Thursday, July 18, 2013

Blogpost # 6: Cosplay in Media

Media has been influencing a lot of people. TV shows, movies, musics and now, social networking sites.
 Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.. these are only some of the popular social networking sites nowadays. These are used to interact with other people and give information. And sometimes, it is used to know the popularity of a person according to their followers, likes and comments from their posts.

It is also the same for the fame of cosplay. Cosplay has started to rise because of media's influences. It is first aired in several cartoon channels to spread the news and events for cosplayers. Then it became widespread through social networking sites. Now, even the rise and popularity of cosplayers has been affected by it. According to an article, The Pursuit of Cosplay Fame, written by Chaka Cumberbatch,he said that "The marriage of cosplay and social media has turned our hobby into more of a popularity contest than ever before."

It was stated in this article that the rise of cosplay had been  greatly affected by media. There is a good effect from this, since more people are getting hooked into cosplay and discrimination had been lessen. But we cannot turn our back from the negative effects of it. A cosplayer said this in this article,  “It brought cosplayers around the world closer,” she went on to tweet. “But we are no longer measured by our costumes, but by our page likes.” 

According to her statement, cosplayers nowadays are more concerned in their popularity based on their fans and followers.  And sometimes the real essence of cosplaying is forgotten. The unfair thing is when a cosplayer is not recognized on her talents but just because of her "glam photos" that was liked by many. And sometimes those good cosplayer are not appreciated because of the simple reason that "they are not popular."

For me, to recognize a good cosplayer, it should be through her hard work since cosplaying isn't an easy thing to do. It is through her craftsmanship and good imitation of a certain character. Also, networking isn't really a bad thing, since it sometimes help in some ways like giving information.  But we should remember that a line should be drawn towards fame and simply sharing your passion. I also found a good reason as to why networking is important to cosplayer. According to the same article, "Cosplayer Marie Grey wrote on her fan page recently  “I think it’s important to mention why I even have a cosplay page, I’m not here to generate likes and become ‘cosplay famous.’ I’m here to share my work with others, teach those who seek my help, and learn from those who came before me.”
And this is really a good idea. Social Networking Sites are not really established to gain popularity or to test someone based on their posts, followers and likes from fan pages. And cosplayers as well as other people should be aware of this..
the marriage of cosplay and social media has turned our hobby into more of a popularity contest than ever before - See more at: http://nerdcaliber.com/the-pursuit-of-cosplay-fame/#sthash.pgWntlKp.dpuf
the marriage of cosplay and social media has turned our hobby into more of a popularity contest than ever before - See more at: http://nerdcaliber.com/the-pursuit-of-cosplay-fame/#sthash.pgWntlKp.dpuf

1 comment:

  1. In my personal opinion Instagram is currently the most popular social media platform on the web. Sure, the statistics show that it has less users than Facebook but it is just a matter of time before this changes, and in addition to this statistics also show that there are more active people on Instagram than there are on Facebook. This is why now when I hear of social media marketing I immediately think of Instagram. If you want to grow your business you should invest some money into it and perhaps even boost followers on Instagram through some websites. It’s a great investment, definitely worth the money.

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