Do it yourself cosplay

What is it?:

The Positive Con Attitude Campaign or PCAC for short (said like the noise a bird makes) is a campaign to try and challenge what people think about cosplay and how they treat others in the community. It is to promote a sense of cosplay is for everyone no matter what age, size, gender, race, or nationality they could be a freakin' alien for all PCAC cares, but if they like to dress up and talk about their favourite games, anime or movies then they're allowed to cosplay and no one should criticise them.

 

Who Is Involved?:

At this moment the people involved are Rotten Casket Cosplay  and myself. I haven't spoken to convention staff yet but that should be the next step in the campaign.

 

What will be done?:

We don't want to do too much too quickly just in case the community think we're saying they're all awful and that they need to change, because this isn't the case.

We thought about talking to local cons about reviewing their rules so that if someone is being overly nasty to many people that they can be removed from the convention as not only is this bullying which shouldn't be tolerated but you're ruining someones weekend (and possibly much more than that) when all they wanted was to have fun and enjoy themselves. 

Getting local artists from the usual artist alleys at conventions involved in making positive and promotional posters to challenge negative thoughts and show those people in those cosplays may be cosplaying for the first time, may never have made a cosplay before or just wanna have fun and cosplay which is what it's all about. It's not a beauty pageant and telling someone that you've seen a better cosplay is just nasty. It's not a competition unless they're in the masquerade and looking to be judged.

As well as posters RottenCasketCosplay and myself and have decided to team up and make a Tumblr and Facebook cosplay spreading positive cheer telling people their cosplays are great, getting pictures for this website and for facebook and just trying to enjoy ourselves and hopefully helping others to as well (pretty much things we would be doing anyway).

We are aware there will always be negative people who have to point out negatives about things, but just leave them to be negative and don't let them drag you down.

 

How did it all begin?:

After talking to Delia the owner of rotten casket cosplay we realised even though both of us are fairly new to the cosplay community it seems we had similar experiences with people being negative, bitchy and that cliques began to appear among the community. I'm not saying that every convention we went to and that every person we met was awful, because this is not the case but there is a definite negative cloud hanging over it at the moment that we would like to try and help clear.

 

A convention for me is supposed to be a place where i can feel at home, where i feel that i can fit in. All my life i have been an outcast, or a bit odd and finally i found a place that likes nerdy things, that likes to dress up as their favourite characters from games, anime and movie and not be considered a weirdo, where i can meet other people as socially awkward as i am and not feel judged or excluded.

 

Yet lately,  (i know I'm not the only one after talking to some people about the issue) i began to avoid conventions. I felt like an outcast among people i thought were like me, i may not have as much game, anime or movie knowledge, i haven't been cosplaying as long as they have or they pick out things about my cosplay they don't like (size,gender race anything) and therefore they are superior to me. It's very hard to stay positive when such negativity surrounds you, we're on a small island so the same people will be at most conventions and if one person turns against you or doesn't like you it feels like you have no one, but you're not alone. I spoke to people about it to make sure it wasn't just me who felt this way and after those chats i felt determined to try and make things right or even just to make the convention experience just that little bit better for some people.

 

Thing wont change over night, and that's okay, people need to realise the things they say and do are hurtful and you wouldn't wish anyone to feel that way. We're not saying that Irish conventions or people for that matter are all horrible either, because they're not. They're all beautiful, nerdy individuals but sometimes its easy to get caught up in a spur of negative emotions (hell i can relate to that i was there myself) . So hopefully the more awareness there is, the more people will realise we were rejects and we found a place to call home. We should not be made, or make anyone else feel that we don't belong.

 

If you have any queries about this don't hesitate to ask me about it, also similarly if you would like to be involved.