if you found any good in this video and want to see more like it, I really hope you consider joining my patreon! Turning this kind of video creation into a livelihood is unspeakably difficult, and I'm giving it all i've got to turn this into a career and keep creating things like this. I can't say thank you enough to the people who are able to help support me in this goal- and thanks for watching! www.patreon.com/heylizardleigh
That DOH you went to is ACROSS THE STREET FROM MY HOUSE!! I grew up in that neighborhood! I’m just starting out on cosplay myself and would LOVE to meet others near by that’s a part of the cosplay (and LGBT+) communities! Please do reach back out because I became so excited to see a fellow cosplayer within reach of me and just doesn’t live in an entirely different state. Thank you❤ 23:20
This academic paper: ' “There is No Such Thing as Copying in Cosplay”: Cosplay as a Remixed Literacy Practice ' - can be found via Google Scholar, and digs into exactly this question - it's from 2021
I was making a ballet Black Widow and someone accused me of copying someone. I kinda panicked for awhile bc I didn’t mean to blah blah. Then I all a sudden went Wait a damn minute. It’s Black Widow. Of course two people can have the same idea of making a ballet black widow
@@emilyrln yep! It’s up in the air how much was fake and how much was real, but ballet was super important to her so she still practices and it’s still apart of her life
@@jeanieherg591 unfortunately, progressive spaces in general tend to have a problem with over-zealous enforcement of values :/ like, I love that we care so much, but could we stop attacking people so hard that they delete their social media accounts? There's got to be a middle ground between hate mobs and zero accountability!
As a commissioner it was/is very common for clients to never credit (even some of the big cosplayers at the time were guilty of doing this). A bunch of us shared a list of people who wouldn't credit/claim the costume was their own making and we eventually had to start adding clauses in our contracts stating the client needed to have credit on X amount of posts or they might be blacklisted. It's really sad that it had to come to that point, but things seem better now.
Ugh, yeah. When I was almost done working on this edit, I started to get worried my script didn't go far enough into what you're talking about, mainly because to me that kind of behavior isn't like an ~interesting topic to analyze and explore~ which is what I was trying to focus on, but is just.... people being garbage!! it's just messed up bad behavior! that should not be acceptable in our community! i'm really glad to hear commissioners have that list going, but i'm sad it's a necessity. just unfathomable to me, why you wouldn't want to uplift people who do good work!
@@anjellalo972 yeah hi driveby opinion but I also do commission work - but in ink landscape paintings. It is so assumed normal it's commonplace on the Art Only Commission side that you credit the person you got art from. Even work that I've done for professional companies and they purchased licensing rights, my name is still there. People who do otherwise are a rarity and honestly get soft blacklisted pretty fast. The "once you pay for it, it's not yours" argument is just an excuse to not credit people for their efforts and pretend it's YOUR effort. Either way: Cosplay is no less an art than my paintings, they're just different mediums. There is no reason to treat them with any less respect as artists because they work with fabric and I work with paper. A name in a description nobody reads isn't going to end the universe.
Yeah that's not how contracts work, and it's not how rights work. A professional creating things for other people - books, photos, cosplays, red carpet dresses, whatever - absolutely has the right to be credited for their work, and can insist on it in their contract or licensing agreement. Why else do you think celebrities at red carpet events tell everyone which fashion house their clothes came from? Cosplay, especially at the professional level, is no different. @@anjellalo972
You make it sound like it's an unusual thing. It really isn't, especially in commercial settings (which a professional cosplayer is operating in). Lizard literally talked about how Disney disallowed costumes from non-Disney franchises the year they sponsored Her Universe - completely legal and very common to put in contracts. Or did you think that all those celebrities on the red carpet mention who their designer was out of the goodness of their hearts? @@anjellalo972
A (pretty popular) pre-made cosplay site stole my photo when I first started cosplaying, it was on their official blog and pinterest (of all things) as well as their site for a while. Every time I emailed them about it, they would give me some lame excuse of "Well we can no longer access the blog and pinterest to take down the photo" which is untrue because NOW those posts link directly to their new website instead of their blog.
Cosplay sites do that. They steal cosplayers photos of a cosplay, to use on their sites, so people think their product is better quality than it actually is.
I am one of the department heads of the makerspace at mag. Thank you so much for your kind words. I am litterly in tears. The patterns were all donated from my friend's gram that died recently, and it means so much that you included it in your video. Thank you!
I was thinking what a generous gesture the con made to have this craft room and was wondering if just a lot of people donated patterns and materials! When my grandmother died, I inherited all her craft stuff. This would have been the perfect place to donate it to folks who would appreciate it all.
@annbrookens945 all of our fabric is donated by staff and other con goers! We hope to expand it to other things as well. MAG buys us new machines and basic supplies every year, but most of our workable materials are from lovely people like you! This year our main import was yarn, fabric, and polyfill. Anything we don't use and can't store gets donated to our visiting makerpsaces to get used at their full time building.
I spent pretty much my entire con in either the makerspace or the classroom next door, it was so nice! Also I'm not sure where y'all are based out of but SCRAP B-More up in Baltimore is a craft supply thrift store, I can't say enough good things about them
@jacquelinehart4355 our warehouse is in Beltsville, MD but I personally am from middle of PA. We love doing stuff with other spaces even if all they want is to come and promote themselves in our visiting makerspace area.
I hope the community learns the difference between "having coincidentally similar inspo", "accidentally coming up with similar designs based on the character's shape", and "copying one on one", "a company making a cosplay using a cosplayer's pictures rather than the actual reference art and passing it off as their design"
this is such a good video, i feel all of this so deeply. on one of my recent craft /build videos (symphony miku) i had a comment from someone who was planning to make the same character & design for an upcoming contest. but they were worried that they would look like they were copying me or even LOSE POINTS because of my build video. but like, that's the whole reason i decided to make craft videos. i hope someone learns new techniques or gets creative ideas from my chaos.
exactly!! ESPECIALLY when it comes to techniques like, I cannot think of a single example where I’d be anything but overjoyed to see someone using a technique inspired by me!!
This is so fr and I have personal trauma with this bc a popular cosplayer couple accused me of plagiarising their costume a couple of years ago when I posted ig stories of a few wip close ups and one swirly symbol was loosely based on one of theirs, and apparently they expected me to ask for permission and credit in the story that was viewed 34 times bc I barely had a hundred followers and y'all I felt like a criminal fr. They went on a whole public rant on their account and I was so scared of posting on ig again that I ended up deleting mine 😭
I hate so bad that no part of this is surprising to me 😭 the public witch hunts a few years back especially got SO out of control, this is supposed to be about sharing skills and being inspired together!! I’m so sorry you had that experience!
The "mutual inspiration" hit it home for me. I think there's a fine line where inspiration and plagiarism blurs between cosplayers doing the same/similar things, and as you said it's only the people who want to cause drama that will make a fuss about it. I entered a pretty big video game cosplay competition once and placed. The following year I entered again, and there was a cosplayer who made the same cosplay I had done the year before. And they literally used all of the same fabrics (thanks, Joanns -_-), techniques, etc that I had. While it was SUPER surreal to not only see it but to stand right next to it in group photos, I would be mortified to say anything to them or behind their back on the internet. I wish more of the community found that as unnecessary drama. And also as you mentioned, even though we were two cosplayers who made the cosplay with the same materials, etc. hers is hers and mine is mine because our skills are different! Overall, bravo on this video!
I had the opposite experience. There was one year there was this incredible doctor strange cosplayer. She'd done an amazing job, and seeing all the details of it made me wanna do my own. The next year I placed in masters with mine. We'd used the same commercial patterns, but side by side, they both looked incredibly different because we had different skills
I feel like maybe you should have just quietly showed the organisers of the event proof so that they'd be disqualified and it would serve as an example. If you don't speak up it keeps happening
@@alexjames7144 Fair point. In my case though, it was two separate years of the competition. I did mine before the year before and placed second overall. The person who "repeated" my cosplay with the same fabrics etc. did not make it into the finalists, maybe partly because the organizers noticed the similarities from mine the previous year. Who knows! Honestly though and going off of a point Lizard makes in the video, it's really easy for two cosplayers to interpret the same character the same way! Even if they didn't use mine as inspiration, I can see how they got where they did since I made the same decisions. I don't think that's enough to get anyone disqualified.
The section about trends and capitalism in the cosplay community hit really hard. I started cosplaying and going to conventions when I was ten, and back then only cosplayed the characters I really cared about. But when the pandemic hit full-swing and the only way I could consume media related to cosplay anymore was through social media I switched to buying fast-fashion cosplays because the characters were popular. In my mind it didn't matter what the quality of the cosplay was if it felt like the only way I could be considered a valid cosplayer was by throwing on the outfit of whatever character was most popular at the time. Only after I started going to cons again did I realize how much that mindset made me hate cosplaying and the reason I got into it in the first place was because ten year old me felt so much more confident by dressing up as their favorite characters. Now I'm making my own cosplays and only of characters I can go on five hour rants about (including ocs!!) and I feel so much more fulfilled and happy :D
Also, copyright laws for clothing and textiles is different from other forms of media - which means, it's a lot less strict because clothing is considered "utilitarian". That's why you don't have Dior suing YOU for those scalloped edges. It's also why there's so many knockoffs after fashion shows. Christian Louboutin can copyright the red sole but not the shape of the shoe. And even then, it's under very specific circumstances. So even if you did copy this cosplayer's scalloped skirt (which you didn't), it's not plagiarism because NO ONE owns the design for a scalloped skirt. Inspiration is not plagiarism.
thanks for making this point! lots of people don't realize clothing/fashion is in it's own different thing w/r/t copyright (is it that patterns and designs specifically cannot be copyrighted? I can't remember). but then! fanart IS actually copyright violations soooo thinking of cosplay as wearable fanart is... I forgot where I was going with this xD
Plagiarism is more of an academic concept than copyright infringement which has the force of law behind it, although obviously they can overlap. But I also think this is a good thing to think about as part of this discussion. Especially because some of the techniques that two cosplayers might use could be common, craft patterns or techniques from history but how they are used could feel a little weird to some.
I love how in-depth this video is. I've been doing 'closet cosplays' (for anyone else reading this, its essentially just pulling together a cosplay from things you already own, not much buying or making) for about 4 years now and for the longest time I've been really avoiding it because I don't want anyone to seem like I'm stepping on anyone's toes when it comes to ideas and everything, because a LOT of people now are saying that taking inspiration from something is plagiarism and I have severe anxiety. This really helped me start to figure out what I can and can't do without doing anything wrong. Thank you so much!
In Finland, many cosplayers do this 'closet cosplay' because it is more eco and environmentally friendly than making costumes, and they also try to avoid copyright infringements and lawsuits with Japanese anime and manga artists by creating their own independent characters.
this is something that i've started and stopped full essays on several times because i have SO MANY feelings on where cosplay fits into pop culture and community and marketing in the modern age. thanks for addressing that side of this issue!
The first cosplay I did, there was a lady who used a pattern and lied on stage and said it was 100% her idea and her work. She made no adjustments or anything! I looked up the pattern right then and there and she legitimately did not change a thing. She won the design competition. She cheated and disrespected everyone there. I’m not even talking about me. There were so many people who had made beautiful and clever costumes that deserved to win over hers.😮 If she hadn’t lied, I wouldn’t be angry. It was…well... But over all, she did a good job of copying the pattern. 😩 It’s a frustrating feeling.
The accusation at the beginning that someone commented on your video i think in some ways was symptomatic of a blip in cosplay culture when people got really really defensive of their ideas and obsessed with the concept of "giving credit". I can think of creators off the top of my head who were very insistent they be credited for any and all ideas they came up with, down to being credited in all posts where someone referenced their tutorials. That comment, to me, seems born of that genre.
I think you're totally right. And truthfully I mainly opened with that story because.... it's youtube, and I needed to start the video with something spicy and engaging (as "drama" tends to be") so that I could HOPEFULLY hook people in for a more interesting conversation in the rest of the video haha
@@HeyLizardLeigh that makes total sense and I do think it’s relevant! Hell that whole moment could be microanalyzed under the lens you present in the video
This is such a thoughtful and well-crafted video. I so appreciate you digging into this concept that I know all of us cosplayers have thought about/run up against!!
"I don't even know if there's an audience for this video" I am the audience!! I got SO pumped when you teased this video on your Insta story. I loved HBomberguy's video on plagiarism (it was the background for quite a good part of my last con crunch, actually) and I love all of your longform videos where you talk about costumes you're working on or cons. But also this was a great video (and I didn't even notice the audio issues honestly) 💛
The part about being so positively affected by something that you just want to make something from it is how I've always described it too! It's like, I either love the story or character so much, or was so creatively fuelled by said media that I couldn't hold it in and physically had to show my love for it somehow. I remember watching an Adam Savage TED talk where he mentioned a similar concept, and it still rings so true to me. Cosplay for me is great for so many reasons, but knowing it's always coming from a place of love and passion has kept me partaking in the hobby for over a decade. Thank you so much for taking the time to explore this topic, I really appreciate it and I enjoyed listening :)
The part of "same idea different execution" reminds me of my days as an art student, we had weekly prompts for homework and it was always so fun to see how my classmates and i interpreted a prompt so differently
The section about the anxiety about being one of the bad ones resonated with me so SO much. Gah, this whole video was just excellent, and rang so true. You put so much thought into this, and its clear that you have endless passion for this community. It's you, and people like you that make the cosplay community wonderful and welcoming.
You’re one of my favorite cosplayers, I love that your videos aren’t just sped up videos of you crafting with random music over it, you’re definitely an inspiration for me. I love that you pull apart aspects of the community while actively being part of the community makes you’re videos so interesting to watch or even just listen too when I’m crafting
One time i asked a fellow cosplayer for advice about a costume that they had crafted, since i wanted to craft the same costume as well (It wasn’t an original design, just from a series). They kindly answered my questions, and i thought i had their support. Later, when i wanted to credit them for their help in a post, i couldn’t tag them. Turns out they had silently blocked me. I’m still not sure why.
OMG pausing 30 minutes in because a while ago I caught a glimpse of your fish tank and I got so excited and I yelled "Show us the fishies!" and I'm so glad I got to see it, your tank is beautiful. Also, my gosh, what a well thought out gem of a video. Such insightful commentary that is very well articulated. Love the graphics!
THANK YOU it's actually so overgrown rn haha, I desperately need to re-up my school of corys since I lost two in the fall but I just have not had time to bring in new little guys, especially when I'm still raising the mystery snails ! but hey, with tanks it's all about a shifting ecosystem haha, i'll get it back under control after katsu
I’m glad you talked about “switching sides”. This happens a lot when it comes to power dynamics that a lot of people don’t notice. Obviously social clout, but also economic stability, and age dynamics. This is such a big issue with power dynamics in general. Toxic people tend to not realize they’re toxic BECAUSE THEYVE BEEN A VICTIM BEFORE. I just want to thank you for going “oh. I’m no longer a small fish in this pond” because that truly does change over time.
I very much enjoyed this video. As a long time fandom dweller, avid textile crafter, and person with an anthropology degree listening to your deconstructions and descriptions of our (sub)culture was fascinating. There are very few hard lines when it comes to culture. You have to run on a case by case basis when you make decisions about how you handle yourself and others. There are no one size fits all solutions to most of the dilemmas discussed here. This isn't an excuse for misconduct of course, but I think cosplay and fandom at large have a lot more nuance involved than some people would have you believe. I appreciate that this video addressed some of that complexity, I hope this makes sense!
Despite this being about cosplay, you accurately hit on many of the issues that come up for ANY creative endeavor in the social media space. This video was very well done!
Honestly so true. It wasn’t until I saw this comment that I thought about it, but there are a lot of parallels in the knitting/crochet communities, specifically regarding seeing an idea or project someone has made and then making one for yourself, with different materials in a different shape, and at what point inspiration is theft (or just multiple people having the idea of “a white sweater would be cool”) lol
The panic when you realized the date is so realll 😭 I just started following you after watching your history of Katsucon video and I was wondering if you’re going again this year?
This was an insanely well-thought out and well-made video! I’m a big fan of the cozy vlog-style b-roll combined with the clean and stylish editing. And the fact you filmed so much of it before and at magfest is as impressive as it is utterly mad. I swear I don’t sleep for the three days before just concrunching and packing, how the hell did you also make a whole-ass video essay on top of that?!👏 (Also really appreciate the inclusion of last minute pre-vacation fish tank maintenance. This is very relatable content) Great video- keep it up! And hopefully I’ll see you at magfest next year! 🤘
I truly have no idea how i managed to make this video as i was getting out the door to a con LMAO like that doesn't even make sense to me, the person who just did so
The one thing that I personally would count as plagiarism that I have see the cosplay community is when people use someone else 3D print files, and sell the prints, with no credits or without asking for creators first. The cosplayer in this case makes most of their money from selling 3D files and patterns on patron. IDK I just think its interesting how big the community has gotten.
Just so you know there’s absolutely an audience for this content I love all video essays but I extra appreciate it when someone discusses an issue from an angle/ using an example that I’m unfamiliar with or that hasn’t been brought up in this context. You definitely did that!
I'm seriously impressed with the gravity-defying makeup brush hairstyle/gen, you look like a character! edit: also the combination commentary video/vlog is not something I expected but it's surprisingly genius
There's been a lot of mulling over this topic on my own as an in-and-out cosplayer over the last 10 some years, and it's kind of bogged me down with everyone being so concerned and afraid to "copy" someone else as someone who *loves* seeing someone in the same cosplay and Spiderman-Point-Memeing to them and making a new friend. But all of that melted the moment you started talking about MAGfest. I'm sitting here crying now because all I want is to put on a little costume I poured sweat and blood into and be goofy with someone who saw the same character and felt the same way so deeply that they too had to be them and share in that love of a character with them. You touched on so many wonderful points. This was so well done and honestly really inspiring! I'm gonna go put these tears into a folder for my next cosplay now.
i was actually at the genshin photo shoot with the painted primogem cosplayer. I forgot about it for a while and by the time I had seen the viral video i assumed their costume was one of the mass-produced ones because companies had ALREADY started selling them like a week later.
As a casual cosplayer and wannabe costume accessories maker I really appreciate this video. It’s not easy coming into cons as an inexperienced creator and worrying about how much you take from far more amazing creators. I am also a committed fan of interpretation vs direct translation. I love seeing unique takes on all things I love from fellow fans. Thank you for your open and honest (and well researched) opinions 🙌🏽 I’ll definitely be looking up MAGcon.
Thank you so much for making this video and highlighting a very important topic within the cosplay community. As cosplayers we try so hard to give credit on all our posts, but the one time we forget - we are the villian. Meanwhile, our photos and videos are being downloaded and then shared by larger companies and accounts that only act as a redistributor (with a "credit" if we are lucky), giving them the free material and more views/subs/purchases. It is a minefield.
Yes with the trends! Before the pandemic, I was doing a lot of more niche cosplays because I had friends who I could hang out with at cons regardless of outfit. Covid sadly made most of my groups dissolve (various issues, a lot of which go back to how I don't have a strong online presence), so I've been going back to ground 0 of finding groups, which means making cosplays for newer fandoms to refind groups. Even with just making a small few trendy cosplays it's already tiring.
I was painting and didn’t hear if you said who you were making the jacket. Watching the jacket come together, thinking.. it looks like churles. But it can’t be, so it’s it? It was. I’m so happy. Great video
I don’t know where to really begin with meaningfully engaging with this total doozy of a video essay you’ve blessed us with, other than to say I really appreciate you putting this out with the degree of nuance and thoughtfulness that you did. So for that, thank you! Now more importantly, oh my god another ooblets fan!!! Hi!!! I thought I was on a little island! I adore ooblets so I’m giddy to see a fellow cosplayer also loving this silly little cozy game I love so much.
OOBLETS!! it is the BEST game and I will be making a more in-depth video for churles soon. and thank you for watching!! i'm so glad people have felt connected to this video, it was SUCH a project to try and organize my thoughts into something coherent and thoughtful
This is legit one of my favorite videos of yours and is absolutely going to be my go-to background repeating video next time I have to do a bunch of hand sewing.
I'm a general lover of creative crafts and a hobby quiltmaker. Two layers of cloth with something sandwiched in the middle and held together by thread is an ancient concept developed independently multiple times across the globe. Plagarism and transformative creativity have a lot of nuance for us too. One of the most frustrating aspects is when big corporations copy work you know took weeks/years of effort and a significant amount of money to sell for super cheap and poor quality. It completely skews non-quilters' expectations and appreciation for the value of a quilt. I am working on a project for someone I know well enough to not charge for labor (I'm a hand-quilter for reference), but still asked to cover cost of materials. That will be around $150 for a larger size lap quilt. I found ways to save money like using solids over prints and mathing out exactly how much fabric I need before buying, but I could never compete with walmart.
i've only cosplayed once before (aside from thrifted/diy halloween costumes, my fav kind of costume for myself), but this video was in my recs, and wow i am so happy i clicked on it!! i wasn't expecting the quality of it (but tbh I would have been just as enthralled if it was just you in front of a camera and mic). i'm a creative so i'm soooo intrigued and amazed by the craftsmanship in cosplay - it makes me want to learn to sew. i can't wait to watch more of your stuff and learn more about the cosplay community!!
Cosplay community can be so weird. Will say that they scared me away. The first 3 cosplays I did was Luke Triton, Naoto (P4) and Hatori. They were all pretty low end. Mostly closet items With a few items that I had hand stitched together. With my Naoto cosplay someone accused me of copying someones lapel pin from some other cosplayer from god knows where there's was plastic and mine was hand embroidered. It was her persona but it was a just a small moth. Then when I did Hatori. Someone hassled me about my glasses. And how Glasses Hatori was their friends idea.........Hatori Canonically wears glasses.....I'm also nearsighted. I told the person " These are my personal prescription glasses. I'm nearsighted. I can't afford contacts." It was such a wild moment.
I would love to see an anthropological study about the cosplay community. I would totally devour academic matetial on the subject. It would be cool to see what people have come up with. There was a non-fiction author on YT Dr. Vivian Asimos, she documented her process writing a cosplay research book and now she's researching TTRPG.
This is genuinely so interesting and an important thing to talk about where to draw the line and kind of dive into what is and isn't acceptable! It's stuff I admittedly never really thought too deeply into until now.
Just want to say that both costumes are very beautiful and definitely took a lot of hard work and dedication to your craft. I'm gently dipping my toes back into the cosplay scene after a very long hiatus. It's frustrating to see that all the usual struggle s are still present yet magnified by social media I guess? Idk, I've screwed up at times in the past too but it feels like cosplay should just be fun? We're literally playing dress up here. Idk, I'm old and jaded I guess.
This is an awesome video! I also made a korok cosplay and def had those "well someone already made this" feelings. Thansk for all the hard work making this.
theres a reason you literally cannot trademark fashion designs. also the entire act of cosplay itself is copying someone elses design. why is it ok for someone to make something based on another's intellectual copyright, and possibly even make money off it, and yet someone else can't take design inspiration on the basic design of the clothing, which you LITERALLY CANNOT TRADEMARK.
There is definitely an audience for this! Hopefully the passion of the community can fend of the incursion of capitalism. Regarding fic, there's an interesting book by Lev Grossman, describing how for millenia, storytelling was all fanfic. The reteller's details or style was integral to the performance, but the concept of plagiarism didn't develop until the Enlightenment, with the rise of individualism.
oh i would LOVE to read that!! it's so true, and I didn't go too in depth on it, but like retelling and reframing has been the cornerstone of literally all art!!
Hi! That book sounds interesting; do you happen to remember the title? I googled the author's name, but only found novels in his bibliography, not any nonfiction works.
Thanks for the shoutout! Hats off to you for tackling the topic of cosplayer-cosplayer plagiarism, it's definitely complicated and worthy of discussion!
Started cosplaying in 2006 and took a break over the last few years. This has reinspired me!! I'd love to cosplay my old and obscure fandoms, so now I'm gonna go do that. Thanks.
When it comes to the construction of a cosplay in terms of mechanics, People coming up with similar or EXACT same concept for cosplay feels - to me- part of the territory of cosplay specifically; because 1. you're trying to emulate the SAME character, and 2. People will start to catch on trough trial and error which ways are the BEST way to replicate a certain look for said character. People coming up with the same idea is a Give In in certain areas! It's like two people coming up with the best idea for the wheel! As the idea makes more sense, and people figure it out, the best, most effective, and practical method for achieving it, is going to become common knowledge- especially for people with a mind for engineering and design. This idea will thus be replicated; because like some mathematical equation, the best method to produce a cosplay is going to be solved! This is not to say people copying someone else's idea doesn't happen, but what I mean is it is 100% possible for two people who have never met, never saw one another's cosplay ; can come up with the same idea to accomplish a certain aesthetic or look at the exact same time by virtue of simply understanding their craft and knowing how to best accomplish their goal.
I do agree that this is this wierd anxiety in the community that we will accidentally plagiarize or be called out on it but as a creator who has been directly and maliciously plagerized by a larger creator this year i hope that others can tell the difference between honest mistakes and stepping on other creators to get ahead. Using resources from other creators isn't a sign of weakness, we cant be masters of everything and lifting up the people who got us there keeps those resources alive.
and I'm so sorry that happened to you. Resources and commissions need to be celebrated and uplifted, they actively make our community better, and the cosplayers who try and take advantage of that generosity of labor are pure garbage to me
Holy wow, this is fascinating. At first i was like, Oh Jeez its 50 Minutes, but a few minutes in, i'm hooked. I worry about things like this, too, wanting to do something original, but everyone's cosplay is always a little different. Even if its a bought cosplay, the way they alter it or style the wig will still change. Its also great when people share how they made things, so others can learn from them. Instead of gatekeeping it because they think no one's allowed to do the same thing. I love discussing with other cosplayers who have done the same character, about how they made it. Also I am loving the discussion about affirmative vs transformative. Fanfic reinterpretations of canon are so interesting. Ohmygosh MAGFest sounds so cool. Thank you so much for this video.
As always an absolutely rad and well thought-out video! Definitely passing this around to a bunch of my friends since we are all artists in one way or another and have been talking about this topic recently! Also I have said it before but your Churles makes my heart happy
Omg! I'm barely through this video but im already seeing myself in this 😅 so back in like 2021 i had doodled a fun "korok but as a human" cosplay design to be used later at some point, only to then find your videos and honestly get a bit discouraged (not your fault obv!!!!! Just exactly what you're talking about in this video) but i gave myself time to breath with it and when it came to last year and totk coming out i realized honestly? I just really wanted to make it!! And when i watched your making of videos they actually inspired me MORE than i even was originally!!! I think we can get bogged down by thinking if someone with "clout" or visibility makes something than its off limits, but people bring their own flair and style to even making the exact same cosplay! Thanks for talking about this subject, and for giving me so much inspo in making my own korok design 🥰
If I left Reddit to go be more transmasc on tumblr, yet I like making affirmative cosplay and fanart but reading transformative fic… what gender does that make me? Checkmate, fandom gender essentialists
I also am really enjoying “transformative vs affirmational” as a lens, and it’s fun to think about the ways some things are a mix of both-in the mid-2000s me and my friends were mostly trying to make really accurate cosplays, but then we would use them to take pictures that changed the characters and made them as queer as, in hindsight, we all later turned out to be. Sometimes you have to be the gays you wish were in your JRPGs you know?
Great video essay! I agree with a lot of points you made. I see cosplay as a type of fan art that you wear on your body. Because it’s fan art, I don’t see it as stealing from the source material, but just like fan art, you can steal from other fan art. It’s a very nuanced thing you’re 100% right that the platforms we use to share our creations incentivize people to copy and paste without credit because we all have to compete with algorithms that favor content mills. At the end of the day, it’s only through more conversation that we can try to come together as a community to be on the same page with things.
I've been in the cosplay scene for a hot minute and I think this comes around every couple of years with a new brand. It's unfortunate but I've seen cosplayers quit the hobby bc they feel like they weren't credited for designs. It's a bummer because I do think there's a lot of nuance and complications (even if we don't look at intentional plagiarism cases) . Hopefully keeping this conversation chill and non blaming like you have presented it will help newer cosplayers
great video!!! i ADORE your cosplay and as someone who also makes niche characters it makes me happy. but i thought you really covered some of the important takeaways from the plagiarism conversation and its impact on community-building, and i also feel like i got new perspectives, especially at the end with your thought of community-centered vs. corporation-centered approaches and thinking about how social media and cons play into that. i think it connects a lot to why i've found getting into nerdy spaces irl frustrating. i found a great group of friends in a sff group in college that had its roots in 80s fandom and which was about celebrating each others interests and getting into them as much as our own, and creating our own events and curating our own space (i mean i personally wrote several sff themed murder mystery games that we played!). but since i've graduated it's been soooo hard to find stuff to do around where i live that felt like. human spaces. like the spaces that survive often get so corporate or generalized that they don't feel like they're shaped by people anymore. and it sucks because i KNOW those spaces can exist and that people are drawn to making stuff and sharing community!! really tangential to cosplay plagiarism as a topic but truly capitalism is sooo intentionally shaping the choices we make, the values social media enforces, and the spaces we can exist in on and offline. i would get into fandom blogging/video/etc. if it wasn't so fast paced, promoting big-name franchises and corporation ads, and centered on sites that are creating a truly inhospitable space!! it's not even that i want to grow, but community conversation is what i love about participating in the internet! thanks for accumulating your thoughts and sharing your project process! the other creators videos you shared were also a great addition - i always see that more as an academic lit. review - it's not that you're trying to avoid plagiarism so much as needing to establish your work in the context of other peoples existing research! and with cosplay, it makes sense that those are going to be largely video discussions online, though i agree that it would be great to see it transition towards more formalized research. lots to think about lol. oh speaking of making other people's designs, do you describe the techniques you used to make that jacket somewhere? i'm really interested in the way it's constructed and made out of as a beginner sewer but i don't remember seeing it if you have.
oh i didn't even talk about how this connects to my long lived hatred of copyright law!!! i've been into studying it for like. ten years. and the way people have taken from the plagiarism convo that there should be more and tighter copyright laws??? people also enjoy turning to punitive justice when discussing something horrible that's underlooked (and tightening laws and internet harrassment are also forms of punitive justice (whether by the legal system or extra-judicially enforced)). it is too easy to get caught up in emotions and forget WHY the issue is so important in the first place and why they exist. the hbomberguy video did a good job of focusing the creators, explaining the intent and nature of plagiarism, and highlighting the systemic profit-motives and marginalization that fuel it. public domain fuels creativity. it fuels people to make original works and derivative works that add value to our existence. copyright law fuels profit-motives, and is only legally enforceable by corporations or socially enforceable via hate campaigns. neither of those things benefit the creators being stolen from.
ok apparently this video made my adhd hyperfixation brain go brrrr so good job lol! i should probably go craft or something to derail myself before the rest of the afternoon passes haha
Loved this video! Especially taking the concept of affirmative vs transformative fandom and applying it to cosplay. I never really liked the concept before bc I sadly only encountered it in the very gendered context you talked about, but seeing some of the original post was very interesting and im gonna go do some more reasearch on that. Also totally agree, while I love academic work about fanfic, I would love to read more about cosplay! Im now noticing that this comment isnt really saying anything about the main topic of plagarism but tbh I dont really have anything to add, I thought it was a really wellrounded stance.
I listened to this video while I con-crunched my cosplay of Doflamingo from One Piece lol. One of my favorite things about being a cosplayer with multiple, specific skill sets is being able to harness that creativity and thinking outside of the box. My designs are not unique by any means, as most characters are recognizable as an outfit/look. However, my FAVORITE thing about cosplay is being a transformative fan in *how* I cosplay. A majority of the cosplays I bring to conventions are either partially or fully crochet. It is one of my favorite parts about my craft. The outfits of the characters I cosplay are not canonically crochet and probably never will be, but the joy of it is being able to channel my love for the artistry and design and the iconic works of the source material through using a skillset I find to be underutilized in this community. It's such a wonderful feeling getting compliments from non-fiber artist cosplayers, fiber artists that don't cosplay, and fiber artists that do cosplay bc all three of those groups can recognize the time, effort, and artistry that went into making them. Being a transformative fan in the cosplay community is one of the most rewarding experiences I have ever had the pleasure of having. I'm so glad other people also feel that way. Buying a cosplay is fine because it's a different experience for a lot of people, but as an artist it's one of the most rewarding hobbies and amazing communities I have ever had the pleasure of being part of.
I'm glad I found this channel. I was just laying in bed, getting swallowed by anxious thoughts, and desperately needed a video to grab my attention with a story and help me relax.
In my opinion, I think if we didn't have to fight for recognition and money to have a decent quality of life people would be much more comfortable with others being inspired by their work. Obviously plagiarism would still happen, but then it's much more about social gain, which is lost if you're found out - and it wouldn't mean the creator losing out on paying their bills because someone didn't play fair.
This video has genuinely helped me be less anxious about trying to get into cosplay again and not back out on making the actual costume itself. Thank you so much for making a detailed video about this. ☺️💚
I've been out of nerd culture for just over decade (life, kids, careers took over) and now the preteen wants to go to a con and cosplay and I'm struggling to find that community and connection again. It's so different from when i first started cosplaying. I think you summed up exactly why.
I only started going to cons a few years ago and started cosplaying where my boyfriend has been part of the community for ages. He had it a lot easier than what I did. He could wear an inspiration piece and get no comments I wear inspiration pieces and people tell me it's disgraceful being cheap, go as sailor moon from the eternal movie to my first major convention? I get people calling me a copycat, cheat because I didn't make the costume and called a disgrace for wearing something a tall, slim person wears as a plus size average height 24 year old
Around the end of the video, you said the word "homage" and it immediatly clicked for me, like thats it! Thats what cosplay is in one word! Publicly showing the love you have for a specific media.
Your channel is BLOWING up, congrats on the success. Most of my cosplays are replication, and I think in replication copying others ideas and improving/adapting is essential. I've also had more 'creative' costumes *that have aged horribly*... that I've seen people copy a lot of, which for me is fine, but I did find it a little weird. In selling 3d files I have had some issues, my 'solution' is just to not look and see if people are stealing stuff. Luckily what I mostly sell is Sailor Moon stuff, and that seems like a pretty chill community overall. One cool thing with cosplay is that it's one of the least commercial art forms out there. Like 99.99% of cosplayers do what they do without any expectation of money. They do it because the love the art, the process, or the performance.
those aggregate accounts piss me off so incredibly much. in the vein of cosplay and specifically genshin cosplays there have been these accounts that just name themseleves genshin impact 123 or genshin cosplay and then take and steal and steal and steal. worst part of it all is most of them steal douyin/bilibili content from chinese cosplayers who normally have no way of knowing and those accounts never credit or post a half hearted credit to them thats either hidden in a corner of the video or in their wall of text. In the same vien of chinese cosplayers it also leads to really weird fetishey/dehumanising accounts popping up that are dedicated to posting stolen chinese content presented in weird ways. Ive seen accounts that are dedicated to just posting chinese girls and often chinese cosplay girls and they dont pretend its anything else, its often outright stated in a fetishey way.And heck ive even seen the effects of it all. I know of a content creator who reacts to videos his viewers send in, and most the time every chinese cosplay video gets credited to some youtube thief or tiktok thief.
I think this is why when I find a great fanart that has an alternate style for a character, I make sure to ask the artist if its okay to cosplay. I've done it 3 times now and each time, I have been blessed with the artist being all for it. They've all said yes and been excited to see what I've done once it's done. If I ever do so again, I will always ask and if I go to competition, I will always credit the marker of that art.
Really enjoyed this video! Been cosplaying since 2013 and I've seen a lot of the same things happening in communities. Hearing you talk about it and break it down was really nice !
It's been a hot minute since I was involved with any cosplay community, and my first thought on clicking this video was "oh FFS". Thoughts about the comment you received- for real I think there are a lot of kids on the internet who are unhappy with themselves and/or their lives, and their way of making themselves feel like Better People is by jumping on others to "correct" them. If they spend all their time drive-by policing others' morals and actions, that's time they don't have to spend looking at themselves. I also 100% blame Twitter "armchair activism" for spreading the language of morality without spreading any real understanding or compassion. They're not necessarily bad kids, their emotional intelligence and social education is just severely lacking. That and the capitalist hell we live in has taught them to be WAY too serious about their hobbies, treating people making stuff for fun like another company competing for their livelihood or something. (Even in your case despite being a professional, you're still a world away from mass-producing companies stealing cosplayer's photos, etc.) Not to be a fossil but MAN I miss the stupid casual cosplay of the 90s lmao
I'm not super deeply immersed in the cosplay community (I follow you + one other person, & both only since last year), but a lot of this really resonated with me as someone who has been deeply involved in the fanfiction-side of fandom for over 15 years at this point, particularly in the overlap between the discussions that are being had. (So I was then extra delighted when you actually mentioned fic/some of the overlap going on there further on in the video
i don't even HAVE a following and i've had my work stolen MULTIPLE TIMES by cosplay sales websites! it comes with the territory of niche fanbases, i suppose, but it's SO common and so frustrating! (side note: cannot WAIT to see you at katsu, friend!
permanently cold hands gang rise up \o/ but not too much cause our hands will get cold also honestly a huge fan of this style of video-documentary-voiceover-slash-vlog. it's very fun and chaotic but very cool and interesting with the. i dont wanna say "dual narratives" cause it feels weird to describe a vlog as a narrative but like, yknow. anyways its a fun vibe and always cool to see. very much enjoyed the Katsu video in the similar style and I share it to all my friends all the time, lol. I think the discussion around using cosplay as a shorthand term at 34:40, and cosplay always being derivative is very interesting - because technically, yes, fanworks being derivative is the entire point (and something something all art is derivative nothing is "original" but everything is inspirational and isn't that beautiful and even in nature mimicry occurs so like biology did it first-) - but in it being inherently derivative it's also inherently transformative like you mentioned - and that's why fanworks are protected under copyright law and fair use. Because in being inherently transformative they are inherently not plagiarism (at least of the source material) - it's a different medium or dimension or anything, really. And fanworks being inherently transformative is why we have stuff like Ao3's parent company being the Organization for Transformative Works. Fandom has fought so long and hard to have their work recognized as transformed enough to be fair use (though it's heavily focused on fanfic, and how that effects other genres of fanworks is really interesting) and fighting to prove that it's not plagiarism, is a unique artform (or artforms) in its own right and deserves to exist, and i think there's honestly a whole 'nother rabbit hole you could go down about how "derivative" has such negative baggage associated with it when it's very neutral in practicality. and regarding the terminology aspect, you could absolutely do a social linguistics study about defining something as "cosplaying" something else having negative associations. I do think in general it's fair to use cosplay as a term like in the example but removed of the negative connotation, because it does fulfill a sort of linguistic niche - it's literally "costume play" which implies a level of theatre and disguise and performance that's difficult to convey otherwise, alongside a sort of levity. While cosplay can absolutely be very serious and it is an incredibly impressive and complex artform, it has "play" in the word for a reason. "Acting" doesn't necessarily imply the same thing, because while it does signify putting on an act, it leaves out the costume/disguise aspect and has more of an air of seriousness. Meanwhile just the implication of costume alone implies an imitation/facsimile but without the performance inherently behind it. "Cosplaying" inherently implies both at once with that same air of "the point of this is for fun/entertainment." Adam Savage talks a lot about the interesting breakdown of cosplay as a form of performance art and interactive theatre that's really interesting - his TedTalk about cosplay goes over that topic a bit, but i know he's discussed it elsewhere as well. While like you said it can be used in a derogatory manner, i think it's a lot kinder to view that definition as focusing on that "play" aspect, where the intention and purpose behind that costume and performance is based on personal entertainment and play. You aren't a lesser video essayist for "cosplaying" a video essayist, you're putting on that hat to embody that role simply for the joy and interest that doing so brings you, even if it's not a role you'd normally take up. Misc. less essay-ish comments: - THE FIESTA BLEND,,,, - Really love the discussion of transformative vs affirmative fanworks and the different perspectives that can arise in fandom that. Definitely going to check that out more. - The power dynamics in and commodification/commercialization of cosplay (and fandom in general) is another really fascinating rabbithole topic that I'd love to see discussed more in general, particularly with how fandom in general has moved away from community and into commodity. I was reading parts of an article recently for a project talking about something similar: "The Practice of Everyday (Media) Life: From Mass Consumption to Mass Cultural Production" by Lev Manovich, shockingly from 2009. And some of the things in that felt like they hit very close to home in our current social media landscape. I have noticed an uptick recently though of people in various fan communities actively combating that though by working to uplift other fans more often and rebuilding that sense of community that's been lost, which is always nice to see. anyways, fascinating video, excellent thoughts, gonna be chewing on perceptions of derivative art and fanworks and fandom "influencer" social capita for a bit while i bundle up my cold cold hands after typing half an essay in the comments, lol.
I know this is an older video, so you probably won't see this. But I just wanted to say that I LOVE that you did Churles here! I saw the name in your notebook before you showed the jacket, and I was was just like wait what - it can't be! But it WAS and that was so exciting! I love the metallic silver of the Jamas on the jacket! Such a cool start!
I know that it is a different area completely that I was in but getting the messages that you took someone else's idea sucks. It can make you lose motivation even, as it did in my case. Almost everything has inspiration from something else, and sometimes people can have similar ideas.. and really what is messaging someone going to do to help especially in the case of Cosplay which typically is using a set source work for inspiration. My story that was mentioned before is.. I was a (smallish) designer on Second Life in the late 2000's and ran a shop that sold things for the garden. I made all my own textures, sculpts ect. I designed a Tree that was a heart shaped trunk, with a pillow that you could sit your avatar on. Honestly its not like it is a design no one else would think of but up to that point i had not seen one. About a year or so later, after it had done really well in my store, I got a nasty hateful message from someone telling me i should be ashamed for stealing a design from a (much bigger) designer. I knew who this designer was, I had even been to their shop a few times, and i had never seen anything like it there. So just out of curiosity to see what I had supposedly stolen I went to the shop. In their new section there it was, a heart shaped tree, with a swing for your avatar to sit on. Now like i said.. its not a design that i would go "anyone who makes anything remotely like it copied me!" Even if mine was made a year before, they may not have seen my design, or maybe they did and it was a derivative of it.. who knows. Anyway, to have some fangirl of their shop yell at me really REALLY sucked and made me just lose a lot of motivation for designing things.
That was a great video 🥰 thank you for sharing it! I am excited to do cosplay for the first time this year and this video really helped me understand the cosplay community and I feel inspired (yes I am cosplaying a not very popular character from a not popular game) but it feels achievable 😊 but anyway thank you if you end up going to New York Comic Con I hope to see you there in whatever you decide to do :3
Cosplay is basically fanning over a IP and technically “copying” an idea and you can pull inspo from many places to make a cosplay so plagiarism is squishy anyway like there is sooo many inspos that are great out there
I like the perspective of affirmative vs transformative work. However, I don't think it's a perfect model. When I think "transformative" I think of Fair Use. And I think "affirmative" cosplay that would still meet the definition of transformative under Fair Use - the act of rendering a piece of media into a 3D, wearable cosplay on the human form (even near identical reproductions) meets Fair Use's definition of transformative.
