Strange Land Costuming

I posted this as a bit of a rant on cosplay.com after the 800th person asked about the best websites for buying cosplay, but the advice might have fallen on deaf ears if the poster was actually a bot. Oops. But I feel like the advice itself, overall, is worthy, if written a bit bluntly. So, view here what a commissioner feels whenever they see someone asking about where to buy the "best" cosplay sight-unseen from a bootleg overseas website...

Some background: the poster-bot specifically asked for where to buy the special clothing seen in anime/manga, or cosplay, but it had to be high quality. That was all they said.

( at least I didn't swear...much? )

This is up on the SLC site as well, but the link is sort of buried and I know sometimes people have a harder time reading light text on dark backgrounds. So, repost!

I wrote this essay in order to correct some misconceptions among the newer members of the cosplay community. It is, actually, a history of hobby costuming in general, but with a slant toward connecting it to what cosplayers perceive as the state of the hobby today. Given that in some corners of fandom there are now rumblings that people need to somehow "prove" their geek cred in order to "earn" the "right" to wear a costume at a convention, a history lesson is what everyone needs right about now. And yes, I put all those words in quotes because I find them all to be ludicrous. No one needs to prove how geeky they are in order to be allowed to cosplay. As long as they're following the con rules and basic social etiquette and aren't, well, stealing the costume from a store or anything, everyone is free to do as they please with their costumes.

But now, your lesson for today: nerds have been wearing costumes to cons a lot longer than you might think!

( the history of cosplay from 1939 to present )