Cosplaying is the art of immersing with a fictional character, by wearing its costume and imitating its gestures. Cosplayers are now a faithful part of every anime, manga, sci-fi or video game convention.
Which started as a hobby, became lately a possible full-time activity, allowing for the term “Professional Cosplayer” to emerge. So, what’s the ecosystem around cosplaying and how do these people provide income?
Introduction to cosplaying
Cosplay combines the word Costume and Play. It started as a hobby inspired by the North American’s masquerade parties where the guests had to respect a dressing theme. At the time, it wasn’t about impersonating fictional characters, but rather a generic topic as “sea”, “forest” or “night”.
The term “cosplay” was first coined in Japan, after Nobuyuki Takahashi of Studio Hard had visited the Worldcon in Los Angeles in 1984. He didn’t feel that “masquerade” describes the experience he lived, so he came out with the portmanteau “kosupure”, as said in Japanese.
Now, cosplay is totally a subculture, the fandom is huge and keeps getting bigger every day. It’s no longer limited to anime or manga, but TV Shows, video games, movies even real personalities are having their share of this art.
Professional cosplayers’ income
The most asked question about professional cosplaying is how to provide income. Well, there’s no one answer to that, because cosplayers have many income sources. Let’s enumerate the main ones:
Appearance fee
In addition to the flight and accommodations for the stay, famous cosplayers usually get paid to make an appearance as guests in a convention.
The paid fee varies by the guest’s popularity. It may be a specific amount, or, for the top ones, a sales guarantee. For example, if the cosplayer asks for a 2000$ sales guarantee, then he/she doesn’t reach that amount, the convention has to cover the shortfall.
As explained by Lindsay Elyse, a professional cosplayer, on an “Ask Me Anything” Reddit post, she says: “We get appearance fees sometimes, we get products sometimes, we get things like travel and food stipends in exchange for work. I’ve even had companies agree to pay me by bringing a friend of mine to a convention with me.”
Selling prints
Professional cosplayers are usually working with skilled photographers. The goal is to take astonishing shots, print them then sell them online.
Also, cosplayers tend to sell prints in conventions. They usually have a dedicated booth to sell that amongst other goodies.
Before they can sell prints, cosplayers have to check if they have the rights to reproduce the character’s persona. Sometimes, game editors or rights owners shut down online stores and booths because the cosplayer doesn’t own the right to monetize the character.
Patreon
Cosplayers can get serious funding from their Patreon page. The funding can be on a recurring basis or per work of art.
For example, the A-Class cosplayer Jessica Nigri has, as of today’s date, over 2800 patrons on the platform. By lowering the expectations to 10$ per member, that covers as much as 28 000$/month.
Cosplaying’s dark side
While cosplaying is all about bringing joy to the fandom, a cosplayer’s life is not always joyful.
The most irritanting dilemma is sexual harassment. Some female characters are made to be seductive, so when cosplayers reproduce these effects, fans forget that there’s a human being inside the clothing. It’s a recurrent mishap in conventions, women being harassed, even groped. That lead a global awareness about the issue, now we’re starting to notice anti-harassment signs in most conventions, like New York’s Comic-Con.
Another issue is related to the high expectations of some fans. Normally, cosplaying is not about looking exactly like the real character, but it’s rather about bringing the character to life by talking like it, wearing its costume and imitating its body language.
Some cosplayers get bugged by the fan if they don’t physically look like the real deal. Unfortunately, some ethically hurting comments can emerge if, for example, the cosplayer has an overweight or some other noticeable dissimilarity to the original character.
Also, the annoyment can sometimes lead to some racist comments, especially if the cosplayer has another skin color or origin than the imitated character.
Conclusion
Cosplaying is old performance art, now it’s getting enhanced as the technology advances. It’s an amazing thing that this hobby can now represent a full-time job for professional cosplayers. It means that we’ll be getting better quality in costumes and character-immersion.
To y’all cosplayers out there, keep up the good work!
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