Meet the Cosplayers of Instagram
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For those of you who aren't familiar with cosplay, it's an amalgamation of the words 'costume' and 'play'. Cosplay originated in Japan and unsurprisingly cosplay does tend to still be focused on characters from anime, manga and video games, but it has also widened to include western book, cartoon, movie and comic characters. Cosplay tends to be something people do for events and conventions, where they have the chance to dress up and enter competitions for either just their costume or doing skits, but some people just enjoy posing for or taking photos.
Instagram is a site where it doesn't matter as much whether you made the costume yourself or bought it. It doesn't even really matter if your photos are carefully shot or if they're just selfies of you in costume. For many people in the cosplay world, professionalism is key and this does mean mostly making your costumes, carefully planning out what conventions you're going to and if you know someone who's good with photography, getting a good photoshoot done.
Cosplay is just another creative form where you can share your love for something with the world. Sadly, it's the sharing that you tend to find problems with. Cosplay is thought to be perverted by some; these people wrongly think that it's just women dressing up in revealing costumes to be ogled at by male fans. I'd like to think that with Instagram, this is being proven wrong because it's opening up a world of cosplay to people who might not necessarily attend conventions, to people who felt awkward sharing their costumes as they brought them or even to people who just felt like popping on a wig one day and shooting in street clothes as a character. All of this and more should be welcomed plus Instagram allows people to share their works in progress so people can see the hard work they put into these costumes.
Interestingly enough Instagram isn't the most popular online forum to share cosplay photos. Plenty of people do but when speaking to the people I know who cosplay I found out none of them used Instagram personally. Even the most popular of those cosplayers mostly uses Facebook to share their pictures. So why choose to use Instagram? Other than the fact it's mobile and easy if you're at a con or are planning something not posed, it is a photography and video website.
Your cosplay pics can be mixed in with your general selfies, pictures of your pets or whatever else so your fans actually know you and this could make the social aspect of cosplaying easier. It's always fun to meet people with similar interests online and cosplay posts or photos of merchandise hauls from conventions are a good way to find out someone who is also into the game you like or that couple you ship.
To me, even as someone who doesn't participate, cosplay is important. It can help give people confidence, could help some people get discovered as designers, models or photographers and it adds a social aspect to something that is creative and could otherwise be lonely. Instagram has allowed cosplayers to share what they can do and find other people that do it similarly to both follow and message them. And the outcomes of those friendships could turn into something completely jaw dropping and amazing.
Rosina is a Songbird rookie with a degree in Creative Writing. She's trying to focus on her novel on the side but is hoping that Content Writing will turn out to be a good career choice in the mean time! Follow her @RosinaAtSMF
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Meet the Cosplayers of Instagram
Reviewed by Unknown
on
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Rating:
Reviewed by Unknown
on
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Rating:
Unknown
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