Forum - View topic5 Things I Learned From SyFy's "Heroes of Cosplay"
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belvadeer
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It's times like this I'm glad stopped watching SyFy with all its nonsensical lowbrow garbage years ago. |
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Suena
Posts: 289 |
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There are actually whole web pages dedicated to that topic... 
Dressing up as fictional characters from movies and TV shows has been around for a veeeery long time in the US. The story goes that a Japanese reporter was at some convention or event here, and coined the mashup term (to use in his article to refer to the fan-costumes). I haven't heard where it went from there, but I assume it started being used in Japan by people who read the article and were doing fan-costuming, and then the term was re-imported to the US by anime fans, and used to refer to anime-specific costumes. And then it got adopted to mean any fan-costume for any media, since there wasn't really any official term currently in use except "dressing up like_____." |
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14761 |
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According to Wikipedia:
The only other prior word was "masquerading," but that's too general and too many syllables. Yeah, it probably got appropriated by Western media from anime fans starting in the 90's. Kinda like "mecha" because "robots" is too general. |
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EireformContinent
 Posts: 977 Location: Łódź/Poland (The Promised Land) |
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I wonder if it's so specific- costume balls for kids and adults have a long tradition 
Every culture have a special costumes for special occasions. Preparing it brings a foretaste of a event itself- and what can remind a fan meeting more than costumes associated with that? I remember that in 2001, when the fourth Harry Potter book was about to be published and before Net has taken over our lives every newspaper had tips for making costumes for kids and adults. I remember those synthetic lien, usually used as a cover for garden furniture, old bedsheets and other strange things my fiends dyed in our school's old basement. I still wonder how our sewing machine survived that and how I convinced my mum to sew it for half of my class- and she managed all this stuff to look good. Later I've made bases for anime costumes, some for Star Wars first nights and so on. Fan communities gave this a name and new meaning, it's easy to get good stuff, thanks to Net people can exchange experiences and tips, but basic idea is the same. |
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Joe Carpenter
 Posts: 503 |
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I watch this show simply to ogle the costumes and Yaya's tatas because I am a simple man sometimes who enjoys simple pleasures
but yeah, like all reality tv the show is on a fundamental level garbage, but at least it's a cut above Honey Boo Boo or Amish Mafia or God knows what other reality tv is out there |
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Nayu
Posts: 676 |
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[quote=zac]the always level-headed, drama-free online cosplay community.[/quote]
So true. So bloody true. |
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luffypirate
 Posts: 3186 |
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My girlfriend and I love this show! Its super silly and entertaining. Personally we aren't cosplayers and if we were I really don't think we would be offended. Its reality television. They are trying to make it push your buttons by plucking out the most obnoxious bits to air.
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prime_pm
 Posts: 2336 Location: Your Mother's Bedroom |
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Christ on crack! I can see her veins in that gif!
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CelestialEmpress
 Posts: 113 |
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I've been watching this show and ugh. I want to grab most of these people and violently shake them.
Nobody ever seems to work on their costume until like three days before the con. If this is really such an important, huge thing to you, then you need to start earlier. If you're spending 48 hours straight locked in a room trying to finish your costume EVERY SINGLE TIME, then you have a problem. That Victoria girl doesn't actually make her own costumes. Her saint of a boyfriend does 90% of the work while she shrieks at him like a howler monkey for anything that doesn't go according to plan. And once she takes it from him to the con, she still ends up working until the last possible minute to finish it on her own. And then when outright asked by a judge if she had help, she straight up avoids giving him any credit. The hypocrisy. I admit I've never read Hellboy, but I'm pretty sure there's not an issue where he becomes a sexy teenage schoolgirl. Yet the girl with that costume says an overweight man shouldn't cosplay Superman. Yaya Han derides another cosplayer for doing sexy outfits, when literally every costume I've seen of hers has her chest on full display. Fun drinking game: Take a shot every time Yaya says something about HER REPUTATION. HER BRAND. HER STATUS. Die of alcohol poisoning 35 minutes in. Also, I think it's very unprofessional for a judge to have drinks with people she knows are competing and give them advice the night before. Most of these people don't seem to actually enjoy cosplay. The Crabcat girls have smiled maybe a grand total of twice in five episodes. Victoria just gets mad at her boyfriend for not making her costumes perfectly. Yaya can't go without mentioning HER BRAND for three minutes, like a huge-breasted parrot with an extremely limited vocabulary. Most of the others have said they're only in it for the money and recognition, or are hoping it will lead to a career in prop or costume making. The show's not completely terrible, but I feel like it's sending a bad message to anyone who's curious about cosplay or wants to start. It's completely focused on competition and totally ignores the entire idea of cosplaying for fun. People shouldn't watch it and think "I don't have $300, professional sewing skills, and 72 hours to work on nothing else. I guess I can't cosplay." By only showing the competitive side of it, it excludes the massive amount of fans who have no interest in contests and do it just because it's fun. I really wish they'd show some casual cosplayers who don't take the whole thing so seriously and can make costumes work on a limited budget and decent schedule. |
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EireformContinent
Posts: 977 Location: Łódź/Poland (The Promised Land) |
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Well, in TV-land brides try their dresses for first time about one hour to the wedding. And cooking competition is a perfect time and place to make an exotic, sophisticated dish that you haven't ever done before, composed of things that half of the audience haven't heard of. I've checked one episode and I have an impression that you can switch the audio with any show about beauty contests and nobody notice the difference. Roles |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23769 |
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Funny content + pix of Yaya Han & Jessica Nigri = Pulitzer Prize bait.
I love cosplayers. My contribution to world happiness is to never be one, but they visually enhance cons and for that they have my undying gratitude. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to make a pact with Satan so that either Yaya Han or Jessica Nigri (or, preferably, both) become my girlfriend(s). |
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Adamb15
Posts: 115 |
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Zac, you are now my friend.
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Correl
 Posts: 42 Location: Redmond, WA |
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That's also the reason most of them can barely place, much less win, any of the competitions. All of the actual winners spend months, if not years, working on their costumes. Though, to be fair, many of these girls (and guy) do make an incredible number of costumes professionally and mostly are just using the show and masquerades as publicity, so they probably can't justify spending too much time on them when they could be working on stuff that pays the bills. |
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JBFire
 Posts: 23 Location: Bowie, MD |
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I have watched all of the aired episodes so far and really I shouldn't have. Watching it every week just makes me angry and the show should really be renamed "Terrible People: The TV Series".
-Victoria is the worst offender of this, but it seems that several of the female regulars on the show are reliant on their boyfriend/husband/significant other/roommate who wants your booty to construct a majority or integral part of their costume and then be pleased as punch to complain in a shrill voice when it doesn't work or go their way. This is also generally followed up by them taking complete credit for the construction thereof. -The one episode that the girl from the cosplaying podcast attended (second or third episode I think), the regulars treated her like absolute garbage. All of them (including Yaya) insisted she was naive and idiotic for thinking that cosplaying should be about fun and anyone should be able to do any costume they want. They basically sat around and brow beat the girl about how serious business cosplaying is. -Yaya is a hypocrite, plain and simple. That being said, in terms of friendliness she seems to be one of the better ones on the show. That's saying something. -When they lose, they tend to complain about the costumes that win are only winning because they are big or have lights. Most of the time, this seems like sour grapes to the fact that their normal strategy of "let me hang out my boobs/cooter/rear-end and everyone will love me" doesn't work. In reality, they need to spend probably more than two days of working on their costume. |
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Cambria
Posts: 12 Location: Houston, TX |
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You can watch it without knowing anything of the subject and just think "sweet, hot chicks in costume, this is my show"
That works for a lot of people, especially since the production company behind this made Jersey Shore. Knowing a bit about the community, it is still fun to watch to see the costumes being made, and just take the show as mindless entertainment that skews everything to make it more TV palpable |
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