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Vol 2 Ch 17 | FanX 2022 Panel
219 Plays1 year ago
Join us during our very first live event, our panel at FanX 2022 titled "Cosplay, Fandom, and How Women Shaped Geek Culture!" Check out our patreon for a special video version of the panel to watch along!
Join our discord here! https://discord.gg/fNKWGs4
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Theme
00:00:12
Speaker
If you don't know us, we're both, I'm Parker, she's Nebula. We have a podcast called Fan Names with Parks and Nebula, where we, in a very inappropriate way, talk about how online culture has influenced people, how women and queer folk have influenced it, and how they continue to do so now, all the way from the 70s to current day culture.
FanEx and Fandom Origins
00:00:30
Speaker
So what we wanted to bring to FanEx is kind of our different experiences and to also learn the history of why FanEx even exists, why conventions even exist to begin with and what brought all of us together in this room in general and what brought Parker and I together online because she is local, she's from Utah but I'm from Oklahoma and so we have very different cultural experiences
00:00:53
Speaker
even in those respects to our fandom interactions and convention interactions.
Star Trek and Teen Girls in Fandom
00:00:58
Speaker
And so we are going to get started.
00:01:02
Speaker
with convention origins to modern fandom. I don't know if any of you are super familiar with it because now we're kind of turning over into this new generation of fandom and new generation of congoers, but cons started with Star Trek, and the only reason they started with Star Trek, yes, is because of girls. It's because of teenage girls, young women,
00:01:24
Speaker
ages 16 to 25, just getting out there pioneering everything and we want to make sure that that legacy stays alive in modern conventions and in modern interaction with fandom.
00:01:36
Speaker
Quite literally the first from it was a woman named Elise in here And then there were two others in the UK who were first known to show the Star Trek fan club for both areas Without having the internet to connect each other of course They were just doing it by showing up finding these conventions that began after the original series ended No one was satisfied with the ending of it and so zines started to get born people using these characters these universes and stories
Women Leading Fandom and Star Trek's Survival
00:02:02
Speaker
and
00:02:02
Speaker
growing into fan fiction and zines and cosplaying all the other races and cosplaying as troops which we have people doing in here right now it's still going to this day of people wanting to represent this in some way because beforehand we didn't have such big like leaps into pop culture in the
00:02:18
Speaker
early times, for me of course, where people were able to really do that. There wasn't something so above everything else until Star Trek and so it was hard to kind of grasp what could come from it until these conventions. The first one being in Las Vegas where we had the first celebs making their appearances, we had the original writers making appearances and hearing and seeing all these experiences before they could grow into more.
Women's Impact in Fandom History
00:02:42
Speaker
And the only reason that those individuals reached out, that those individuals were actually present at all these events, is because of the young women that were so driven to say, excuse me, can you please come talk to us because we love this show that you're on, we love the story, we would love to hear from your perspective. So yeah, you can thank all these amazing probably now grandmas for all of your fun autographed merch that you get to take home today.
00:03:09
Speaker
So below is the first one. She's leading the first Las Vegas convention, Star Trek fan club, which took place in 1969. Yes. This one was 1969 at the original prior to the original series.
00:03:23
Speaker
And then on the right is the one from 1979 of the first Star Trek fan club in the UK developing and being reported on because of, specifically, was the way that these women were finding the empathy outside of the main story. It was the feminine touch of finding the emotion, why Spock was such a good character to begin with.
00:03:43
Speaker
was all of this from a different perspective. This is going to go a little bit off of the PowerPoint, but have you seen people criticize like Ghibli movies where some guys kind of get it, but more women tend to lean that way? And it's because they feel like nothing's happening. There's not really much going on.
00:04:00
Speaker
But if you watch it from a different perspective, it's so much romanticism in domestic life.
Diverse Perspectives in Fandom
00:04:04
Speaker
It's a lot more of those slow moments everyone has to focus on. That's why everyone always posts like Ghibli movies with the cooking scenes because they're so iconic. They're so brought out and slow. And I know every person in this room could probably like
00:04:17
Speaker
feel something for Hal a little bit. In a similar vein to that and from the queer perspective like we bring in on our podcast for Lord of the Rings whenever the Peter Jackson films first came out in the early 2000s it was the queer actors that were involved in the project that were looking at the source material and saying true fans are going to be looking for the moment when Sam reaches for Frodo and when Sam holds his hand and when Sam does this
00:04:42
Speaker
and all the characters interactions in that because you're not going to typically get that perspective from a straight cisgender white male whenever you're in that kind of industry. You're going to look at the more empathetic and passionate sides of it from the fan side, from the people that are really connecting to that.
00:04:58
Speaker
Of course, I'd like to note we're making a little bit of broad statements when it comes to one side. We're of course not trying to do that because everyone's perspective is different, but bringing in those perspectives is really, really, really important as we push forward into understanding and moving into empathizing with everybody as we move past, because what's not important to you will be important to someone else in an extremely, extremely careful way.
Cosplay: Personal Stories and Family Support
00:05:19
Speaker
Just be careful how you speak about things. We're going to try not to go into a negative on any front, but it's just acknowledging how something can be important to another person. Same way that this was there. It's not normal to cosplay. I tell people I'm a cosplayer and they have no idea what I mean. It's not traditional. I've been doing this for 10 years and it's still awkward to mention. I'm embarrassed about it sometimes. Oh yeah, while packing for this trip, my dad was like, oh, make sure you take extra shoes.
00:05:43
Speaker
I'm in three costumes. Of course I have extra shoes. You don't understand how this works. But kind of to tie back to our original point is I know the image is a little hard to read, but to really get into the young folk and the people that truly pioneered and spearheaded all of this and this wonderful hobby we're all involved in is that Barbara Kitson on the left of the Empathy and Mr. Spock photo, she's only 18 when this photo was taken. And when this Star Trek fan group
00:06:13
Speaker
was created and her co-creator Katherine Owens is only 23 I believe. So if you're thinking that oh I am too young or I can't get involved or oh maybe I can't even like volunteer or whatever, if you do that you're continuing the legacy and you're actually doing it more true to form than anybody else.
00:06:33
Speaker
Well, even on the opposite side of that, the one reason I'm a cosplayer is because of people like my mom, who's in the front here, who was making costumes when I was a little kid and she was growing up on things like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, everything like that. I was learning from her and it's a matter of both. We need the older generations to still feel like they can be participating in it regardless of age. It's something that we have to come together as a community.
00:06:55
Speaker
always and having that to be able to lead and give to the new generations how this can grow how we can do more with this is super super important to building that foundation to a good community in any space you go into and it's how we can make convention safe how we can keep doing this for years and years and
00:07:11
Speaker
And it's just the best thing that we can do. And they're doing it. They're still probably doing it. If I was to go find them on Google, I probably can't. I gotta find their Twitters if I'm trying. There's no way that they're not gonna stop. It's that passion that people can bring that makes it so big. It's the same reason that, like, back when Harry Potter was done, people were so upset that they were writing dreary fanfictions or Draco and Hermione fanfictions that are still going, even though the series is more than a decade old. Yeah.
00:07:37
Speaker
It can keep going. As long as there is a foundation to be built, anything can happen on top of it. Yeah. And on the respect to your mom, my parents are obviously not here because that would be expensive. But they don't get into any of the nerd stuff. They don't understand really any of the stuff that I like. But when I was just a kid, my mom handmade me and stayed until 3 o'clock in the morning doing it. Kyrie's outfit from Kingdom Hearts 2. Any Kingdom Hearts fans? Hello? Yay!
00:08:07
Speaker
That was really loud. And my dad hand made me a keyblade out of wood with all this bare wood he had in the garage and I still have them and I keep them in my apartment in my sewing room and I keep the key blade that he made me up in our living room because that's like, yeah, you don't know but you're still contributing and you're still supporting. So even if you're not involved in the hobby, like all the people in your cities right now, like if you're not involved
00:08:29
Speaker
You're still a part of it and you're still probably supporting someone in a way that maybe you're not even aware of and that you don't really think is super important, but you made a huge impact on their life just by being here, just by showing up.
Convention Culture Legacy
00:08:46
Speaker
photos of what we were talking about with the original conventions, the one being at the 1976, sorry. Yeah, Trekkies represent. Trekkies do their thing. Fan registration, they're obviously packed the same way. Did you guys see the line yesterday? Oh my lord. Wrapped all the way around. Wrapped all the way around. Yeah, it's still going.
Cosplay's Origin and Evolution
00:09:04
Speaker
Convention culture is well on alive and it's been 30 years, 40 years, sorry. I don't know. It's been 50 years. On time. 72, it's not. 69, it's 2022. My bad, my bad. I don't know here.
00:09:16
Speaker
conception with time is non-existent. So anyways, cosplay evolution. I see a lot of cosplayers in the audience, so I'm assuming if I go over what cosplay is, you'll know. Cosplay began in Japan first because it was more standard because of anime designs, gaming designs, old retro RPGs, people cosplaying Nintendo characters. It was a big thing in Japan, but it hadn't come to the US until
00:09:41
Speaker
until we got Star Trek, until we got things that were very, very recognizable costumes that people could adapt from. Back in the day, we didn't have access to good wigs unless you knew how to make your own. We didn't have access to that sort of thing. So we were doing Star Trek body paints, Star Wars cosplays out of aluminum foil and garbage cans. Whenever people had, people were doing, and now we have so much more
00:10:01
Speaker
available to us. There's way more ways to adapt it. There's way more sites you can buy from that are catering to these more unique cosplays. I swear you can find a website with a brand new Genshin cosplay a week before it's released officially. There's so many ways to get in the cosplay and this was before anything else. A lot of it has that vintage charm because it was
00:10:22
Speaker
Unfamiliar for women to show their bodies in certain ways there were ways you wanted to be more modest because it was regular And so you would see how these are adapted or how like the Wonder Woman in the upper left corner It's not her most traditional outfit as it was on the show back then but it's her way of adapting it and as we've done that if people have done original designs it's grown and grown and grown for what could be pushed for and
00:10:43
Speaker
in cosplay and we're very thankful back when because it wasn't even cosplay back then it was just masquerade it was just people dressing up it was just them expressing themselves however they could so it's it's really fun to look at the roots and to see where we came from like you can see up in the upper right corner i believe it's a lord of the rings group from around the time that the original animatic came out in the 70s and our
00:11:06
Speaker
Super amazing C-3PO and R2-D2 down here that are nice. Like I said though, aluminum foil garbage cans. They really got you far. I think those are like insulation pumps that you plug into a dryer on those arms. I'm pretty sure. Anything's creative. I don't know if this is really specific and totally niche to me, but a few years ago, someone got one in Masters at the Cosplay Contest, and they asked him on stage, like, how did you do your armor? And he pulled it off, and it was like a piece of a popcorn container. Like, I don't know.
00:11:36
Speaker
People have gotten creative with what can be done, and it's just impressive to see how far that's
Professionalization of Cosplay
00:11:41
Speaker
gone. And to see the evolution of it, as we mentioned earlier, that the people that started with just this level of like, what's in your garage, what's in your kitchen, what's in your laundry room, that you can throw together, that ingenuity is why cosplay is as big as it is today. It's why you can go on Amazon and order a wig. Because I remember when you had to go scour all these websites and wait like two months of shipping time to get a decent wig, and then it was in the wrong damn color.
00:12:05
Speaker
It's everything that has culminated into what we see today as the evolution because of the women that have carried on that legacy, because of the women that have gotten involved in it 15, 20 years ago and that made sure that they made the push on the business side.
00:12:22
Speaker
they made the push in the social media aspect and they made sure that their presence was known and noted of, hey, this is who I am, this is what I make, and they model all the things that they're crafting. And there's always been that echo of the sex appeal aspect, but it's also been kind of manipulated to a woman's point of view of like, well,
00:12:43
Speaker
If I got it, I'll wear it. I'll wear the costume and I'll make money off of it. And the reason that we have accessibility to that and to those kinds of businesses are because of modern day cosplayers like Yaya Han, Jessica Nigri in particular are some of the spearheads of the past 15, 20 years.
00:13:01
Speaker
I don't know if anyone remembers Legends of Cosplay or Heroes of Cosplay. It was one of the shows that was bringing these challenges of making cosplays in certain time crunches, but the main hosts of it were Yaya Han and Jessica Nigri, and both of them were taking different routes because Jessica Nigri had a lot of armor craftsmanship, or Yaya Han did a lot of sewing and other types.
00:13:20
Speaker
Both of their work diverges into different areas, but they were both able to capitalize it on such a different way. Jessica Nigri focused more on modeling and social media aspects of it, whereas Yaya Han was focusing more on the craftsmanship and accessibility of it. That's why she has her own warble line, she has her own phone line, she has her own fabric line. She does so much outside of her own to build into that. Did you guys know she was like 45 and like
00:13:45
Speaker
married her husband at DragonCon 23 years ago. She's been doing this forever and because of her we're able to have fabric. I'm wearing Yaya Han material right now because it's the best thing you can sew it these days. It's incredible and it's because of her. It's that's her thing she did.
00:14:01
Speaker
is the reason that we can grow and people, I don't know if anyone saw the TikTok panel yesterday, people are paying their rent because they dress up like in cosplay every day. And it's because of people like Jessica Negri who were able to grow their Instagram. They were able to revolutionize it, if I can say words.
00:14:16
Speaker
for like Instagram and Twitter and pushing it as a modeling aspect instead of just show up and people want to take pictures of your cosplays but then if you're not at convention what do you do with them they just sit in your closet and it's like that touch of it to notice that you can do these photo shoots do these sorts of things market your content people want to see it and luckily because of 20 years ago we had all of that
00:14:38
Speaker
they were able to push for it and now nowadays it's turning the leaf into more of craftsmanship. Making money through cosplay is not all of just people seeing your content. I mean it is through like sponsorship, brand deals, but people like Kamui and Kimpatsu are now selling their tutorials. They sell patterns. They're making it as easy as they can for people to learn how to get into it. They're the ones that are leading the market along with people like Evil Ted who are doing an amazing job trying to make it as easy as possible so as many people can participate.
00:15:08
Speaker
as they can. And they're also responsible for kind of setting that business model in general because now people like you and I can go on Etsy or Shop Envy or whatever and you can upload your own 3D models that you created in STLs and anybody can download that and add that to their cosplay. You can upload your own patterns that you figured out.
00:15:27
Speaker
I had to tape a piece of a store-bought Zelda gauntlet to my drawing tablet so that I could make sure I could get the pattern right, because no one else had put it up there. But if I put that up there, then every single person in this room could cosplay that, because it's all about the community basis. It's all about getting involved and making sure that you are contributing in a way that is not only productive to yourself, but productive to your fellow cosplayers and your fellow fandom mates.
00:15:54
Speaker
and Kimpatsu and Kamui are really spearheading that in modern cosplay and are still carrying on with that kind of concept of making sure that women are still taking the lead in that regard. I know that Kamui focuses mostly on foam smithing, crafting, LED lights, and the technical side of things, and Kimpatsu is a little bit more focused on the sewing side and wigs. Oh my god, her wigs.
00:16:22
Speaker
And wig crafting in itself is not even something we had planned to talk about, but it's its own industry now it feels like. There's tons of independent creators. I think the biggest three I can name are like Whisperia, Wigs, Umbra Wigs, and there's one other that I'm working on now. But they're all women that are doing this. They own workshops for making wigs that look incredible. Like the one Kim Potts is wearing on her head took her like 20 hours. It's four different wigs sewn into her peach wig to do that volume to make sure it's luxurious and prince-y.
00:16:51
Speaker
It's supposed to look like it's royalty and she did that. And it's just incredible. I don't know. I'm sorry. I like them. They're my favorite. I like to look up to people who can do this. That's the reason why I've been able to do it for so long. It's because of this ability to do it. It's always been available to me. It's always been ways for me to learn how to do better because people are trying so hard to make this accessible.
00:17:11
Speaker
And it's still carrying on the same, like, structure that Parker mentioned with Johan and with Jessica Nigri in general with. You might take a particular, like, interest more on the sewing side or more on the technical side, and maybe, like, it cosplays your excuse to understand how power tools work, because Lord knows, most of us don't know. And maybe it's your excuse to figure out how to do little sewing projects around the house, and then before you know it, you're making gifts for your family, and it's something that's not only a fun hobby, but it's in, like,
00:17:41
Speaker
It's integrating that culture and that skill into your life on a grander scale and on a scale that really should be kept alive and that I'm so glad that so many women have put in the effort to make sure that it is still alive and alive in a niche and fun way.
00:17:57
Speaker
And when you learn cosplay, you really gotta learn how to do every single thing. When I learned how to cosplay, I had to become a makeup artist, a wig stylist, a prop maker, an armor maker, a seamstress. I had to do everything myself. A photo editor, a video editor. A photo editor. I hate being a photo editor. That's probably the worst part. I don't want to do all this. I did the work to put it all together. I hate it. I don't suggest it. Fun. Pay good photographers.
00:18:19
Speaker
So all of that culminates really into our main topic of fandom as a whole. It's fandom generationally, as we've mentioned, like from the 60s and the 70s all the way into early 2000s, 90s, and now where we're at in modern day.
Fandom Evolution: From Fanzines to Social Media
00:18:36
Speaker
is this evolution of the way that the community has communicated in general and the way that we've been able to spread these ideas and spread these concepts. And most of that, as Parker mentioned, came from early zines, from early print media when it comes to slash fiction,
00:18:54
Speaker
origin of fanfiction, the origin of Spock slash Kirk, and everything that has grown since then. That it sounds silly when you say it out loud now, but literally none of the of the zines that we had or still continue to have no like really big published works would exist because several published works started as fanfiction of other works.
00:19:15
Speaker
Just this last year, we had a Raylo fanfiction get published as actual fan art. Did you guys know? Sorry to get a little, a little unsure here. Did you guys know that Fifty Shades of Grey was Twilight fanfiction? That was MCR fanfiction first? Everything is fanfiction. There's no way to go around it. I'm just gonna say it flatly. Every fan, like every artist or author is inspired by something else. Even if it's not a direct take of something, the way a character is written, I swear you can find Legolas written in like 20 different books because everyone wants a hot blonde elf side.
00:19:45
Speaker
It's every fan is inspired by themselves that a question there Exactly
00:19:57
Speaker
You can trace fanfiction back to Dante's Inferno. Yes. That's what I was going to say. Dante's Inferno is biblical fanfiction. Devil May Cry is fanfiction from the...everything. Everything that ever has Bible, like, time is fanfiction. Everything is fanfiction. What you got? I'm a music major at the University of Utah and literally in music history I studied it for a year and a half at this point.
00:20:18
Speaker
And I've seen it from the beginning to now, and everything is just spawned. Even in 20th century, we're still connecting back to the age hundreds. It all has vanished. I love my fanfiction of Amadeus and everyone with Mozart kissing out. Amadeus and Mozart are the same person. I don't know where I am. Sorry, sorry. I can't improv today.
00:20:38
Speaker
But yeah, also, we have a lot of time. We're getting through our PowerPoint pretty fast, more faster than we thought. So if there's anything you guys want to say to us, we are here to hear you. We'll open up for questions later, of course. But this is supposed to be more of like an open dialogue. I want to hear your experiences, because as we were saying, that's what's important. So if you guys have anything to share, raise hands. We'll talk. We'll chat. Let you be heard. Blah, blah, blah. You guys get it.
00:20:58
Speaker
But in general, the community as a whole has really taken off due to a lot of technological developments, in particular in the 90s, whenever internet started becoming more accessible to modern day civilians that now, oh, suddenly we have chat rooms and forums and I can post my fan fiction, here's my fan art,
00:21:17
Speaker
you become like email pen pals with people and you trade your fanfics and you trade all of your fan works and oh I made this for Halloween maybe I'll maybe I'll wear it to this little convention and maybe that's what spawns your whole career and that has really what has been growing with social media that we've seen now
00:21:35
Speaker
like DeviantArt, PhotoBucket, you remember PhotoBucket, Myspace, LiveJournal, Myspace, all of that earlier stuff, which even then is still kind of in middle grade because that was in like mid-2000s, is what has culminated into how we interact today as fandom culture.
00:21:53
Speaker
how we're interacting now with Instagram and TikTok and Twitter and how fanzines are still thriving, but now that you can get artists from any country that are all contributing and you're donating to these independent artists and you're creating alongside them and you're becoming published. Parker is a published cosplayer and fanfic writer.
00:22:15
Speaker
It's crazy that that's now possible because I have an art piece she is she is an artist But it's crazy that that all started because of young women that were just sharing some fun stories they were writing in their free time on little forums online and that now you can make an entire career out of it and
00:22:34
Speaker
Especially with these new generations. I know I'm gonna talk more about like a little bit of Gen Z, the late Gen Z. Does anyone here use Tumblr? Can I see a show of Tumblr use? Did you guys have to teach yourself HTML to learn how to do your themes? Like, what other- I'm not a coding major. I don't care about computer coding. I had to learn how to code so I could make my blog look prettier than everyone else. Does anyone have to do that on MySpace too? Insane. Hold on, I'm gonna- I'm gonna Neopets.
00:22:59
Speaker
Yup, that's the real teacher in HTML was Neopets. I was a little too young for Neopets, I'm sorry. Slightly out of that range. I didn't have the patience for it, but I did for Tumblr because I was really big into the roleplay side of Tumblr. Neopets was its own thing. You could custom cursors, custom text, custom everything. You could add music in it. That's my MySpace profile, bro. That was my Tumblr page.
00:23:27
Speaker
I had a League of Legends roleplay blog for six years. It still exists. Have I touched it? No. But it's still pretty. It plays music when you get in it. It's all animated and everything's in a font you can't read because I was 19. But I mean, really, the aspect of that that I didn't even think of when we were writing all this down is the coding side of it, the technical and the STEM that you just showed on the website. It says 10-year-olds on TikTok know how to do like full cinematic movie in there. I don't know.
00:23:56
Speaker
How about the transition? What the hell? What you got? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I have someone archiving your own that I forgot about and like every three weeks I'll just go like a kudos. Like, oh sick. I don't even know what that is. I don't remember writing that. That wasn't me. But those things are important. Kids are learning how to be authors from the age of 18 because we have all the stuff that they can do and all the references they have and all of the things available that they can do that because
00:24:27
Speaker
We found a way to simplify it so that they can have their own autonomy for how they create and how they exist in the spaces. And that's what sparked us really to do our podcast and to apply for this panel in general is that we want to keep doing that. We want to make sure that everyone's aware of where we came from. That way we can see where
Building Community in Fandom
00:24:45
Speaker
we're going.
00:24:45
Speaker
And we can see how it's progressed to the point of this intense, very tight-knit community that is so willing to reach out and to do things that are going to improve your own skill set, improve your friend's skill set. Say, hey, you're doing this awesome cosplay. I'd love to take a couple pictures of you because I have this camera for my college class.
00:25:04
Speaker
I want to work on this writing project for a creative writing class I'm taking, but I don't know if this editing is good. Will you look over it? Because I know you write fanfiction. I need help with the wig, but I'm not very good at waist styling. Can you do that for me? I have a commissioned wig up here that was done by a friend. Woo, thank you. Yeah, partner help me in Joanne's. I don't know what fabric to buy because I haven't sewn in 10 years. Let me FaceTime you. Look at all this. Which color? It's so cool to get to that point. Yeah.
00:25:30
Speaker
I didn't think I was going to speak today, but I'm a Gen Xer, and I was wearing the knees. They can wear a shirt costume, and they didn't exist. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm just trying to talk. I love your costume. That's amazing. Congratulations.
00:25:45
Speaker
One of our friends, one of my friends, who was the Ursula at last year's FanEx convention, if anyone remembers her with the huge wings, she currently works on Broadway doing Broadway costuming now because of that work. So there's a way to grow. I can't even remember what, who were we talking about the other day? Who was, oh, I do. There was someone I know who was drawing Game Grumps ship art on Tumblr, and now they work at DC Comics doing cover arts. Like,
00:26:11
Speaker
Everyone starts somewhere, even if it's embarrassing. Even if I met my friends through League of Legends, unfortunately, they're here now. They flew out from other countries. They listen to our dumb little podcast that she records in a closet.
Overcoming 'Cringe' and Encouraging Creativity
00:26:25
Speaker
Don't outdo it. But even just like us doing this, we managed to build our own little community of people who want to hear what we have to say.
00:26:32
Speaker
people who want to hear our experience is what we know because we have completely different sides of the internet. I didn't want to ever ever ever touch my hero academia because I've been to conventions more than she has and I've seen some scary things in that side of the corner but she didn't she didn't know and so when I was afraid to touch it she wasn't she just kind of showed me what it was and then I showed her the fear but you know there were things that she didn't know that I did there were things to say whenever her home stuck online
00:27:00
Speaker
I don't mean that positively. If you remember, there were so many things coming out of that that were absolutely horrific. What you got? I was watching our homestuck, like, retrospect the other day, and it felt wrong to be ex. Yeah, it does feel like talking to an ex. I had to do it. I've never read Homestuck. I was in the Hetalia side of things, which coincide. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
00:27:22
Speaker
I'm sorry for my crimes. But I didn't know. And so we did an episode for our second episode of the podcast where she knew a lot about Homestuck because she used to cosplay it. And I knew a lot about Hetalia, so we merged our interests and it was an absolute nightmare. She made me watch videos of people in an Applebee spitting into a bucket because that's how they, that's how they breed? I don't know. Scary. Scary.
00:27:45
Speaker
But people who do that stuff are now world famous for whatever because they showed enough passion to push for it. They found enough in their shame to just kind of move past it. We have like a good thing that we live by in our podcast is that cringe is dead and we killed it. But also you need to touch grass because you need to be in touch with something because there's a point where you need to know how to interact with these things in a healthy
00:28:11
Speaker
way that is not spinning in a bucket in a public restaurant please oh my god what do you got yes so how do you gain confidence in order to like reach for these goals instead of just being like I don't have to like like for me I'm very much in the space of I don't have the skill set
00:28:31
Speaker
That's where I started. My first cosplay was in Fanex 2013, I think was the first one, not 2012, but I was, yeah, whatever. I was in middle school. I went to the DI, I got a stupid sweater, and I made, because I had brown hair, long brown hair, I made my own little, like, Italian chibi, because I was a South Romano person!
00:28:52
Speaker
I made my own little GE out of a pipe cleaner. It was green, and I badly painted it brown, but it still looked kind of green. And that was my first cosplay. I did like a femme version that was just a closet cosplay, because I didn't have anything else. Then the next year, my dad let me buy a boy wig. Not in a way that was weird, he just did not get it. And it was back, I was an Amazon wig, did not get it. He tried to, it was not cut, because of course I didn't know how to style a wig. So it was just a full cut. I wore a shirt that said Italy on it, and that was all my effort.
00:29:21
Speaker
There's a photo of it on our Instagram, if you want to go find it. And then the following year, I did it again, but I was mafioso that time, so I got a suit from the DI that did not fit me. This was in 2015. I did not learn how to sew until 2016, when I moved in with my mom, who has been sewing for years, she used to make my costumes all of her own. She used to make costumes, from Metal Oculus, she was Miss Murderface, was that her name? No.
00:29:47
Speaker
say it again macaroni murder lady so she had a course that she made herself covered in blood and this huge skirt made of like individually stranded macaroni pieces my mom is crazy when it comes to craftsmanship she's done Carrie before and then I went to Carrie right after
00:30:04
Speaker
Everything came from her. I learned how to sew from her. She got me all into foam. She bought me my first rolls of Warblah so I could learn how to make it.
Motivation and Support in Cosplay
00:30:12
Speaker
I got back when Warblah was huge and we didn't use EVA foam. But she taught me how to sew. I made my first bunny suit in 2016 because I wanted to do Battle Bunny Ribbon from League of Legends. She got me everything I needed to learn how to make the sword. She got me all of the foam I needed while I was still learning and got the wrong foam and I made her pay a lot of money when I was cosplaying Sona from League of Legends. I started as a League of Legends cosplayer following up my whole
00:30:34
Speaker
thing of cringe, but I learned from her. That was my biggest thing. My sister is an insane seamstress. She's been sewing longer than I have. She makes her own costumes like in a day. I'm barely keeping up with her. I can manage to make a huge full costume pants cupcake.
00:30:52
Speaker
Coat all of the accessories in 40 hours now. I can do things in a weekend, but it's because I've been doing it for so long Last year I managed to make 20 costumes for this year I'm on the path for both myself and my commissions to make about 35 Because I just keep doing it like and I just there's kind of a rule when it comes to cosplay the five feet apart rule once you learn that Thank God because there's do you want to explain it?
00:31:18
Speaker
Yes, I am. There's details that only you are going to see when it comes to building a costume. There are certain things I was going to know. These are not hemmed. I didn't care. This is a straight salvage line. You're not going to know unless you get close to me. And so there's a lot of things that you kind of have to let go because you're your biggest critic. Like you're going to criticize yourself the most. You're
00:31:36
Speaker
your biggest critic, it's always a hard thing to get past. I have really bad imposter syndrome. That's why I don't mention what I do or mention my podcast or anything because I'm embarrassed of it still, even though I put so much work and love into it. But once you kind of get past that, okay, it doesn't matter how I adapt this. It's my costume. If I want to do this slightly different than the original design, I can do that. It's okay. It's cool.
00:31:59
Speaker
And once I kind of got over that, I didn't get over it until about two years ago, back when COVID mainly hit because I wasn't going to conventions anymore. And that was my biggest thing because I would make three costumes for a convention, but I didn't have good time management skills because I was fresh out of high school. So I was.
00:32:14
Speaker
making them the week of. Like two years ago, I got out of the hospital two days before Fan-X, and I was competing in that Fan-X. So I had to go with fresh stitches on stage, spin my little axes, and then go and throw up in the bathroom because I was in so much pain.
00:32:31
Speaker
Don't do that. On the motivation side, I would say. There's a limit that you push yourself too hard and that was at the point where I was and it wasn't until COVID where I wasn't able to go to conventions and I felt really bad creatively. I wanted to do more. I wanted to keep doing this. So me and my friends would mask up, go to places far away, go onto rooftops. My friend who did that with me is here today, thank God, because she's where, or sorry, they, my bad, I'm talking to everybody.
00:32:58
Speaker
They were there with me to go to parking garages and take these photos in the middle of winter. They were there with me on Halloween. Any time I wore a costume for any reason, because I dressed up like Supergirl and I go to charity events sometimes, but any time I had to dress up, I would text them like, hey, do you want to meet me here? We can go take a few photos from my Instagram. Call it good, because Instagram is the easiest way to grow. It's the easiest way to talk to people, socialize, whatever.
00:33:20
Speaker
And that was able to start. We went to the salt, the ice castles in Midway to go take like Fortress of Solitude photos for my Supergirl. That blew up. I think that has like 10K views on DeviantArt just alone because I was able to grow my little community of a team to help push me. That's honestly what it was. I started from not having too much. I didn't really do much on my day to day. And then as soon as I was able to kind of
00:33:47
Speaker
get past it and push myself to do these small little checkpoints. It was way, way easier and way like, I don't know. We were going back to like the sewing thing. Once you get down to it, I never learned how to traditionally sew through patterns. I did it by tracing myself and then using that to be my exact form. I learned shapes first and then I built that into
00:34:13
Speaker
how it works. I learned how to drink fabric for capes. I don't make capes. I don't know if anyone saw me yesterday. I was just like Corazon from One Piece. Big feather cape. He was wearing a big pink one. We were bright. I didn't measure those. I didn't use a traditional pattern. I just kind of went for it and if it worked, it worked. If it didn't, I'll figure it out later. It's kind of just, just do it is the best way that I can answer that question.
00:34:35
Speaker
On the motivation side I would say that also if there's anyone in your life that has a little bit of these skill sets here and there, just ask them. That's I learned from my mom because my mom didn't grow up with a lot of money and her mom made all of their clothes and made their blankets and their dolls clothes and that's how she learned to sew and whenever I wanted to learn it was for costuming but she was just so excited to say okay I can teach you.
00:35:00
Speaker
I can show you how the sewing machine works, I can show you these little things and it's like riding a bike because I hadn't touched a sewing machine in maybe 10 years until I want to say about a year and a half ago and you just pick it right back up. So if there's anyone in your life that has a little piece of these skills, oh I can show you how to use a Dremel, I can show you how to sand down this
00:35:18
Speaker
I can show you how to paint this a little nicer so even if you buy a store-bought costume like I didn't make every piece of this but I made a lot of it because I had the bones and then I learned the little skills to fix it so if you can start at that starting point and say I don't have to make all of it so that's already a good motivator I get to sleep a little bit more so now go pick your fabric or go pick your materials
00:35:43
Speaker
You start out with the shapes. You start out figuring out what small piece do I want to practice on first? What do I want to get the groove of? And then you move on to the bigger things. Like this was a pretty big build for me since I hadn't worked on any cosplay in a while, my rouge. And I did the gloves first and then my boot covers because those were the simple tube-like shapes. And then after I felt comfortable with the fabric like that, you go on to the bigger pieces. You go on to the weird heart piece. You go on to making the ears out of foam.
00:36:09
Speaker
If you don't know how to do that, there's now, thankfully, because of Kamui and Kipatsu and Yaya Han and everyone, there's so many tutorials online that they can help give you that motivation too.
00:36:20
Speaker
Yeah, Kenpatsu specifically is a pattern and tutorial that I use to make the ears, and that I could translate that into making my wings from scratch. So it's about figuring out the little steps and then knowing if you can tackle that first step and then that second step, you can keep going to the end. And you don't have to start from nothing. You can start from a store-bought.
00:36:41
Speaker
Don't ever skim for broadcloth. I don't care what you're using it for. Don't use broadcloth. If you use broadcloth, you're going to give yourself way more stress in the end. It's the cheapest option, but it's the cheapest option for a reason. That was a part of why I wanted to give up cosplay because I was like, no matter what, because I was poor, I was in high school, I was having to fund my own costumes at my middle age, or my minimum wage job, sorry. And I was having to buy the cheapest fabric that did not look good, it did not make me feel good to be in it.
00:37:08
Speaker
I use stretch knit fabric for everything I do. Um, zig zag stitch. I don't care. I'm done with it. Cool. Doesn't matter. But finding something that is your niche is, hold on, I'll come back to you in one second. Finding your niche is the easiest way to do it because once you kind of push for the hardest thing, it's easier to come down to like the most delicate thing of it all. Um, what were you saying? Um, how did like Halloween influence like the growth of cosplay?
00:37:35
Speaker
Halloween did a lot for it, especially when it came to Western costumes. I don't know if you guys have been in a spirit Halloween recently, but currently you can get like anime costumes that are actually pretty decent quality. Like since Spencer's acquired spirit, their quality has gone up a lot. But now it's more accessible. I wasn't able to get those costumes back in the day. I had to make them myself. But I was also the person who always had my Halloween costumes made for me by my mom. So if I wanted to be something, I wanted to be something. I went as the little girl from fear.
00:38:02
Speaker
for Halloween to school and no one knew who I was because I was from a video game I shouldn't have been playing but it was cool and that was part of why because that's a lot of how I had to explain how I do cosplays like it's Halloween but I wear it to certain events but also being a cosplayer killed my Halloween motivation. Do I know what I want to be for Halloween? No.
00:38:22
Speaker
I would also say it's probably the opposite. It's not so much that Halloween influenced cosplay, it's that cosplay influenced Halloween. Because I remember 15 years ago when I was a tiny little scamp running around Spirit Halloween and trying to figure out, or like Party Galaxy, if any of you guys have that here. Well, it's like Party City.
00:38:43
Speaker
There was nothing that was anything remotely close to a media-related costume. It was the very traditional horror stuff or the very traditional like, a witch, a vampire, a ninja, and pretty much nothing else. But now you go in and there's very specific designs from very specific shows. Yeah, you can be Naruto from Fortnite now. And you can buy really well-made costumes
00:39:09
Speaker
for a fairly okay price even just for a Halloween level and they already look like what we would have considered like convention level professional. I think one of her first cosplays was a Bulma costume for Halloween that she had to do all the work on because you couldn't get a Bulma costume. I couldn't find it anywhere and I just did like a pink t-shirt and turned that into a dress and then found really crappy accessories and painted them and hand sewed them and stitched them into place for it.
00:39:35
Speaker
It's the same skill set. It just depends on if you didn't have the exposure to cosplay, I feel like I am very blessed to because when I was 13, 14, that's when people were going to conventions. That was when I was getting big online.
Cosplay and Fandom in Mainstream Culture
00:39:47
Speaker
And I was an iPad baby for real. I had my phone in hand all the time since I was a child. And so that was a thing I was always exposed to. So my Halloween costumes were kind of out there because I had that from cosplay.
00:39:59
Speaker
but a lot of people earlier than me didn't have that same kind of experience and so they had to learn how to do these things that they would do for a cosplay for their everyday Halloween costumes because it was they didn't it's basically the same thing they just didn't have the context of cosplay as a
00:40:14
Speaker
Oh, that's yeah, that's that's what my origin was because my mom taught me to sew in that regard from Halloween costumes specifically. Like we did a homemade Jasmine that was out of like really cheap satin, like Jasmine from Atlanta with really cheap satin when I was a little kid. And then from there we just kept making more and more complex costumes. And that was when I was like, oh, I want to do this all the time. Halloween is the best of the world. Why don't we do this year round? And I'm like, oh, hey, there's a thing called Cops Blade, dummy. You can go do that.
00:40:42
Speaker
We are pretty much done with all of our basic stuff. So if you have any questions or anything that we just want to open this up to you guys. Excellent. This is kind of a comment wrapped in a question. I'm here to listen. So I think there's been a recent trend towards seeing people who are professionalized, particularly in writing heralding back to band spaces. And I think a lot of the reason for that is that historically speaking, more socially legitimized writing spaces have been very
00:41:15
Speaker
And fandom spaces are a space where you can get the mentorship and the community that pretty much every creative work on the planet needs to get off of the ground. And there are lots of examples of this. For example, Cassandra Clare had a truly cursed fanfiction history before she ever wrote the Mortal Kombat series.
00:41:35
Speaker
Oh yeah, I'm very aware. Unfortunately. I'm not going to get into it. We don't need to. We all know. Miele Gaiman won a Hugo Award for what was essentially Lovecraftian Sherlock Holmes fiction.
00:41:48
Speaker
And this goes to ask, given the trends that have been happening in terms of people being more willing to openly talk about their history in fan spaces, and I'm sure there are a lot more authors than those of you who do have history in those fan spaces, where do you see a kind of culture going in the future rather than just where the history has been, but in the future towards?
00:42:08
Speaker
how people view phantoms and how people view fanfiction and cosplay and quality of life. I think time is a circle and I think that every time we go on to a new route with a generation learning, I want to say I'm maturing in how I've interacted with phantom spaces, unfortunately because I was introduced to this so young at this convention specifically.
00:42:27
Speaker
There's a lot of people in this community that think that they don't want to talk to me or they don't want to know me because of things I did when I was 16 because I was cringe. I would come say hi to their costumes. I was overexcitable. I was just really happy to be there. And of course, it's I will admit, it was cringy. I was kind of not knowing boundaries because I was a kid. And I think we're kind of getting back into that loop of as kids learn about this.
00:42:49
Speaker
They're not learning those social boundaries and cues sometimes. And I think it's getting really, really familiar with like TikTok and stuff because it's a platform for children. It's supposed to be a family friendly platform, but we have like cosplayers who are adults and we have cosplayers who are kids who are using it.
00:43:06
Speaker
And they're interacting with each other in a way that isn't healthy in some ways. And it's like, I don't want to say bully these people for interacting with kids weird, but it's you have to influence those boundaries. And if we don't continue to teach the new generations to set those boundaries, to know not to interact with adults in weird ways, to have ways to form for yourself, you can continue to push forward. You can continue to do what you love.
Corporate Influence and Social Media Impact
00:43:30
Speaker
You can continue to cosplay and go to conventions, but you have to know how to do it safely because I didn't have that expression. I didn't have that earlier. I didn't have that. My sister didn't have that earlier because we were doing this so young because I would just tell my mom I was fine. I would hang out with my friends and figure it out. But I was hanging out with adults when I was 13, like a dummy.
00:43:49
Speaker
I got kicked out of a wow because I was six. Thank you. Thanks for bringing it up. I would also say away from like the individual culture in regards to your question of where do you see it moving forward? I think we've seen a lot of that in like Disney remakes and all of the like the Amazon originals that are just kind of prequels to things that have been around for so many years rings of power and It's moving towards this
00:44:15
Speaker
corporate level of fan fiction, if that makes sense. We're moving towards a remake of a remake of a remake, and we're just keeping that up and keeping that. And I am kind of concerned that we're going to keep going in that direction, like from a corporate standpoint of media. But the good news is, if we keep doing that, then the fans are going to take it into their own hands, and they're going to say, all right, well, I'm good at this fan stuff, so why don't I try some original stuff? And we'll start the cycle over.
00:44:43
Speaker
And there's also, because we're in that point of beginning to get more corporate, people are being paid for TikToks, people are being paid for sponsorships on Instagram, we're having new cosplayers learn that, and they're burning themselves out because they want to be that big. They're doing it every day, they're getting in cosplay, so they can make 20 videos on TikTok. Because that's what they're seeing around them. And so, it's kind of having to rein it in a little bit. Like, you can do that creatively, but you need to know that not everything is marketable. You don't have to be marketable to be successful and have fun in what you do.
00:45:12
Speaker
and that's kind of where it is. I don't want to say we're telling a toxic line of how people create and how they move forward when it comes to wanting to create, but we kind of are. We have that community, we just have to help and be there and support them so that they know how to move forward into it, into a healthy way. Any other questions? Anything else? Any comments? Yeah, so you got one more? No, you're fine.
00:45:43
Speaker
Until you are on a thread and someone tells you to kill yourself is a lot, sorry for the topic, but it happened. And when it did, it took a lot out of me. I took it very personally. And it was what I realized was I was pushing a boundary if it had to react so negatively to this.
00:46:01
Speaker
Once you see the worst of it, that was when I had to bring myself back. And I think that's why, I don't want to say bully anybody, I'm not pro-bullying, but there's a part where you have to put a foot down. I don't interact with content that I feel is inappropriate or wrong or something. I don't take it upon myself to teach these people. I'm not their parent, I can't do that. But I can choose to not interact with it, not give a platform to those things because it's just a level that you have to separate from.
00:46:30
Speaker
I thought you had something to say. I would also say, because she learned it a little different of an age than I did, that I was thrown into it as, well, if you don't like it, don't read it. And I think that having that mindset to some extent is helpful, but to know where your personal line is drawn. And to know, I don't want to interact with this. I'm going to step away from it, like Parker said. But also, if someone's coming at you about something, you can just say, hey, man, not really here for the vibe. Have a good day. And that will change so much more than you think.
00:46:58
Speaker
So, if you approach it from a more positive aspect and just say, appreciate your concern, I'm going to go do my own thing, have a good one, it's probably going to take the wind out of their sails when it comes to being negative. And so, if you find where your personal line is and then you approach it from a positive standpoint, they will figure it out eventually.
00:47:18
Speaker
I'm also very pro at cultivating your feeds. Social media is such a big thing. I can't deny it. No one can deny it. I make my living through it. I'll have to do my podcast through it. That's just what it is. And I really, really, really advocate for cultivating your feed. If there's someone you don't want to see, you don't have to. Just block them. It costs nothing to not have to see these people online. If there's someone who bugs you just from the way they word their tweets, it doesn't matter. Block them. You don't have to see it.
00:47:43
Speaker
And I'm not saying that to like they can't do no wrong. We shouldn't have any sort of like
00:47:49
Speaker
consequence for people's actions, but there's a level of it that it is not your thing to deal with. And so it's okay to just get rid of it. You don't have to look at it. You don't have to invite this kind of hatred into your day-to-day life. You don't need to bring this drama that has like almost nothing to do with you. You're just kind of a spectator or bystander to it because of the culture we now have where everything is right in front of us. It's hard not to feel like you're a part of it in some way. Blocking it out, muting it, it doesn't matter.
00:48:17
Speaker
Just get rid of it. If it doesn't make you happy, if it stresses you out, cut it off. You don't owe anyone an explanation. You do owe basic respect and politeness. Yes. And especially to the people that came before you in those faces.
Final Thoughts and Community Engagement
00:48:30
Speaker
And that's pretty much where I think we should end and where we should. We've got like three more minutes to do a fast wrap up. So if you guys have anything else, yeah, what's up?
00:48:38
Speaker
Best place to listen to the podcast and your favorite person. I was going to do that one last, so I'm going to go to you first. There's lots on Etsy and store envy, but also Kamui Cosplay and Kinpatsu have their own.
00:49:00
Speaker
They have their own websites where you can buy for really cheap, like sewing patterns and like foam patterns and things. If you have a 3D printer, I would recommend Thingiverse or Colt's 3D. And they have tons of free STLs that you can download to 3D print if you need some components like that for your cost. And UCU Local resources. The city library has a 3D print lab. The University of Utah has a 3D print lab. You have to pay for the filament, but it's like 30 cents for however much you use.
00:49:30
Speaker
And there's ways to do it. The city library has a space you can create stuff from. They have spaces you can go sew if you need to. They have that at the University of Utah. You just have to show up and be ready to pay a little bit of a fee to use the things, but they will let you do it. So there's always things in your community that you can use to grow. It just takes a little help to get there. Any last questions? Anyone else that's not you? Anything else? It would be good. OK. You can check us out. Oh, yeah? One more. How can you start making money on golf?
00:49:59
Speaker
Sponsorships is the easiest way if you don't want to do patterns I do a lot of niche cosplays now as I kind of got really really into one piece unfortunately And I cosplay characters who are in three episodes that you never see again But because these they'll have details of stuff all have like custom printed belt buckles or something I'll have a friend help me design them you can sell those if you do that
00:50:20
Speaker
I do it through Patreon so I have my own Patreon where I do behind the scenes stuff so if someone wants to see what I'm working on, if they want work in progress videos or small tutorial videos like I show people how I make cakes, whatever, I just post that on my Patreon and I get something monthly and people choose to help me. The biggest thing when it comes to monetization is like I was afraid to make a Patreon for even our podcast for a minute
00:50:43
Speaker
but there were always people who wanted to support us. And if I just sat and hesitated, I wouldn't be receiving that support. It's easier to just put yourself out there and the people who want to support you will. That's always the first step. Once you get bigger, it always comes from BR brand dealings. If you're making your tutorials, con events showing up there. Don't expect it to come easy. My friend has been doing stuff for Akibento as a booth babe for years. And they just now for convention last month decided to fly her out and pay for her hotel, even though she's been working for them for years.
00:51:13
Speaker
So you're selling your pieces, selling your patterns, offering commissions, doing paid content if you want to do photos on Patreon or what have you. You should have to do it for yourself first and then it will take off from there. And that is all of our time. So thank you guys so much for coming out. We appreciate all of you.
00:51:31
Speaker
You can find our podcast on Spotify. I think Apple Music is still boycotting us. They don't like us. They won't let us on there. But you can find us on Instagram and Twitter under Fandang's Pod. We have business cards, stickers, anything you want up here as we start to head out. Our podcast is coming off of hiatus. This was our episode before our episode, so we will be returning. But if you'd like to check out our first eight or ten. No, we're at 15. We're at 15 because we do biweekly.
00:51:59
Speaker
You can find us there. Check us out. Thank you for all coming. I appreciate it so much.