Is cosplay absurd escapism or creative self-expression?

Is cosplay a cool hobby to hone creative self-expression or a nerdy, expensive way to escape the pressures of the world? And do you care either way?

CosPlay 101 for the uninformed and uninformed

What the heck is CosPlay? Sound like a new online video game or a new Facebook app like Farmville? Well, no. CosPlay is a combination of two words: “Costume” and “Roleplay”. Thus, a Cosplayer is a geek, not necessarily handsome, who takes on the role of a character from an anime show, video game, comic book, manga, comic book series, movie, or television series. These cosplayers step into the shoes of the characters who have inspired them or who they think is really cool and copy their super cool costumes, prosthetics, makeup, hair, and accessories. This is what really amazed me, cosplayers don’t just have to look like characters, they have to act, sound and essentially be the characters they play down to the last giggle.

There is this issue among cosplay elders as to how and when this social phenomenon really started. However, they seem to agree on one thing: the origin of the word Cosplay. Most elders agree that journalist Noboyuki Takahashi first coined the term in the article “My Anime” after attending the 1984 World Science Fiction Convention and seeing a group of Trekkies Star Trek) strutting. From there, cosplay has become a subculture among enthusiasts of anime, manga, comics, movies, and basically everything fun and fictional under the sun and has become both an art form and a subculture in various countries. In the Philippines, the popularity of cosplay has also skyrocketed in recent years.

Cosplay and the modern escapist

“I have stated that Escape is one of the main features of fairy tales, and since I did not disapprove of them, I clearly do not accept the tone of contempt or pity with which ‘Escape’ is now so often used. Why Should a man be despised if, being in prison, he tries to get out and go home, or if he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other matters than the jailers and the prison walls?

–JRR Tolkien–

I’m not a licensed psychologist or sociologist, but I can tell you more or less about the observations I made that cosplay is now part of modern escapism. Mr. Webster defines escapism as the habitual diversion of the mind towards purely imaginative activity or entertainment as an escape from reality or routine.

I’m sure you’ll agree that the world we live in is full of stress, threats, constant noise, irritating soap operas, unhealthy fast food junk, dizzying billboards and overnight facebook. Therefore, we all need to escape, to refocus our attention on pleasant or pleasurable things, as opposed to the harsh realities of the everyday world. When we’re stressed, we want nothing more than escapism, and cosplay certainly offers that for others.

It’s nice to add a bit of fantasy to a boring or stressful world. However, turning someone’s fantasy into reality can be tricky. I don’t know if parents should really care about their teens’ strong desire to live in the fantasy world of anime, maybe they should consider that as healthy and part of today’s social reality. And that the desire to ‘escape’ is part of the complicated process of discovering ourselves. I think we are all escapists in different ways.

This is where I got into most of the judgment problems. I didn’t understand how important the notion of escape is to many cosplayers and I also didn’t clarify the exact type of escape I was referring to. I admit that many Filipinos today engage in cosplay not primarily to avoid their own personal wars such as their jobs, relationships, school pressure, and other life issues, but to have fun, compete, and even make a living.

The magical world of the escapist

“Harry goes to this magical world, and is it better than the world he left? Just because he meets nicer people. Magic doesn’t significantly improve his world. Relationships make his world better. Magic in many ways complicates his life”. .”

–JK Rowling–

Is there a difference between healthy and unhealthy exhaust? In today’s reality, we cannot do our ancestors’ way of escapism, which is telling stories around fires or writing in caves. Now we escape from the troubles of the world by reading books, watching soap operas and movies, surfing the Internet, blogging, etc.

As I said before, cosplay is a new and modern form of escapism. Unlike other forms of escapism, cosplay is much more complicated. Other “characters” play directly in his magical world, interacting using his assumed persona. Events, such as conventions and regular meetings, also take place in this new form of escapism that depends directly on the authors of the anime characters.

The fantasy self and the anime world

That’s where the problems of cosplayers originate. This is just my theory OK. The assumed character, which I will call the fantasy self, begins to rival the real world. Due to the sheer complexity and magic of the anime world, Fantasy Self may continue to rely on cosplay as their form of escapism. There is a possibility that Fantasy Self treats the anime world as a big part of the person’s real life and can dominate the real world.

When the anime world becomes part of their real world, any stress from the anime world will be brought with them when they enter the real world. Now the cosplayer no longer has to worry only about the real world, but also has to worry about the happenings in the anime world. Such cosplayers are the ones who come home so stressed and depressed after attending a cosplay convention, when it’s supposed to be just a fun day walking around in costume and being someone extraordinary for a day.

The collapse of the fantasy self and the real self

The other possibility that could occur with a prolonged stay in the anime world as a form of escapism is the Fantasy Self collapsing into the Real Self. Again, this is just a possibility, I’m not a psychologist, but I read psychology books, and it’s just my theory. This is the situation when the cosplayer lends money to buy costumes, skip classes, or work to attend cosplay conventions, and begins to claim that cosplay is more than just costumes. Actions like these are clear demonstrations of where the cosplayer’s priorities are.

The problem with this type of collapse is obvious. As her real life is no longer the center of her attention, her grades in school will falter, her health will falter, her performance at work will falter as will her social life, often sacrificing time with friends and family for cosplay time.

the cutoff point

I guess the cutoff point is whether it can be a healthy means of not becoming completely depressed by reality and on the other hand, in its extreme form, whether it results in obsessive behaviors that cause people to completely ignore reality to their detriment.

After all, I’m not the final arbiter of what counts as healthy or unhealthy, and more importantly, I can’t claim to know everything about cosplay; I myself am not a cosplayer. I just want to give my feedback and learn amazing things about what’s going on around me. For people who are more extreme than me, I respect your choice to be that, just like I hope you respect my theories and opinions that I make regarding my observations or what I prefer to keep as hobbies.

I can safely conclude that Cosplay can be a healthy form of escapism and a great opportunity to develop creativity and self-confidence. Of course, extremes have bad effects.

admin

Related Posts

fallback-image

전략적 움직임: 카지노 솔루션 배포의 시작

fallback-image

릴 게임을 테마로 한 자선 갈라에 참석해 본 적이 있나요?

fallback-image

オンラインカジノはゲームの公平性と完全性をどのように確保しているのでしょうか?

fallback-image

킬조이는 누구에게 마음을 주었을까?

No Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *