Community and Cosplay: Online Harassment
Online harassment has been an issue for years. In a 2017 study done by Pew Research, online harassment is referred to as a “feature” of being active online.
This is even more prevalent when it comes harassment faced by minorities. Race, almost overwhelmingly so, is the motivation behind harassment and hate crimes. The hate crime statistics released by the FBI for the year of 2019 is evidence that race is a motivator for over 50% of all hate crimes.
The way this kind of harassment and hate crimes happen online can be through a variety of ways. Leaving slur filled messages in comment sections, threatening with doxxing and physical threats, and so on.
And within the niche community of cosplay, this is still pertinent. This harassment faced by the community comes not only from those outside of it, but also from those inside. There’s an unhealthy (and mainly Eurocentric) standard of beauty when it comes to cosplayers. The ideal standard for cosplayers, and what has become the goal in the community, is slender and pale. These are the types of cosplayers who, especially on platforms like TikTok, have shot to stardom overnight because of their looks and proportions.
Not all cosplayers look the same, though. And for that, for not looking like carbon copies of (sometimes ridiculously so) anime or game characters, many have received hate.
Bunny, commonly known by their TikTok username @bunnyzvi (their Instagram username is @zea.virunas), is an East Coast plus-sized POC cosplayer who joined the community within the past three years. For Bunny, cosplay isn’t just a form of expression, but a way for them to explore their creativity and confidence.
“I remember seeing this one article about a plus-sized POC woman, and I couldn’t get her out of my head. She made characters I love my size, and in a darker skin tone, and I just marveled in the hard work and creativity,” explains Bunny about how they first fell in love with cosplay.
It’s cosplayers who lose themselves to their creativity, who hone their makeup skills until it’s as if they’re an illusion and not a person. It’s these cosplayers who, in the words of Bunny, “make the world magical.”
“Because I had heard so many horror stories about the [cosplay] community and seen some stuff myself, and here she was rising about all that and being her, and different and I wanted to be like her. I still do,” Bunny says about the unknown cosplayer who inspired them to begin cosplaying instead of staying on the sidelines as an audience member.
But, horror stories? Surely the harassment that goes on in the cosplay community can’t be bad enough to be called horror stories. Right?
Think again. Discrimination is nothing new in the cosplay world.
“The [cosplay] community can be pretty harsh if you don’t fit their standards. Being POC, being plus-sized, not being “canon”. Which, that one right there is a very toxic phrase and mental state,” says Bunny.
Bunny has heard stories of cosplayers being bullied off their platforms and “posted to websites without consent where people would rip them apart.” Fitting the ideal of “canon” has become a toxic expression that can push cosplayers out of the community because the word makes them think they don’t have the right look in order to cosplay. Or, in other words, they don’t fit the mold of slender and pale. And, even then, the cosplayers who do will be picked apart for being “too fat” or not having enough curves. It’s a toxic cycle.
“I have witnessed my friends called slurs and comments made about them destroying characters, if they cosplay game characters or anime, even normal shows and movies like X-Men and the like,” adds Bunny.
When it comes to personal experiences, Bunny tends to cosplay original characters because of what they experienced the two times they cosplayed from someone else’s source material.
“My weight came into play, and then my color...but I think my least favorite thing, as a light skinned POC is [that] I have been told I’m too ‘white’ to play a character of color more than once. And that one really resided with me because one of my dream cosplays is Tiana from The Princess and the Frog. On the other end of the spectrum, when I’m not having an experience like that, I will get pushed at POC characters, or ones that ‘may of been but we aren’t sure because are pink or purple, green,’ etc,” is Bunny’s explanation.
POC-coded characters can be found in media such as Steven Universe. Bunny uses the example of Garnet, Bismuth, and Amethyst to explain what POC-coded characters are.
“These characters are gems of different colors, features, and sizes. Based off [of] voice, behaviors, clothing, and the like, people say things like ‘a person like you could do’ Garnet, Bismuth, Amethyst,” adds Bunny.
The characters mentioned by Bunny, ones that have been mentioned to them, are also the larger ones in the series.
Bunny explains that “people don’t want to see characters they like as plus-sized.”
That isn’t to say that there aren’t plus-sized cosplayers, but those with a platform can be difficult to find. And what the cosplay community considers to be plus-sized often isn’t plus-sized. One of those considered plus-sized is Alice Infinity, a professional cosplay model. She’s seen first hand how the cosplay community treats plus-sized cosplayers versus those on the smaller side.
“Plus-size cosplayers get turned down more often for cosplay shop sponsorships and get shared significantly less than non plus-size cosplayers on social media platforms,” explains Alice Infinity.
She adds that she herself has been “purposefully excluded or cropped out of from group pictures by photographers” because she wasn’t as small as other cosplayers.
Alice Infinity has seen these things happen to other cosplayers, including those she’s friends with, who consider themselves to be plus-sized.
But it’s not all bad.
“I have seen a growth in the way plus-sized cosplayers are treated. It’s still not equal, but I have seen growth,” adds Alice Infinity.
Just in the last three years she has seen “[cosplay] shops offer plus size options for costumes when they previously didn’t have that.” This is a big step considering most cosplay shops create their costumes following Asian sizing standards.
“And people have talked about more inclusivity in the past three years more than ever. More people are bringing to light the issue in the community. Both online and in the convention scene,” Alice Infinity goes on to explain.
When asked about how the cosplay community can present a united front to show solidarity for plus-sized and POC cosplayers, this is what Alice Infinity had to say: “Awareness and listening. By listening to those affected and being aware of the issues, you can better understand what others are going through and by uplifting those voices so more can listen and learn.”
Solidarity and the cosplay community truly coming together as a community is what can help in presenting a united front against harassment and discrimination.
“Being there for each other. Shutting down the bullies and holding bigger platforms to be the example,” is what Bunny says should be done.
