/cgl/ - Cosplay & EGL

https://youtu.be/fZmRw9o63RM

I was just thinking yesterday, looking at old anime magazines, how much more wholesome cons were a decade or two ago even though they were also creepy and cringe. Back when cosplayers were mostly out of shape/looked like total spergs and not at all like their character, and the wigs were terrible nylon bushes, and the clothes were shoddily made using all the wrong and cheapest fabrics. I think that, to be a cosplayer back then, you HAD to be a huge fucking nerd who loved an obscure series so much that you didn't care about your lack of looks or skill. If you were good looking and/or a skilled craftsperson, you were a gift from god, but even then you either A) didn't take yourself too seriously and saw it as a fun Halloween-y costume, or B) were not self aware at all but damn do you love that series too much to not dress up.

And you have to consider how much harder it is the get your hands on anime the further back in time you go, between shitty internet speeds and lack of networks, or full on having to trade tapes and DVDs once a year at a con. So to even become a fan of a series, you already had to be in a niche club. THEN in order to make your costume, you might have to scroll through your video frame by frame to figure out the design. That already is a level of spergery that used to be concerning.

The very idea of a stinky room full of the absolute "worst of the worst" of nerds somehow turning into a popularity contest is fucked up. All those hot, popular, vapid people somehow coming around to your nerdy hobby once it's acceptable enough to make money off of. You were happy with your point-n-shoot flash shot with the ugly con carpet, but now it's full professional photoshoots with lighting and touch ups.
I mean, I literally saw a professional cosplayer have a breakdown on Instagram the other day because her costume didn't look good enough.

We didn't know what we had back then. Those terrible cosplays were the soul of the scene.