Why Cosplay Matters: An Introduction

For a long time I’ve loved the theatricality of bringing fictional characters to life through costume; this does not make me a professional cosplayer, but I enjoy it when I get the time despite the stigma (I once had “friends” of mine refuse to take cosplay pictures together if I was going to post them because they “had normal friends, too!”). In fact, it’s hard enough hiding photos from future employers who won’t understand your hobby to begin with, but when you cosplay while brown in a space where a majority of characters’ skin tones range from white to slightly darker white regardless of nationality, you find there’s also a lot of racial baggage you end up carrying, too. I wore my first “real” cosplay my sophomore year of high school; at the time I was a huge fan of Naruto and an even bigger fan of a certain pairing (KibaHina 4va, y’all), so I was pretty excited about the prospect of taking group photos with other people with an equal passion for the series. Keep in mind I’m not a seamstress of any kind, so I dropped well over a couple hundred dollars of my own money on a pre-made costume, custom wig, and shoes I found that I thought were much more practical than the thin flip flops that came with the package. If I was gonna do this thing, I was gonna do it right.

Nothing says professional like sidewalk photos. Most of my friends encouraged me, but I remember one girl in particular made a remark like, “I guess I always thought people should cosplay their own skintone.” To…