The weird and wonderful adventures of cosplay

(Akihabara News 2007)

Before attending the Supernova exhibition in Brisbane on 6 April 2008, I was unfamiliar with the term 'cosplay'. To an outsider, this lifestyle first appeared to be strange and amusing at the same time. Cosplay is different to furry fandom. The term is short for "costume play" and is a Japanese subculture centered on dressing as characters from manga, anime, tokusatsu, television shows, video games, fantasy movies, Japanese pop music bands, Visual Kei, fantasy music stories and novels. In some circles like those present at the exhibition, cosplay has been expanded to mean wearing a costume.

Cosplay is seen at public events such as video game shows and pop culture exhibitions like Supernova. The whole pop culture experience brought back memories of my time spent in Tokyo's Akihabara district, with a large number of toy stores devoted to toys and figurines and several cafes devoted to anime fans. "Cosplay teeters somewhere between a healthy, semi-sanctioned way of acting out fantasies and the kind of red flag that's thrown up when you see a kid with a fascination for his parent's knickers," (McCormick in Lipke 2007, 18).

Photographer Elena Dorfman spent a year visiting 160 or more cosplay conventions including Anime Overdose and Yaoi-Con. "This is a new version of Trekkies, but way more sophisticated. It's an internal and external exploration of who they are, and what they'd like to be," (Dorfman in Lipke 2007, 18). This new generation of non-conformists are enamored with Japanese anime and video games in an inordinate effort to dress up as their favourite characters and act out parts of their lives in fantasy mode (Lipke 2007, 18).

The cosplay costumes are extremely elaborate and require the designer to spend months handcrafting their creation (Santoso, 1998). The costumes must adhere to the specific designs of the characters' outfit and the intricate details are very critical (Wikipedia 2008). Other cosplay performers will purchase their costumes from artists or designers in order to participate in costume contents at cosplay events (Santoso 1998). Cosplay can also mean the use of costumes for sexual purposes (Wikipedia 2008). It requires sexual play while dressed up and is also known as sexual role playing or fetishism (Wikipedia 2008).

The trend of cosplay has arrived in Australia and it is mirroring USA in which costumes may be chosen from sources other than just anime or manga (Wikipedia 2008). Any sources including comics, computer games, science fiction, fantasy movies, TV shows and novels provide inspiration for costumes. Cosplay is generally only seen in capital cities, however small social groups often host their own local events in regional areas (Wikipedia 2008).

The majority of participants at cosplay gatherings come on stage as their online avatars (Balakrishnan 2007). Why do people decide to cosplay in distinct online identities? It was found that women avatars created by men were very highly sexualised. Women on the other hand created their avatars to directly oppose the stereotypical female avatars by throwing in short hair and glasses to not present femininity (Balakrishnan 2007). This is a direct online extension of the historical battle of the sexes (Balakrishnan 2007). Web 2.0 assist people to reach online games, dating sites, social networks, blogs and virtual worlds.

In Japan, cosplay has attracted negative sexual connotations over the years and many Japanese people feel that cosplay is reprehensible (Wikipedia 2008). In contrast, Americans and Australians who cosplay often refer to themselves as "geeks" or "otaku" and use this to embody themselves in a sociological group (Wikipedia 2008). An otaku in Japan means standing on the bottom rungs of the nation's social ladder (Wikipedia 2008).

At the conclusion of the exhibition I came away with the opinion that while this lifestyle appears weird and amusing, as with any lifestyle or sexual choice it must be respected and not subject to mockery or ridicule.

References

Akihabara News. 2008. Latest news. http://www.akihabaranews.com/ (accessed 2 May 2008).

Balakrishnan, R. 2007. Proximity peeps into e-branding age. Knight Ridder Tribune Business News. June 21.

Lipke, D. 2007. Compass fresh perspectives on style. DNR. 37 (17): 18.

Santoso, W. 1998. What is cosplay?http://www.nyx.net/~wsantoso/cosptext.html (accessed 30 April 2008).

Wikipedia. 2008. Cosplay. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosplay (accessed 22 April 2008).

What's your teenage e-Society subculture?

(Fanboy 2008)

Teenage e-society has divided itself into distinctive subcultures due to the continued embrace of the Internet and World Wide Web in their every day lives. Results taken from a study of a residential school using findings from observations, surveys and interactions with students discusses how teenagers dominate online environments (Brown et al). The realm for teenagers in cyberspace forms a virtual subculture around them and resonates to the offline 'real world'.

The five main subculture fragmentations of teenage e-society include explorers, socialisers, gamers, transporters and publishers (Brown et al). If you're an explorer (37.6%), you primarily use the Internet to gather information. A socialiser (35.4%) is an individual who uses it to interact socially with family and peers. The gamer (14.9%) involve themselves in online gaming by playing solo or interacting in group play with other peers. Transporters (10.7%) are individuals who use the Internet to download files including movies, audio files and programs. Publishers (1.4%) upload and create content on the Internet for their own purposes or for the benefit of other peers.

Our economy is currently in an Information Age, which refers to the global economy's shift in focus away from the Industrial Age of the production of goods towards the manipulation of information. The majority of teenage e-Society utilises the Internet for exploring (37.6%). Kavanaugh (2005) suggests high Internet usage combined with geographical proximity results in increased communication among existing subculture groups. The close interaction online by teenagers increases subculture stability and it is typical to find gamers discussing gaming online and offline in the 'real world'. Information technology and the Internet relates to the use of electronic mediums to store, process, transmit and retrieve information. These technological advances have drastically changed the lifestyles of teenagers around the world and enabled the introduction of new niche industries around controlling and providing information to users. Since the invention of the World Wide Web (WWW) in 1989, the Internet has transformed into a global network for its users and teenagers of e-Society. It is currently the best place to speed up the flow of relevant information.

Teenagers are emotionally and socially linked to their use of the Internet and WWW, using the medium to break into cyberspace subcultures which are further integrated into their daily lives. The research article by Brown et al. (2005) is a successful research article because the findings are continued on from a previous study at the school and can be resonated back into the 'real world'. It was observed in the study that teenagers at school settle into one of the five subcultures within approximately thirty days of arriving at a school. It is interpersonal experiences which are the pivotal point of subcultures and computer usage since the early days of the Internet. It is particularly useful as an example of data for future research on the residential school and will also enable future researchers an opportunity to understand how the interests, behaviours, patterns and personality types reflect each individual teenage e-society subculture.

We are in a digital world where teenagers across continents unite to share ideas, compete interactively, download files, and work together to build projects and ideas. The development of wireless Internet increased the possibilities of personalising social networking and e-Society subcultures to a broader range of situations. Occasionally, teenagers use information for their own purposes to create and redistribute ideas for other peers and users on the Internet. John Gage (2002) states the Internet is not a thing, a place, a single technology, or a mode of governance. It is an agreement and in the language of those who build it contains a protocol or a specific way of behaving. The dramatic speed of the agreement is startling the world and sweeping across all industry areas including communications, media, governance and commerce.


References

Brown et al. 2006. Subculture Fragmentation of Teenage e-Society. From Iadis Virtual Multi Conference 2006. http://www.iadis.org/Multi2006/Papers/17/S019_WAR.pdf (accessed 3 April 2008).

Fanboy. 2008. Fandom Archives. http://www.fanboy.com/ (accessed 10 May 2008).

Gage, J. 2002. "Decentering Society" available from http://www.civmag.com/articles/C9910E03.html (accessed 1 April 2008).

Kavanaugh, A., Carroll, J.M., Rosson, M.B., Zin, T.T., Reese, D.D. 2005. Community Networks: Where offline communities meet online. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. Available from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue4/kavanaugh/html (accessed 24 March 2008).