chest stood there for 3 minutes having a conversation with me and my friends all of us were stood there completely in shock not knowing what to do where to go who to tell i remember my friend suggesting once the guy had gone away that we should call the police which absolutely is the right thing to do but I was so young and unprepared not knowing that this was just a thing that could happen that I didn’t want to risk the convention coming to an end or being told off and so I just said “Let’s leave it.” Realistically we should have reported it that is the smart sensible thing to do but I was a kid and I didn’t realize that these kind of things could happen and what to do if they did for as far as I knew I was in a space that was safe with other people who enjoyed the hobbies that I did and weirdly enough a small part of me was scared that if I told my parents I wouldn’t be allowed to go to a convention again or I wouldn’t be allowed to stay at the convention if I told the police yeah it’s really dumb but that’s how kids think they don’t necessarily think of what they should do they just think about the consequences for them this behavior isn’t as rare as we’d love to pretend it is and for whatever reason more than 10 years later from my own incident of having this happen the issue still persists with very little done to actually stop it happening i personally feel like a good way of tackling this would be having multiple booths dotted around the convention with trained convention staff always manning the table designed specifically for con attendees to comfortably report incidents of bad behavior or creeps because even now I couldn’t really point to where you’re meant to go if you have a major problem or you’ve encountered somebody who’s caused you harm especially as most of the time the only people that are easy to spot are convention security but very often these security are actually hired on by a third party they are not part of the convention staff themselves and so they’re kind of notorious for not being the most patient or kind listening ear when it comes to an emergency or dealing with a bad issue and I also feel like this lack of intervention or better protection of all ages attendees by conventions has inadvertently allowed puritanical misinformation to spread amongst newer gen and younger cosplayers those who have to deal with creeps with very little support and assume that this is a new issue that is mostly caused by the rise of cosplay oaf creators there are a lot of videos circulating around mostly made by teenagers claiming that OFA and eth cosplayers are the reason that they get harassed by creeps when they’re trying to enjoy a hobby saying that cosplaying is primarily for kids and that these spaces online and IRL should be kept far away from anything that you wouldn’t want children to see these OF women because let’s be real this argument is nearly only ever forced on women are enabling this idea that if you post online wearing cosplay that you must automatically be engaging in adult lines of work or media and I won’t lie it’s easy to empathize with these young people with these kids especially as I was a teenage girl who experienced physical essay over wearing a fully coveraged Meiku cosplay but the thing is cosplay is not consent women who go clubbing in itty bitty booty shorts and a cute crop top are not the reason why men think it’s okay to spike your drink adult women doing certain lines of work consensually for pay doesn’t mean that they’re suddenly soulless drones with no real passion for the hobby and are somehow inciting men to harass non-consenting cosplayers online now to very quickly state the obvious because a couple people will probably be already typing something here but yeah it’s common sense to not cosplay a child character when it comes to doing adult content nor should you be using all ages public events or spaces when it comes to filming certain content to promote adult lines of work you can do it in your hotel room whilst attending a convention for fun but don’t do it on the con floor but this narrative of blaming hot cosplayers who also happen to be adult workers for being the reason as to why men feel it’s okay to harm women is entirely missing the point and setting the community backwards i hate hot girl cosplayers why do they have to make everything sexual i’ve been seeing a lot of people online especially in fandom spaces making these big bold claims and opinions about eth thoughts and girls and uh not safe for work cosplayers and rather than engage in an argument with those people I would like to put something into perspective we are in a global economic crisis us budget cuts have caused thousands and thousands of Americans to lose their jobs just at a federal level non-federal companies are having to do mass layoffs as the domino effects of these tariffs affect their margins and therefore affect their labor percentile families are struggling to afford food as these tariffs and inflation are passed on to the consumer meanwhile some places are seeing empty shelves and product shortages as we struggle to get goods into the United States and during all this employees are being replaced by robots and unable to find other work people can’t find jobs all of this meanwhile the federal government is actively trying to make cuts to social security and welfare and programs needed to keep people from starving and yet some of you feel the need to get behind the camera and claim it’s anti-feminist if you’re that girls are ruining the cosplay community while lip-syncing to an audio from a draft you would have probably thrown away wearing a cosplay mass manufactured and imported prior to the tariffs the fact that some of you people will see someone go hungry and roll your eyes because you don’t like how they’re putting food on the table while claiming you just can’t watch the news because it’s just too hard for you if that is what you’re choosing to make videos about right now you must live a very privileged life bombs are literally dropping and this is what you’re choosing to make your battle look around and grow up i do believe that conventions should be safe for everyone but that doesn’t mean that they are a kids play place obviously most people don’t read the terms and conditions when buying a ticket to a convention but if you actually go and check most conventions have very clear rules about unsupervised minors for London MCM they state this any visitor to MCM Comic-Con under the age of 13 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian and the organizer recommends that any visitor under the age of 18 is accompanied by a parent or guardian visitors with children will be responsible for their children and will be asked to put their mobile number on a wristband to be worn by the child conventions are inherently adult spaces both with the sponsors that they accept and the merchandise that they allow to be sold in the con hall there should absolutely be safeguarding in place and as I said before there are improvements to be made in a many number of ways but I think allowing this narrative that good-looking female cosplayers that just happen to be showing skin are the root of all evil is once again allowing predators to not be held accountable for their own actions o didn’t exist when me and many other long-term coners and cosplayers had our first experiences with con creeps back then all we had were booth babes who just like modern OAF content creators received a lot of misdirected hatred from other women and from other cosplayers on the subject of booth babes honestly I don’t see a problem with booabes at all especially at places like E3 at a Comic-Con when you hire models to wear a costume they’re doing exactly what they’re supposed to do they’re drawing people into your booth they’re talking about uh they usually have to memorize a lot of literature about what they’re talking or what they’re representing or what they’re going to be talking about um and I don’t know if that I would call those people cosplayers i would call them models but whether or not they should be banned from a convention i just I don’t see it i can understand having guidelines for what can and can’t be shown absolutely um there are always guidelines for cosplayers as well and sometimes cosplayers get caught out on those and that’s really on the cosplayer you should always know the uh guidelines for the convention you’re attending but just to have somebody as a model dress up in a a costume and to call that unfair or not cool or that it’s a banable offense is very silly to me i haven’t actually seen any this time um I see them sometimes but I think you know as long as they’re having fun it shouldn’t really matter i think it’s cool actually it’s more makes you want to interact with the booth more kind of gets more attention than any other ones would so I I like it i think it’s a good idea not sure i mean I guess some of them I mean it could be their job or um be hired to do that so I think if they’re having fun I don’t think they’re doing much harm if I was going to go forward to a booth about a game and if they were standing a half naked girl there I it would give me the wrong impression directly and uh it would also not attract all customers i mean not all customers want to engage in that thing i don’t know if I really have an opinion everyone likes to see attractive girls but I think the only difficulty is that their only booth babes are girls you never see like a a fit lad with his top off or whatever so if they made it a bit equal and it was a less kind of sexist thing that people might or people might see it as sexist then maybe it would be a bit more acceptable but it’s not something that bothered me personally the cons and community need to do a better job of holding perpetrators responsible for their individual actions rather than once again blaming a costume or occupation for how somebody else chooses to treat you as soon as we go down this route of naming and shaming women for their job we are allowing space to be made for other puritanical and restrictive viewpoints to take hold blaming women for the way that men have historically always treated women is the opposite of what cosplay is not consent is there for you’re not protecting anyone by taking away pressure and visibility off the actual problem please blame predators and perpetrators rather than other women rather than each other but if you don’t believe me and you want an extra perspective then here’s my friend Hack who is a fantastic cosplayer and content creator over on Tik Tok they have been in this hobby way longer than me and honestly they are a fantastic source of information when it comes to everything cosplay addie asked me to keep this 3 to 5 minutes and I could go on for ages about sexy cosplay because sexy cosplay has always been a part of the cosplay community cosplay did start in 1939 and within a few years there were already very very hot women doing hot women things at conventions now things were a little bit different back then and people were reading books sci-fi books and creating characters based off of that so many times they would show up to cons and their own interpretations of these characters that did not have official designs and people were very creative so creative in fact that cons started having to put rules in their dress code saying no costume is not a costume because people would show up showing up this is not new in our community i have been cosplaying for 21 years and even when I was a teenager there were cosplayers who were doing sexy cosplay it has been a part of our community for a long time now the conversation has kind of shifted because within the first 5 or 10 years of my cosplay journey people were saying that cosplayers that showed skin or were hot were going to conventions and they weren’t real fans and they were just looking for male attention and they were trying to trick the men into I don’t know um but now it has kind of shifted to sexy cosplayers being immoral or corrupt and trying to corrupt the youth uh which kind of is aligned with a lot of American politics right now which is saying that anything that is freeing or liberal is somehow harming children at the end of the day cosplay is transformative cosplay is seeking confidence cosplay is exploring ourselves in the form of being a character and those characters are often drawn or created in a specific way because specific things sell very very well i also want to acknowledge that the cosplayers that started the cosplay is not consent movement which is a movement to try to control harassment and assault at conventions was started by the same sexy cosplayers who are being attacked now for being immoral and corrupt but you can go to any festival any music festival any food festival any beach any water park and see the same things that you’re going to see at a convention this is not new it is a part of our history it is a part of our culture and it’s a very important part of our culture and trying to demonize these women for simply existing is kind of the wrong way to go about this no matter your opinions on sexy cosplay it’s going to happen because humans like to feel attractive humans like to feel hot it has been a part of our community pretty much since day one and it’s actually gotten a lot better than it was in the 60s and 70s cell now I attended London MCM a couple of weeks ago and before even setting foot on the convention center soil there was already drama around the use and allowance of AI art something which I’ve actively discussed my disdain for in one of my earliest YouTube videos so the post that kicked off this AI controversy for MCM was them allowing a company called Toune Together to table at the convention this company for anyone wondering if you couldn’t already tell is an AI app that allows mobile users to create their own comic strips and comic characters something which should immediately raise alarm bells considering that comic books and anime are handdrawn labors of love the absolute audacity of allowing soulless AI slop to be in the same proximity as real artists trying to sell their art is an undeniable problem that MCM very quickly realized and of course paying attendees were very quick to pipe up in the post comment section stating their disappointment in an AI company being allowed to table at MCM whilst many artists can’t afford or onoffer spaces to actually attend the event in response MCM very quickly deleted this post with no public addressing of this situation instead moving on to continue to promote their paid autograph and meet and greet guests however people were still incredibly bothered by the lack of communication from MCM as to whether or not this company was still going to be at the convention flooding the David Tenant announcement post with more disappointment about the AI and asking MCM to hold their hands up and explain the situation now thankfully Ton did not end up tableabling at the event assumably they were refunded the cost of their space and just kind of quietly exited the situation however they aren’t the first or last instance of AI being used at anime conventions as a general after an outpour of anger from the cosplay and anime community Anime Expo just deleted this tweet that used an AI image to promote a panel but I’m afraid that we might have done more harm than good anime Expo is a midyear anime convention in the United States the post showcasing panel at this year’s convention but many people were quick to notice more than a few weird things including disjointed fingers oddly proportioned eyes and hands that look like jello globs all trademarks of the use of generative AI and it’s one thing coming from individuals looking to make a quick buck such as the influx of AI vendors who have started to crowd out regular artist alley creators under the disingenuous guise of handpainted crafts but from AX itself the US’s largest celebration of human artistry and creativity our proverbial mecca for the finest animators mangakas voice actors and producers that the industry has to offer you can see how Anime Expo’s apparent refusal to use an authentic image by a human artist which they undoubtedly had the money for feels like an insult a betrayal from those who were supposed to be your greatest advocates the community made their opinion known and eventually got the post removed feels like a victory for the anime community right here’s why I’m concerned spja the organization that puts on Anime Expo does not have a full-time social person on staff which means that the person monitoring the Twitter account is either a freelancer or as is the case with many conventions a volunteer and judging from the lack of artistic unity in the ads used by AX it’s very likely that the socialist person is not the one creating the assets for the timeline the socialist person is just doing what they’re told but as is often the case the volunteers are the ones most exposed to the outrage shielding the shot calling executives in charge of SPGAA from the consequences of their own decisions that’s not fair to anyone involved it’s good to take these organizations to task for the lapses of judgment after all no one on staff noticed or bothered to flag the use of generative AI they messed up big time and did wrong by the community and they need to do better we need to hold them accountable but we need to do so responsibly so we don’t hurt the wrong people which unfortunately we have done before so next time instead of posting on Twitter and bouncing your comments against the proverbial shield of social media consider contacting the decision makers directly they’re a nonprofit organization and the information is out there if you know where to look again it’s good to advocate for the artists in our community and it’s good to hold conventions accountable but wrongly directed our passion can hurt the wrong people so we need to hold our own responsible too let’s keep our space one where artistic human creativity can flourish i love Megaon as a convention a lot i know firsthand how wonderful and kind both the organizers and con staff really are so I do want to reiterate that my criticism of AI is not directed towards the staff or anyone in particular however even my beloved Megacon has used AI generated photo sets on multiple occasions within its venue these uncanny valley scenes have made at least three separate appearances at multiple different conventions and don’t get me wrong I like the idea of having a dedicated space for cosplayers to take good quality photos and I understand past a point that it is cost-effective to reuse assets that you already have but personally I and I’m sure many other people would love to see these photo sets refreshed by working with community artists or hell even just using nonIgenerated commercial stock imagery i don’t really feel good taking photos in cosplays that took me and my friend money and time to put together in front of a blownup image that took a machine seconds to sloppily put together and if cons just using AI is bad then cons allowing undisclosed AI products to be sold is far worse because unfortunately it is painfully common to stumble across AI generated artwork in all corners of a convention hall something which also often goes handinhand with that same seller also selling unlicensed and bootleg goods now uh I have to start this off with a small disclaimer because I am going to be naming a couple of companies in this segment specific to the convention that I attended so yeah just a little disclaimer me discussing these brands is not me encouraging any harassment to any individual or business any statements made are opinion based off of my personal experience publicly available information or the experiences of others my experiences and feelings are opinions and not to be taken as fact and my criticisms of any named business are to be taken with a grain of salt i am just here to try and discourage the sale of bootleg products unlicensed goods and stolen art through lack of transparency with customers so again please just don’t cause anyone any problems don’t go harass these businesses if you don’t like what they’re doing just vote with your feet and vote with your wallet and just don’t give them any of your time and attention now back to the regular flow of the video bootlegs and drop shipping has unfortunately always held space at anime conventions however post 2020 there has been a notable increase in fake goods and overpriced crap vendors who’ve been attending headlining UK cons for years have started selling AliExpress bootleg enamel pins and potentially AI artwork because low key as a longtime figure collector who remembers the flicker era of Nroid photography some of the designs I saw at Comic-Con look to be incorporating official product photography or even fan imagery cat is an omo cat art that’s a big deal amori and over there they have like the they have it similar in some kind of stolen [Music] stolen stolen these prints could potentially either be traced or even just photo bashing now of course tracing is its own set of ethical problems and moral discourse whilst photo bashing is a more commonly accepted way of creating images with existing imagery however in the case of these images I was able to find evidence of these prints being available as far back as 2018 discovered through Google Lens on a blog post from backtothemov.com so in reality the likelihood of these prints being AI is very very low just because of the timing however that doesn’t erase the fact that this same stall was selling bootleg pins of Omocat’s original artwork as well as other uncredited ripoffs moving through the convention I saw a bunch of fashion stalls reselling AliExpress items at a massively overinflated cost items featuring well-known stolen artwork that can be purchased for a fraction of the cost when searched up on AliExpress one of these more well-known UK stands is called Dame Ningan a London-based J fashion retailer that has become notorious for attending anime conventions and claiming that the clothes that they sell are their own designs whilst in reality they are at best white labeling which is a process where you buy pre-made stock or wholesale stock and you just have your own label put into it for example on their website you can find an item under the name Bunny String Backpack this item is priced at £32 and has no information or product specs at all in its description just the product name and the cost and the photography used on this sales listing is kind of inconsistent with the rest of the photography featured on their website a quick Google reverse image search pulls up that this bag is actually originally made by the brand SOS Meme Club an item which on the reliable Subculture Tokyo website is priced at £53 and obviously I’m willing to admit that there is a chance that this could be the real item but considering that they haven’t mentioned the brand or any product specifications that are listed on other websites as well as the big price discrepancy between their listing and others this to me screams that they were actually selling a replica of the real product once again not disclosing that this is not in fact the real item but are also not naming the actual brand that the item is from something which you probably would want and have to do if you were stocking said item in fact going through a small sample of their online products I found that many of them were listed on publicly available shopping platform AliExpress often for a fraction of the price that Dame Ningan is selling them for not to mention that because they’re a business they likely buy in bulk or wholesale meaning the cost that they are paying per product is going to be lower than what I am able to buy in singles as a consumer okay editing Addie here on a microphone that thoroughly needs an upgrade but I also wanted to clarify something because I feel like I wasn’t clear enough here but reselling Tao items isn’t necessarily a problem like there are plenty of valid really good quality Tao brands and quite often they are more affordable but the same quality than a lot more of the popular well publicized ones i also want to really clarify before anybody feels the need to explain it in the comments but AliExpress is also not inherently a bad platform i use AliExpress to find authentic items or to buy Tao items sometimes because it’s more accessible than buying from Tao most of the time and it is a selling platform it isn’t a brand like Sheen or Romwe which is a dedicated brand aliexpress is a selling platform so you’ll get legitimate items like PopMart Dokyoki Cars but you’ll also get a lot of bootlegs and they don’t have any kind of regulation system in place kind of like eBay where you can sell fake designer merchandise it’s really on the kind of honor system to not do that and relying on customers who can clock something’s fake to report fakes i also feel like I need to say this because I’d feel like an absolute monster if I didn’t but when I was filming some of the footage at Comic-Con some of the staff who were working on the store came over and were so kind and so lovely and so my criticism of the stand the products that they’re selling and also the clarity that they give on whether or not the items that they’re selling are legit or branded because again they have Dear My Love items on their website but they don’t mark them as Dear My Love there’s a good reason though because they don’t have the exclusivity for it i know who does but the people working on their stand were lovely like the the the people who were volunteering the younger people who came over and chattered to me were lovely i really want to stress like like they were really really great i am not dogging on anyone who’s volunteering with them anyone who has had a positive experience with them that’s not why I’m doing this i think it’s more just for general awareness and I’ll explain a little bit more in a second and not to dog on this company too much but I kind of feel like it needs to be mentioned but one of my friends actually got kind of exploited and kind of treated badly by this particular company when it was attending London MCM a couple of years ago my friend who had worked as a volunteer member of staff for that convention ended up having to spend months upon months chasing up money that they were owed for the work that they had given the stand with the owner at multiple points lying about the payment being processed or the payment due to go out on a certain day never to end up hitting my friend’s bank account i’ve also heard this same story from another J fashion lover who DM’d me over on Instagram claiming that they are also still owed money from Dame Ningan for work that they had done at a convention but this time to the tune of over £500 as well as claims from this person that they’d also experienced behavior that made them feel uncomfortable now again as a necessary disclaimer what you’re about to hear and the stories you’re about to hear are not my own and so you’re hearing them from a firsterson personal perspective from other people me platforming these voices is not here to cause any kind of harassment it’s not here to incite any kind of hatred but it is here to allow these people to say their peace in regards to experiences that they personally encountered so this was back in October 2023 when I originally called them and they were just asking me some questions about my prior experience it already sounded a little bit unorganized he was just already kind of very snappish and I said I’d be happy to do Friday and Saturday got the job or whatever but um at the time he had said okay so the pay is um blah blah blah which is was less than the current minimum wage at the time but he said you know you can get a free outfit when you work at the store and I thought okay you know that’s fair enough i actually had to go on the Thursday to help them set up which I didn’t think was going to be a whole day but turned out to be quite big ordeal um there was a lot of heavy lifting putting the clothes up and it was just me and a bunch maybe like four other girls who were just doing it while I don’t know what the guy and his other male friend were doing but they were not really helping do any of the big heavy lifting and then when Friday came along basically the whole day was just standing up serving customers from 10:00 a.m till 6:00 p.m with no breaks we had um enough people in the store working that we could have definitely you know had a rotor of breaks but they just didn’t even seem to think that was something that they needed to do um I was also I was promised free lunch they said you know we’re going to buy lunch for everyone while you’re working at the store and I at the time was a vegan i told them you know I’m not fussy it doesn’t have to be a full vegan meal even if it’s just vegetarian you know just whatever they could get it didn’t have to be a full meal just a snack it would be okay you know they didn’t even take that into consideration and came back with fried octopus so I was just sort of stood there while the other girls who were eating the takoyaki while working standing up eating their lunch while serving customers they couldn’t even go and sit down for a little bit just to eat their food and I was at this point I was like “Right I’m going and I’m getting my own lunch.” I was like “I’m not going back i’m sitting and eating this and then I’m going to go back.” And then I went back and the man who was running the store was shouting at me like “Where have you been we bought lunch why didn’t you just eat that lunch?” And I was like “Dude you know I can’t eat fish i told you this this grown man shouting at my face in front of all the people in our store and all my you know co-workers who were just kind of like obviously very taken aback at this um and I started crying and um I don’t cry super easily but when there’s this grown man shouting at my face you know I was just kind of like what the hell’s going on so I walked away from the stall and I then get a text from him saying you know if you’re not feeling well just go home i felt awful because you know I was working there and I don’t want to just leave my position and leave all these other girls who were also working really hard that was just the MCM experience never mind the pay or trying to get paid so this was in October and I did not get paid until the end of January 2024 so it took four months of me messaging them on Instagram constantly being ignored excuses such as losing my bank details oh I’ve been really busy bank takes a while to transfer money a bank does not take four months to transfer money they only paid me after I brought it up to my friends and to Addie who you know had some sort of influence and could actually interact them and approach them with you know a chance of maybe not being completely ignored and here is another statement about missing money that I was sent so I’m going to read it off to you and show you some of the materials I was sent along with the statement okay so I got in contact with Dame Ningan via Instagram because he made a post looking for people to work his stall at MCM Comic-Con i had just discovered the brand that week through his Camden store where he told me all his items were upcycled or handmade or secondhand from Japan and China he had a rack of Messo Piano and Angel Blue in the store so I was none the wiser and honestly quite excited to discover J Fashion store in London he got back to me and offered my friend and I to work all three days of MCM London in October 2024 as well as one full day setup i had to cover my own entry to the con but I was expecting payment of £8 an hour which we discussed on the phone and just as a little kind of editor’s note £8 an hour is under minimum wage I believe still at the time of this taking place i’ll double check and if I’m incorrect I’ll put it on screen or maybe just edit this out but I believe that £8 an hour is still under minimum wage it doesn’t matter what job you’re doing i specifically asked about this as I was unsure if this was voluntary from the Instagram ad but he said “I couldn’t ask anyone to work for free that’s practically slavery.” He promised me that we would have time to explore the con free clothes from the stall and payment 2 weeks after the convention during London MCM albeit stressful I had a few issues with the owner there was one day of the fall where I had overslept and showed up for general entry as opposed to priority which he was quite angry about but I apologized and explained I was exhausted from my long hours and my long commute during setup I asked him where all the mess piano stuff was and he explained he only sells to Tao stuff at cons as he doesn’t think people will appreciate the secondhand goods after the con he kept delaying our payments originally he’d promised two weeks which turned to the end of November then December he kept putting this fault to his accountant who I don’t actually believe exists nonetheless he promoted that he needed staff again for MCM Birmingham and I needed both the money and something different to do as a student I thought this would be an interesting opportunity and I was trying to make more friends and connections in J fashion at the time so I agreed to work this con with my friend who had worked for the owner at a previous convention another friend of mine was also in Birmingham for an award show so we agreed to split an Airbnb between the three of us when speaking to the owner I had asked if he could help pay towards our travel and Airbnb which he kept flipping back and forth on debating me as to what he thought he could afford i wasn’t against sharing an Airbnb with the owner for convenience thinking that other girls from last con would be doing the same but that wasn’t the case when I told him that we got our own Airbnb and travel arrangements he wasn’t too pleased saying that he’d already booked accommodation for us together i simply apologized but as the conversation developed I felt like I just wouldn’t have been comfortable to share with him we worked Thursday Friday and Saturday the work environment was way more tense and uncomfortable than London MCM this is because the owner was not making as much money as typical MCM Birmingham over London but he was also incredibly short-tempered and growing increasingly demanding about us pushing products and was angry when conversations with cono didn’t lead to a sale despite pushing us to be friendly with everyone previously we had expected to be working with several J fashion loving girls as we were for MCM London but it was just the two of us the owner and two of his male friends one of which made me feel super uncomfortable during my shifts he had a heart surgery previously and tried to convince me it was for drinking Monster he lifted his shirt up unprovoked whilst working to show it to me he also grabbed my shoulders and whispered to me several times over my shift which made me feel uncomfortable i noticed that the products he was selling this time seemed very random and when I asked him about it he said he rushed to order whatever in order to get it to the con on time he told me his products were from Tao and that he has another business drop shipping pet stuff anyway on Saturday we were 3 minutes late to our stall as we had been held up by security for not wearing our wristbands we were holding them shouted at us when we arrived and said we were completely disorganized and disrespectful to his business on the Saturday night it was my friend’s award show he was wearing a fur coat which was then stolen with his car keys inside i didn’t find out until he woke me up in the middle of the night coming back to the Airbnb and he’d spoken to the police and to the AA but neither came out until the morning we were essentially stranded in Birmingham because of this and we couldn’t afford the public transport available at the time when we had to get out of the Airbnb ASAP with nowhere to pack our overnight stuff we told them about what happened and explained it was unlikely that we could work that day to which he was incredibly angry and accused us of lying to date neither of us have been paid for our work i am owed around £600 which as you can imagine is very missed as a student with the current state of this country i’ve heard similar stories from other people who have worked for the owner in the past about not getting paid for their work despite the story I’ve explained here and my negative experience I think people should take care when purchasing from a brand like this as there doesn’t seem to be much care around the production of these items and sellers like this rely on impulse buying at conventions to make the most money out of people who don’t know any better i’m pretty sure all of these items can be found on Tao and obviously just from my own perspective as somebody who has worked multiple different businesses and on multiple different stands at Comic-Cons over the years I have done stool volunteering before yeah there’s a couple areas here which maybe better in communication could have been done from the person who is volunteering to the owner of this business i can imagine it can be frustrating when you’re waiting for staff to turn up and you’re not having any communication about it but equally that’s not an excuse to not pay your workers also some of the behavior here is very reminiscent of other stories that I’ve heard including the one for my friend and it seems to be a pattern of behavior that although there’s maybe mistakes being made by some of the people involved it’s very clearly on the owner to pay their workers and to make sure that their workers are being treated fairly it’s crazy to me that this business is regularly given prime spots at key anime conventions whilst my good friend and licensed retailer grumpy.com often gets shafted to the back of the convention where they get far less foot traffic despite being an authentic retailer and stockist for brands like Dear My Love AC/DC Rag and Galy she’s now having to reconsider spending money at MCM because of the cost of her terribly placed table impeding her ability to make sales and just making all the effort she puts into setting up at a convention not really worth it in the case of certain brands she’s actually meant to have pure exclusivity for UK sales but many of these other vendors just buy in bits and pieces of stock from places like Macari JP or even pick up stock when they go to visit places like Japan grumpy Bunny is often overlooked and unable to bring in the customers that her brand works so hard to officially stock for as a fashion lover first and foremost it was incredibly disheartening to watch new and naive J fashion enthusiasts walk over to some of these vendors who are just upselling some of the worst possible clothing that you can buy cheaper elsewhere not realizing that an authentic retailer for the same prices or less in some cases was hidden at the back of the hallway and actually speaking of lowquality items there’s an even bigger and more rampant issue than just upcharged polyester these being my biggest OP bootleg anime mystery bags i hate these bags with a burning passion they have been knocking around con for years siphoning money away from unaware parents and naive teenagers these shiny paper bags with stolen anime artwork plastered all over the front hold all the promise and mystery of your favorite show however peeking inside the bags it becomes blindly obvious that the real surprise that you’re going to be getting is disappointment most often inside these garish displays of inauthenticity you’ll receive AliExpress art prints which are usually stolen or just official artwork that looks super grainy acrylic standes from stolen artwork and maybe if you’re lucky a low rendered mouse pad or a rubber keychain for the average cost of £20 per bag you’re barely receiving a fifth of the price back not to mention the bootleg and unlicensed items have no resale value either what kid buys a big bag like this and feels satisfied with a couple of crappy art prints that are either stolen AI or just official artwork that they could print out on the computer at home hia hia i just wanted to ask like do you have an example of some of the stuff that comes in the bags like the mystery mini okay oh so stuff like that in the bag is it all authentic in the bags cuz I know that some of the like stores around here that do mystery bags are a little bit yeah well they’re supposed to but stand yeah I was about to say cuz like some of the mystery bags are a bit which is why I always like to check cuz I’m like I don’t That’s why we’re like this big right in the front door no I appreciate you letting me know cuz it makes a big difference like authentic mystery bags fair enough and not to mention that the people running these stands are often less than charming regularly having multiple stands actually dotted around the con run by the same people but operating under different names in order to maximize profit somehow once again skirting around the convention rules on unlicensed goods and bootlegs by having the ability to rebrand or pack up one stall but still gain money from all the other ones that they’re secretly operating one particular vendor who usually applies and vends under the alleged name of Borso actually got super aggressive towards me when I was in cosplay and filming some of the items that they had on their stand when the guy mentioned how great his mystery boxes were I jokingly questioned as to whether they were that great if they were probably going to be bootleg his response to me saying that was to very quickly start puffing up his chest and demanding that I no longer film his stand and that I delete the video that I had just filmed in front of him all despite there being no signs whatsoever regarding photography or filming on the stand he was completely fine with me doing it for the previous 5 minutes up until I clocked the fact that what he was selling was bootlegged and unofficial i of course refused to delete the footage and just walked off because I’m allowed to do that but it was clear to me that he felt emboldened to try and intimidate me to do what he wanted because I was a woman and he wasn’t and apparently this same man actually has a pattern of behavior when it comes to intimidating women that he disagrees with as I heard from a handful of other retailers that this man in particular on this particular stand has actually brought other women to tears because of his behavior and bullying attitude at other conventions so shout out to this guy and his merry band of bootleg bags also apparently this guy and his business regularly vend at Anime League events which should tell you everything you need to know if you’re in the UK and if you’re not in the UK just know that Anime League is extremely controversial and that you may be watching the segment and thinking that I’m being really harsh and you know what in all fairness you’d be right i usually try to avoid coming too strongly for any one individual or business especially because quite often some of the staff or people who are involved in it can be just naive to what is actually happening despite what some of my titles and thumbnails may have you believe I do actually try and keep my videos as balanced and as neutral as I possibly can but the thing is I’ve seen the same crap rebranded and redistributed for so many years and with the cost of MCM’s tickets going up to the point where a weekend ticket for one adult is £97 plus a2 pound service fee it’s crazy that big conventions are not doing the necessary stringent checks to make sure that the quality of the stands are reflective of the cost that they’re charging consumers cost of living is hitting people like a ton of bricks and for many these events are some of the only opportunities they get to go out and enjoy their hobbies outside of their 9-to-five work schedule people are turning up on stricter budgets because everything feels so inflated and so to have these unethical products take up space that could be given to good quality artists feels like a travesty people shouldn’t have to be super clued up to not end up going home with an overpriced AI poster that they bought from the artist alley people that are attending events should be able to go in good faith understanding that anything that they buy is going to be the quality of what they’re paying for i have so many friends that operate within artist alleys and do this as their full-time job and big conventions like MCM can be an incremental stream of income and visibility for their business these events can sometimes be make or break financially for the year as well as just providing important visibility to their social platforms and online shops and yet for some reason so many artists are struggling to actually get tables at these events now have conventions improved or really gone backwards in my opinion they seem to be somewhere at a standstill because they keep trying to improve i can see that but like they’re improving the wrong things and the costs are obviously going insanely high now i looked at the cost for a weekend and it is very very expensive when I first started the cost of one priority Saturday used to be the cost of 3 days it’s absolutely berserk that it no longer takes into consideration that the very fans they’re trying to attract might not have the capital to go to these conventions also makes it very interesting for the artists cuz let’s say that if these people do get in they will have way less money to spend and they will have to like budget it accordingly because they just spend like half their budget on a ticket and if they get a full weekend like what £100 it’s absolutely insane i really do believe that what’s going on is not really great for the consumer itself and also for the artists attending cuz ultimately this will affect us as well this bootleg merch half the time is overly priced and it’s kind of like a scam as taking advantage of the people i’m not really happy because sometimes if I let’s say I want to get a figurine I’ll have to be d uh double careful to make sure that um this does not happen that I don’t end up with a bad figurine for like the price of a real one my main concern with this issue is that like not everyone will be able to do that and other times it just feels like it’s taking advantage of a market that doesn’t quite know how to defend themselves against it also it takes place from real artists and real creators that really put a lot of effort into their work you know when they come with their it just comes with like their own designs which is really important if you let people with their own designs come cuz for them this is everything for the people that come and just take some stock off online and they just bring it in there because like oh it’s going to make money it’s not good it’s not good if we have them with artists it’s like a slap across the face and when they do get tables they’re not making enough money because there’s a stupid 3D printed dragon stool two places down seriously what is with all the 3D printed stim toys love and peace i love a stim toy like anyone else but this is getting crazy however to end this segment on a more positive note I’m going to show you some of the items that I got at MCM and some of the small artists and businesses that I chose to give my financial support to as well as a couple items I was actually very kindly gifted by businesses and small artists okay so one of the first items that I ended up buying at London MCM is this really cute handmade Gengar plush if you aren’t aware I’m actually quite a big fan of Pokémon i have a Pokémon tattoo i have a small corner of my room dedicated to the Pokémon fit plushies i I really love Pokémon i think they’re really really cute and one of my favorites is Gengar because of course it is i feel like Agirl TM always love Gengar so this particular Gengar plush was actually made by a brand or a small business I should say called Pam’s Happy Hats and Pam and her family were there tableabling and all of their plushies are handmade and are also really affordable which is really nice for kids families just casual fans of multiple different franchises when it comes to kind of budgeting at conventions i think this guy only cost me 12 quid and he’s super super cute and he’s really soft and cuddly we love Pam in this household big up Pam big up Pam and her happy hats now another small business that I once again supported and I featured in another video in my last video I think on Laboos uh is a little UK business called Void 6 and I already own a couple of their Peter Griffin kawaii charms and like little trinkety bits but I ended up buying this very over-the-top diamante jeweled up rosette of Peter Griffin in this little bunny girl outfit i I think this is so dumb and I love it so much a super cool item that I ended up being gifted is this Good Smile Racing Meiku car it’s actually a replica of their which year is it one of their official racing Meiku cars um but it’s like one specific year that it’s based off of i got to pick which one I wanted uh because Good Smile Racing offered to give me one they wanted me to take a couple of photos with the car that they brought to the convention and I very kindly got gifted this and I got the chance to talk to the person from Gizmar Racing and to the Gizmar team and I got given this and I’m very excited to put it in my collection now I ended up getting a couple different art prints from the artist alley but this one in particular is from one artist which is Snip Snip i love Snip Snip snip Snip is lovely they’ve gifted me lots of art before they’re very very generous and I actually have their art on my wall over there in frames because I like it so much so when I say that the art is good it’s really really good it’s already on my wall we have iconic green Yuri art print which I’m really excited to have um I was looking around the convention for more Yuri art prints and keychains and then the other one that I have is this Moka Magika print which again Moka Magika is one of my favorite anime series of all time i actually recently did a Hummer cosplay which I’m still waiting for the photographer to kind of give us the photos from but I’m really excited to see them uh so I ended up getting this art print as well from Snip Snip and once again super super cool i kind of love the minimalist but very bold designs that they do okay this is not all of them but I did buy a metric butt ton of the Chikawa Shaku Gun mini figurines because I think they’re only like $4.99 from Bandai so I ended up buying nearly the entire collection now I actually have footage from the stand that I got this from so I’m going to do my best to make sure that I can credit the artist on screen but I bought this K Angel acrylic keychain which again is super super cool i love it we love K Angel if you can’t tell I have a whole tattoo of her on my leg i also got this Rotten Girl Meiku keychain as well i just thought the design looks so so good and again low key the Yahi paddle uh here well not Yahi Sinner but basically a Yahi paddle uh I couldn’t resist so I also got this too i ended up getting one of the Cherry Blossom Sunny Angels from Blind Box Empire they very kindly put one aside for me to buy on Sunday and for anyone curious I did end up pulling the thorn who is a really really really cute one actually i think I got pretty lucky with this little guy i ended up winning these two Sylvanian family’s bears when I went gambling at the Sylvanian family stand i got another Chikawa magnet from Bandai once again and this one was a Mimonga one so I got a really good one i was very kindly gifted this absolutely gorgeous Perona art print from a wonderful artist who was walking around the convention dressed as Perona a lot of their artwork is inspired by stained glass and J fashion and honestly I know they wanted to gift me a Jedi K inspired one as well but we didn’t end up finding each other at the rest of the convention but I’ll put their handle on screen i believe you say Sin Art sin Art um but I might be pronouncing it wrong but this is a really gorgeous art print that I was very lucky enough to be gifted so big thank you to them i also got these two super cute Ammy Garumi uh little kind of plush keychains i’ve got one of Cinema Roll and one of K Angel as per usual there’s always a bunch of really lovely cosplayers going around and handing out sweets and stickers and keychains so I got a couple of those little baggies as well that I just managed to kind of accumulate whilst I was going around and I also got a really beautiful Yami Kauawaii sticker from it’s not Chiao illustrations I don’t think um but one of the kind of local con artists do a kind of big Yami Kawaii sticker and a follower came over to me and they’d written a really lovely note on the back of that sticker and I have that upstairs currently i’ve kept it safe um and I’m not going to read out the note because it’s kind of personal but a big thank you to them because it was really sweet of you to give that to me and I put it inside my EA bag for the day but I still have it it’s really really cute and I’m going to be using that sticker in my scrapbook and interestingly enough I was also gifted authentic mystery bags with actual licensed goods in the bags i was going over to the stand actually filming their poster talking about no AI no bootleg products and they approached me and they actually knew who I was and they ended up gifting me two of these bags just have which is incredibly sweet they didn’t have any expectations of like an unboxing or anything i I wanted to kind of show it off on camera to show what a good mystery bag should be like hopefully i imagine it’s good because look how chunky this is for Willuma i believe these bags were £30 but I’ll put the price on screen just in case I’m wrong too but yeah they gave me two of these a Sumiku Gurashi one and a Willuma one and I’m gonna quickly show you what’s inside as well because again if you’re gonna buy mystery bags at anime conventions check out Midnight Kauawaii because they actually do legitimate ones oh my god oh my god oh come Oh my god yeah this was one of the items in that mystery bag a giant oniiri will funnily enough I know this is going to sound like I’m glazing i’m not i’m being serious i’ve actually looked at this plush before and was really tempted to buy it i do love food themed items and I have a giant Willilakuma plush literally opposite me behind my camera okay the next item in the bag is two of these cute kind of mini plush storage keychains we’ve got one of Kurillakuma and Willilakuma oh my god there’s more there’s more in here um we’ve got a whole Willilakuma Tumblr but it’s also like a Sakura themed Tumblr which again I kind of feel like you get Sakura attacks with items because anything that’s cherry blossom themed low key goes up in value like people want it more because it’s pink and pastel a whole like coffee tumbler i have a whole ass Willa blanket again I actually was looking at these blankets ages ago on Deck Anime but Dekai Anime out of nowhere went into liquidation and so I never I don’t think I I think I ordered this blanket actually i think I requested it and I never got it because they they went into liquidation so um yeah I got the I got the blanket we have this cute Korilla Kuma keychain and again she’s like dressed up as a peach and you can kind of tell that’s what she’s meant to be because the label has this little peach on it and then finally we have this pen which again is super cute and low key pens like this always remind me of the cursed is it Usakuma usakuma from Baby the Star Shine Bright you know that bunny character that they have um who accidentally got put on a pen like this and they gave her a giant schle um it kind of always reminds me of that now okay so for anyone curious the premium mystery bag which is the Willakuma one i’m so sorry i did not realize I was picking a premium bag when I when they asked which one I wanted i just picked the thing I liked the most uh is £50 which again actually for what you get fair you get a blanket a big plush multiple plush keychains all authentic you could have probably paid about 45 realistically just for the plush alone at a convention maybe 35 if you’re lucky now I am actually the deceiver of souls because I have peaked in this already because my friend was insistent to see what was inside so I do know a little bit about what’s in here but this one which is the Sumiku Gurashi one is £35 okay so first up we have this Sumika Gurashi blanket and this to me kind of feels like it’s a cooling material which would make sense because the theme of the blanket is like ice cream next up we have this super cute shaved ice plushy once again brand new with tags all legitimate once again we have another entire like fullsized homeware item this time it is a strawberry inspired flask which to me again is really good value because I feel like anything strawberry themed anything that looks like this generally in the collector’s market okay so we have one slightly haunting looking sticker gatcher and then the other one is the little Kappa with a strawberry hat and I think that’s just his whole thing oh I was looking at him the wrong way okay it’s a polar bear um the stickers come out of the top of him i was looking at it this way and I was like man that is haunting yeah know he’s meant to look like this and the stickers come out the top rather than his bum we also have another super cute plush keychain this time it’s a little kind of kappa guy and he has got the takoyaki and again just super cute it’s a really nice little keychain we’ve got one heavy robust rubber keychain here which again is super super cute and like this guy is weighty and finally you also get an official terrarium rement from Sumika Gurashi and you got a bunch of really cute options on here oh my god i actually really love this little star one i love the little tree ooh ooh i like the little planet and just a reminder reints on their own usually go for like 12 to15 just as a single box so already that’s like a third of the value roughly just in this i I feel like these are really good value mystery bags and again they’re not full of AI they’re not full of bootleg materials and the people who are running the stand were genuinely really really lovely and now to our stunning conclusion for the video i feel like this video had to be overwhelmingly negative up to a point mostly to hammer home some of the new and long-term issues that have been plaguing anime conventions and the cosplay community it feels like there’s always a new cosplay drama or discourse that further fractures the community atmosphere that we look back so fondly on but the thing is it’s really easy to look back at cons of the past with nostalgia with rosetinted goggles we joke about missing the yowi paddle or glumping but in actuality I don’t actually think any of us really miss having a stranger that we don’t know jumping on us at an anime convention oh my goodness oh my goodness attending conventions and fandom spaces really did cement my love of figure collecting cosplay and fashion when I was a teenager and now in 2025 not only do I get to enjoy those things as my job but I also get to turn up to many number of conventions and I know I’ll always have a friendly face to hang out with or a table to take refuge behind and of course a bunch of new artists that I discover in the artist alley that I want to give my money to and cover my walls in for as much negativity as you will undoubtedly find on social media you’ll also see lots of laughter community and memories being made whether it is the milkman finishing off the convention on Sunday by baptizing an Inoske cosplayer or a sinners inspired dance circle breaking out on the green the community atmosphere still actively welcomes everyone in 2025 you’ll see lots of amazing black cosplayers reclaiming the space that they deserve to have you’ll see J fashion lovers and enthusiasts congregate and take super cute photos to put on the gram and of course waves of friendly fursuitters who I have yet to ever have a bad interaction with despite all of my gripes and groans and complaints this MCM was really fun i had a great time i just want it to be even better even safer and most importantly value the artist and attendees that built the community that that con can thrive on i love that more people want to immerse themselves within fandoms in good faith so please do go and support your local or your large anime conventions but also feel the agency to vote with your feet and your wallet and make your voices heard but let me know in the comments down below what do you think about the current state of the cosplay community anime conventions have you had positive experiences negative experiences are you tired of the drama are you tired of the discourse what do you think of it when did you get into cosplay please share all of your thoughts experiences your rants your ravings down in the comments below i hope this video was fun and entertaining as well as informative for people who may be newer but also reaffirmative for people who may be older too and I also want to say a big thank you to everyone who came over to me at Comic-Con and was super respectful and kind and patient and polite i did have to say no to a couple of photos here and there because I was running off somewhere or I was doing something so if I did say no to you just know that I appreciate that you took it in good faith and hopefully you can meet me at another convention in future and I also want to say a big thank you to my first ever Patreon who is also in the top tier Patreon subscribers and that is Fable from Tokyo big up Fable from Tokyo you’re the only one who gets a shout out so far i unexpectedly got two more Patreon members and obviously I’m incredibly grateful but I’m so sorry that I wasn’t able to shout you out on camera like I said I’ve been in the edit for this video for a very long time it’s taken a really long time to do this video it’s an hour and a half it is my longest video by a long mile and so just to make sure that I can shout you out I’m doing it this way this time but obviously next time it will be like in person but a big thank you to Nina Hopkins for pledging to my Patreon and a big thank you to XLace_heartX or Lace Heart as I’ll probably refer you again thank you so so much for pledging to my Patreon and for supporting what I do i actually didn’t announce that I have a Patreon because I haven’t actually got all the behindthe-scenes content that I was hoping to put up there before announcing it like properly within a video but I forgot to take out the link from my description because I’ve kind of just soft launched it in the description for now um and I totally forgot to do it but Fable from Tokyo ended up finding it and has already pledged to the Oshi tier because I tried to name the tiers after like fandom in Japan i just thought it was kind of cute and fun um because I’ve talked about Oshi Katsu and otaku so much it kind of just felt fitting which if you do want to have a out loud shout out is the tier for that i have limited it because I don’t want to have too many people wanting that one maybe and then feeling like I I don’t get to adequately cover it properly but yeah I am actually working on behind the scenes content and exclusive videos only for Patreon members which might include the room tour just because actually it’s going to take a long time to film everything and I kind of feel like going in depth and everything would just be better over on Patreon but if you are somebody who cannot afford any kind of Patreon pledge then please do not feel guilty do not feel worried because I will still be uploading all of my regular content onto here onto Tik Tok onto Instagram entirely for free so if you want to support me for free just comment on my videos share them save them and give them a like and of course as always make sure to hit the subscribe button and the bell icon beside it to never miss an upload and follow my Instagram and Tik Tok for new video announcements as well as daily uploads now it is time for the end of the video outfit check finally and some of your amazing fan art bye hello hello it is time for the end of the video outfit check as per usual starting off on my head with a familiar item that if you watch me you’ve probably seen before but we love outfit repeating and accessory repeating so that’s not a bad thing but we have the AC/DC rag headband which I love it’s probably my favorite out of all the headbands I have which is bad because I do have a couple and I never rotate them out but I’m a creature of habit and this just works too well and then honestly the rest of this outfit is brand new which explains why the skirt and the frills on this are really crumpled and creased i literally got it in the post today and I was so excited that I didn’t even bother washing it beforehand which you’re meant to do and I certainly didn’t steam it or iron it so apologies for that because it isn’t meant to be this crinkled and creased but this is the blouse and skirt set from Virtual Paradise which is a Tao brand as always thank you for all the love and support on my videos thank you for all the gorgeous fan art that I’m showing to the side and I hope you’ve enjoyed and check out my other videos until next time bye
今日、私たちはアニメコンベンションのニューエイジとコスプレコミュニティに深く掘り下げています。これらのイベントやファンダムが直面するすべての変更、および2020年以降に物事が悪化したかどうかを見る。 💙https://www.patreon.com/c/addyharajuku https://www.twitch.tv/addyharajuku_バックグラウンド＆pngtuberアートKonohart（Ig＆Tiktok）機器によって作成されました。
MAG.MOE - The MAG, The MOE.