Cosplay Pet Peeves

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Recently, I’ve been browsing the Cosplay.com forums in search of some meetup times and locations for an upcoming convention, and I came across a thread about cosplay pet peeves, or aspects about cosplaying or the cosplay community that irritate certain people enough for them to voice it. At first, I was a little taken aback, because I assumed that this thousand-page thread would be full of elitists who look down on amateur cosplayers for not getting that tiny detail right, or for forgetting to finish that one hem. But as I was reading through the thread, I actually found myself nodding along to a lot of the opinions. Why? Because one of the very things these people seem to despise is elitism!

Putting down other people for our own benefit is something we cosplayers seem to be very good at. Yet, when it happens to us, we turn around and complain. This habit is making the cosplay community an unpleasant and poisonous place for some cosplayers who started cosplaying because they thought dressing up like their favorite character would be a ton of fun. For our cosplayers here on Cosplay Shopper, I’ve put together a list of the most popular pet peeves I remember seeing in that thread and my thoughts on them below. Feel free to take a look!

1. Elitism

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We mentioned this one above, but I’ll expand on it here. My definition of “elitism” is when certain cosplayers, whether they’ve become “famous,” won an event, or “collected” a lot of other famous cosplayers, start looking down on other cosplayers and nit-picking their costumes right under their noses. Many of these cosplayers have put a lot of time and effort into either making their cosplays, or earning enough money to buy their cosplays, so putting these people down is rude and uncalled for. Just don’t do it.

2. Collecting

Now, we understand that almost everyone here goes to conventions to cosplay and make friends. But, if someone doesn’t want to give you their personal Facebook account, respect their privacy and stop bothering them for it. A lot of people do get a little weirded out when people whom they’ve never met before start adding them on Facebook because of a comment on a photo or one share. A general rule of thumb is, if you’ve never met in real life before, don’t expect a person to accept your friend request. And if they do, hey, tread carefully and be sure to be polite and friendly about it, taking care to introduce yourself to them!

3. Buying vs. Making

This one goes hand-in-hand with elitism, but we’ve decided to include it as its own category because of how many times it has been mentioned. Remember that a lot of people don’t have the time or skills to make their own cosplays – but at the same time, they enjoy a series and want to meet other people who love it as well. While it’s always satisfying to make a costume from scratch and have people compliment it, cosplaying in a commissioned or bought costume is still cosplaying! I say if you’ve worked hard for the money to pay for a costume, it’s legit!

4. Telling people whom they “should” be cosplaying

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This one comes down to the basic fundamentals of cosplay: you should be discovering your character, not someone else’s. If your policy is only to cosplay the characters you look like, then so be it. But that doesn’t mean you have to ruin someone else’s fun, too – cosplay should be about passion and inspiration: if someone admires a certain character, then, by all means, they should cosplay them. End of story!

5. Touching people’s costumes without their permission

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All right, so you see some gorgeous silk or chiffon detailing on a costume way over there, and you want to know how that cosplayer made the costume. What do you do?
(A) Bolt over there and tackle them to the floor (“glomp” them)
(B) Run your hands, dirty from the convention, all over their costume
(C) Pull, stretch, or otherwise handle the detailing and fabric
(D) None of the above

If you understand the basics of personal property and space, you should know the answer to this one. “B-but! I really want to learn about their costume!” Then, the logical next step would be to ask. You can’t tell from looking how fragile their costume is or how much effort they put into it the night before to get the detailing right. It isn’t hard to ask them how they made it, and if you still aren’t satisfied, you could try asking for permission to handle it. Who knows, they might let you!

6. Drive-by photographers

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Photographers, you might not know this, but many cosplayers are very peculiar about how their cosplay is photographed, and what angles and poses look the best for their costume. We understand that all cosplays look pretty awesome to non-cosplayers, but the cosplayers themselves have honor and integrity, and want to be seen at their best! If you want to take a picture of a cosplay, at least have the courtesy of asking the cosplayer first and thanking them afterward. That’s just common respect.