So what are your experiences?
As a fan, spectator, admirer, or someone who dresses up?

The first time I was fully aware of it was at the 2010 Comic Con in San Diego. Hit my eyes like a firehose of wonder :D
People's costumes made the show for me. That was the highlight of being there.

As for my own experiences, I LOVE dressing up in outfits, but I have only dabbled on the very fringes of the fringes of cosplay.

I did it back before it was called cosplay and was simply known as costuming. In fact one person I knew won the grand seniors tournament on Jeopardy.

When I was in high school I made an Aordian uniform complete with carved wooden props. In college I collected British world War two uniforms. And dated a few costumers. Nearly everything is gone now though the wife and I have dressed up for a couple of costume parties. We last did Lord and Lady Willoughby at the court of Elizabeth I on a Halloween cruise.

But I have really been rubbed the wrong way by some cosplayers with attitude who forget all about the “play” aspect. That's the part I loved when college. Dress up and fool around and have fun, not all serious about super strict authenticity or bullying people just because you're dressed as a Klingon. You can only have an attitude if you ARE something, not when playing something. If dressed as a Marine you can only have the attitude if you did the 14 weeks on Parris island.

And then there's hitting on girls in skimpy outfits. Nothing beats a day of cosplay and then taking it off her for wild sex. As an old costumer girlfriend used to tell me (using the name of my Buckaroo Banzai character) Rawhide, you big stud! Take me to bed or lose me forever!

Now for me it's speak softly and wear a loud aloha shirt and be the coolest guy in the room, because I just am.

Ahhhh… Hitting on girls in skimpy outfits is seen as a major NO-no in the world of cosplay… You have to go about that with a great deal of tact.

I'm tentatively planning on putting together an outfit for the Sam Rockwell version of Zaphod Beeblebrox. Just because he was so ultra cool and I have the figure, hair and even the underbite for that version.
Plus, I will wear all those clothes normally, not just as a costume.

That version of Hitchhiker's was awful, but he was extra good in it.

ozoneocean wrote:
Ahhhh… Hitting on girls in skimpy outfits is seen as a major NO-no in the world of cosplay… You have to go about that with a great deal of tact.

Tact is my middle name. The fact remains that whenever I put an effort into it, I was successful. Now that I am the old guy in the loud aloha shirts, I am polite, gallant and avuncular and if she tries to pick me up I introduce her to my darling wife.

In this day and age though there's a much bigger issue with women who cosplay in sexy gear being harassed.
I don't know how it used to be- maybe when they dressed up THEN it was because they were sexy-outgoing ladies who really liked and expected that kind of attention, or if they were quite, getting dressed up like that gave them a chance to explore a more sexy out-going side of themselves.

These days it's a bit more complex. Women are professional cosplayers, or they don't see themselves as being sexual in that sexy character role, they're just trying to match it as best they can and like the attention for a job well done AS the character…

It's an interesting discussion- the sexual politics of cosplay!

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Currently I want to put together this outfit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMlINRpD7PY





I have the hair, the figure, even the underbite! And I'm growing the beard…
I've ordered a red Tom baker Dr Who coat, big brass buttons to put on it, a gold tight shirt (you can buy the ACTUAL one he wore in the movie but it's pretty expensive), and I'm bidding on a pair of cool cowboy boots…

I love making costumes! Mostly for wearing to Burning Man or Halloween parties or skydiving. The only kind of cosplay that I like is the kind that's practiced by the likes of Anucha Saengchart, like here: http://www.boredpanda.com/diy-low-cost-cosplay-costumes-anucha-saengchart/

I think the last time I had much to do with cosplay, I was working as part of a historical display the national guard was doing at a major festival and got mistaken for a cosplayer while on break and my platoon sergeant and I alternately got complimented and harassed on the authenticity of our uniforms. The best part was being told repeatedly by a fat 40 year-old armchair historian that our uniforms and jeep weren't authentic to WW2, despite quite literally being an Army-restored 1943 jeep and actual WW2 uniforms and equipment on loan from the state's national guard museum.

Overall, I've just never really understood the mind who treats cosplay as anything more than just for fun, and even then I don't quite understand the excitement it takes to be dressing up. I get re-enactment, but otherwise clothes are just clothes. I have several clients who own businesses making fursuits for other people, and I know it's worth an immense amount of money, but the whole thing, from fursuits to cosplaying as whatever character just seems a little ridiculous to me.