# Anybody here has ever done cosplay? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 27, 2016, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-here-has-ever-done-cosplay/767070 "2016-09-27T20:09:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![tonyfop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/85f322/32.png) [@tonyfop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tonyfop)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2016, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-here-has-ever-done-cosplay/767070/21 "2016-09-29T12:54:24Z")
Okay, this link should work… [Super Mario!!! - Album on Imgur](https://imgur.com/gallery/bo61d) ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2016, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-here-has-ever-done-cosplay/767070/22 "2016-09-29T13:02:40Z")
I went as Arthur Dent to a Halloween party once in the early 80s, and that’s about it. Gives me barely just enough of an excuse to do the following: > [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > I own a pair of prescription prince-nez SOUL BROTHER ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2016, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-here-has-ever-done-cosplay/767070/23 "2016-09-29T13:09:00Z")
No dressing as a coalmaker for Christmas? 🙂 Olentzero the coalmaker is one of the options for Christmas presents-bringers in the Basque country. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2016, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-here-has-ever-done-cosplay/767070/24 "2016-09-29T13:20:22Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > No dressing as a coalmaker for Christmas? 🙂 I don’t think anybody this far north would get it; besides, getting clearance from the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Jultomtar is a stone pain in the ass. ---
**Author:** ![TwiSpark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TwiSpark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwiSpark)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2016, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-here-has-ever-done-cosplay/767070/25 "2016-09-29T15:40:52Z")
> [@tonyfop](#): > > Okay, this link should work… [Super Mario!!! - Album on Imgur](https://imgur.com/gallery/bo61d) That’s a brilliant Mario, I’d have been hassling you with a camera in hand too… well played 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![flaming\_yawn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/cab0a1/32.png) [@flaming\_yawn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flaming_yawn)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2016, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-here-has-ever-done-cosplay/767070/26 "2016-09-29T17:05:42Z")
yes went to a zombie con dressed as “In the flesh” zombies it was a BBC show that lasted 1 season, and maybe a half. NO One knew who we were except 1 other middle aged woman. It was all worth it as “Barbara” from Night of the Living Dead asked a lot about the show and my husband was so excited he got to meet both Barbara and her brother from the movie. My daughter is a a huge cosplayer and does mostly manga characters I have never heard of. As long as it isnt slutty I say ok. It is sort of creepy when a 50 yr old man asks to take her picture…last time 1 gave out candy then took the picture, I was standing right there and her friends and her each took a candy! I looked at her and said “what the #1 rule of life?..Don’t take candy from strangers!” :smack: ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2016, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-here-has-ever-done-cosplay/767070/27 "2016-09-29T17:48:12Z")
> [@chrisk](#): > > Of course not! Harry doesn’t do hats. 😃 Yeah, but you get ONE book cover with a duster AND a hat…well, way more than one, I guess. In fact, I think EVERY DF novel’s cover has him in a hat. ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2016, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-here-has-ever-done-cosplay/767070/28 "2016-09-29T18:48:39Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Yeah, but you get ONE book cover with a duster AND a hat…well, way more than one, I guess. In fact, I think EVERY DF novel’s cover has him in a hat. Yes, I heard Jim Butcher talk about that… apparently to the people who draw book covers, you can’t be a hard-boiled noir kinda-private-eye without a hat. 😃 (That was at the con where I premiered the cosplay outfit. Actually got a masquerade contest award for “Best Fuego-grilled burger” - and got Jim to sign the award certificate!) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2016, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-here-has-ever-done-cosplay/767070/29 "2016-09-29T21:25:48Z")
To be fair, he has contemplated many times that he probably _should_ wear a hat, so he can extend his bulletproof-duster spell to cover his head. ---
**Author:** ![Stonebow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Stonebow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stonebow)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-here-has-ever-done-cosplay/767070/30 "2016-09-30T01:13:07Z")
Gonna have to plead guilty on this one. My wife and now my 14 year old cosplay as well. My recent characters: Winter Soldier, Captain Bernadotte from Hellsing, Assassin from Fate/Zero, Black Mask from Batman, one of the Crazy 88, an Agent of Shield (super easy), Asha’man from the Wheel of Time…probably a few others. Oh, and steampunk. Some pretty screen accurate, some less so. Working on a Wayne (of Wax and Wayne in the Mistborn series) for my next outing. My wife has done Zatanna, an incredible Saber from Fate/Zero, Sera Victoria from Hellsing…and a lot of others. The boy just started, and does a spot-on Lancer (Fate/Zero) and Alucard (Hellsing). Most of the costumes are homemade, she does the cloth work, i do the props. The wife and I are also 501st members, which is like cosplay, but serious business. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-here-has-ever-done-cosplay/767070/31 "2016-09-30T03:50:40Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > I wore a peasant blouse and a handmade fancy-assed chainmaille head adornment to a RenFaire once. Does that count? Probably not. . … That describes the costume. Did you “play”? Did you, at least part of the time, pretend you were from that period? You said RenFaire, so I’m gonna guess yes. So yeah, that’s cosplay. Me, not really. I’ve worn costumes, but not really done the play part. And I’m frankly intimidated in the more traditional cosplay arena-cons. It seems that standards are high, and that you can’t just dress up to have fun and role play. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-here-has-ever-done-cosplay/767070/32 "2016-09-30T06:14:02Z")
I wear mechanics overalls to the junkyard. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-here-has-ever-done-cosplay/767070/33 "2016-09-30T11:53:08Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > That describes the costume. Did you “play”? Did you, at least part of the time, pretend you were from that period? You said RenFaire, so I’m gonna guess yes. > > So yeah, that’s cosplay. No, it isn’t. What Rennfaire does (and other similar groups, like the SCA) is not cosplay. Cosplay is portraying some specific fictional character (even if it’s a nameless mook, or you’ve added a twist like genre- or gender-bending), not a historical character (obviously, if you’re cosplaying a historic character _as portrayed in a work of fiction_, that counts. Dress as[Leonardo DiCaprio](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/2S8YWL9JRtA/maxresdefault.jpg) from _The Revenant_, that’s cosplay. Dress as a [mountain man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckskinning#/media/File:Buckskins.JPG) for reenactment, not cosplay.) Obviously, the edges of the set are fuzzy, but I would never call just dressing in period costume cosplay, even if you have a fully-fleshed-out persona to go with it - I do both, but I don’t call what I do in the SCA cosplay. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-here-has-ever-done-cosplay/767070/34 "2016-09-30T13:05:00Z")
I don’t see the point of the distinction. And it seems weird to consider any dude in a Starfleet shirt as more “specific” than a long-running character in an unwritten, collectively-improvised work of fiction. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-here-has-ever-done-cosplay/767070/35 "2016-09-30T15:20:48Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > I don’t see the point of the distinction. You don’t see ‘the point’ of picayune genre distinctions and obsession over the minutiae of classification? The distinction _is_ the point… Do you even geek, bro?😃 > [@](#): > > And it seems weird to consider any dude in a Starfleet shirt as more “specific” than a long-running character in an unwritten, collectively-improvised work of fiction. ‘Specific’ here means “one where you can _specify_ a work of fiction as your character source”. You can’t really do that with SCA personae (in fact, it’s actively discouraged) ---
**Author:** ![Arabella\_Flynn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8491ac/32.png) [@Arabella\_Flynn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arabella_Flynn)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2016, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-here-has-ever-done-cosplay/767070/36 "2016-10-02T21:35:07Z")
Ooh, as often as possible. I love dressing funny. I have no photos of the white mage robes (FFIX Garnet-style) or the mermaid costume that was at least 50% my own hair, but I have professional shots of the [Black Widow](https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=257504074396937&l=c37a13eed4) and [Poison Ivy](https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=257714027709275&l=17e2335da7) outfits. I get to be in costume for theater a lot. Mostly these days it’s Victoriana. [Here](http://www.mrshawking.com/sample-page/videos/) are a couple of the things I’ve done; I’m the redhead in the housemaid outfit. I also dress my pets up. Rats, as it turns out, have no fashion sense whatsoever, and will wear whatever you stuff them into as long as you also love them and give them treats. I dressed one set up as Musketeers, another set up as Avengers, and this year I have four brothers who will be spending Halloween as ghosts. The plan is to dress them as Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde, and then let them go after a Pac-Man popcorn ball. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2016, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-here-has-ever-done-cosplay/767070/37 "2016-10-02T21:49:23Z")
I once dressed as Mr. B Natural for an MST3K costume ball, and yes I did play the part at intervals during the evening. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2016, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-here-has-ever-done-cosplay/767070/38 "2016-10-02T23:25:30Z")
I was a Tom Baker Doctor at a con. I even made the scarf myself, from a BBC pattern so it had the correct color patten. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-here-has-ever-done-cosplay/767070/39 "2016-10-03T02:35:39Z")
I’ve dressed up as Sirius Black. I’ve been to a few 20’s costume parties and got dressed up for that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-here-has-ever-done-cosplay/767070.md?page=1)