Why do we Cosplay?

As we all know, Indonesia have more cosplayers in 2016 than 2008 (duh... of course). But what makes them wanna cosplay? What drives them? What's their motivation? What is OUR motivation?

A little bit story about myself

I always love all about Japanese since I was a little kid. It's all because all the cartoons that I saw on the TV (I think.... or maybe the games like nintendo or tamagochi... I forgot). My family knew I love to watch anime and read manga, even my father accidentally bought me an anime, little did he know, the anime that he bought is a Yaoi, but not the hardcore type (I just realized it not long ago). 

And since in primary school, my friends think i'm weird, but i'm not friendless. I learn how to keep my otaku self only to myself. Still have a good social life, but sometimes it feels empty.

Of course, it feels lonely, until I met my friends in University who loves all about Japanese too and they introduce me to this thing called Cosplay!

I feel so excited!! I saw people dresses as my favorite characters perfectly, as if they're really ALIVE!!!! 

And on that day, I decided to become like them too! To be my own fav characters and bring them to life!! That's what drives me! My motivation....

Motivations 

Because right now, lots of people are really into cosplay. And of course, those people have different personalities, goals, and of course.... Motivations....

From what I see.... The motivations are differentiate into these:

1. Love of the Characters! : Who wanted to make the characters come into life... Not only just because it will make them famous or because the character is on the hype... it's because THEY LOVE IT! They fell in love when they read or see the stories of the characters. Most of them tend to make their cosplays perfectly, just like the character. Because they knew that if someone ruined the characters, they feel sad. 
2. Have fun and looking for friends : They often come into almost of cosplay expo out there. Active on social media. They wanted to find other people whose also like them. An otaku or fujoushi or anything that have the same taste as them. Sometimes they cosplay but sometimes they're not. They didn't really seek for perfection in their cosplay, as long as they have fun...
3. Money : Cosplay these days, if you really good at it! Both costume making and choreographing. They can give you lots of money if you win the competition. Most of them, tend to do the unique or complicated cosplays. They will look for characters that can be lively or really cool on stage and of course a character that most people will know. This is to get the attention from the audience and the judges. But people who really into cosplay for money, they often crafty. They can make their own costumes so they can open commissions too if the competition didn't work out. 
4. Competitive : They don't care anything, only competition. But people who really are competitive, they often blame others if they didn't make it, because they thought they're the only one who deserve to be the number one. Not all of them. Some of them makes the failure into a lesson.
5. Famous :  They often don't care about the characters, don't care about competitions, DO love about dramas. All they want is to be famous, they are attention seeker!! They often see any available costumes out there or see what's the hype in the cosplay world without knowing the character beforehand or do  viral 'photoshoots' (whether the photoshoots OOC or not).
6. Trend : They only joining the trend or their friends hobby. So anything will do....
7. Creativity : People who loves to hone their creative instincts often makes original costumes. which some of them are AWEEESOOOMEEE!!

Sometimes, they have 2 or more motivations from the above. 

For me... I'm more of the 1 and 2 motivation.. but i do seek perfection in my cosplay. because I really HATE it if someone cosplay my really really really fav character, and they have lots of mistakes about the characters.

That's why, before I cosplay into some characters, I always watch their animes, see their youtube videos, research about them. So I hope I will not disappointing their fans. But I do sometimes have a number 4 motivation. Whenever I join a competition, I will always put my 100% energy into it. But also, having fun with my friends. I love when people or audiences claps, cheers and sharing my performance. It's a win for me!

So guys, people are not the same. They came into this hobby with different motivation and drives. And it's also depends on the environment and their friends that get them into this. And also because, right now we have so many makers, tutors, photographers, and sellers that makes cosplay into such an easy to do hobby. We, of course, have to thank them to make our hobby much more easier.

A little reminiscing here.

Back in my days of first cosplay world. It's even hard for me just to cosplay as a seifuku characters. Because :

• I have to search for my own fabric by myself. I've never been to a fabric market before, I don't know anything about fabric. And there I am. Lost and learning in the fabric market. 
• It's hard to find the correct wig. there are not much of color variations. And all they have is a neon colored and shiny wig with a limited color. And the price of the wigs.... Whew.... SO EXPENSIVE!! (wig right now also expensive, but there are cheaper one! and oh boy those variation! we can even search for our characters directly). Sometimes when they don't have the wig that I really wanted, and because I don't have that much money. I bought hair spray coloring instead. That you can wash right after the expo. But not much of a difference it can make. But hey, at least we've tried.
• What is contact lens???? all they have is crazy lenses that was almost 1 million rupiah! dafuk... The others are natural lenses. 
• Armor? how to even make one? It's hard to find tutorial online, so we often ask someone whose more crafty than us, and pray that they will teach us! LOL
• Make up? nah... what for? we thought it's okay to be natural, wear maybe only eyeliner! and wait until someone photographed you..... with FLASH! there... you wish you never cosplay again, because you look so ugly... pardon me... but it's true =))

In one year, we only got maybe 1 or 2 cosplay events. And sometimes it's not even in your town, so we have to go out of town just to see one! But, in those hard days. We were one. Not so many dramas that we saw, but I almost know every cosplayers in Indonesia. We were united...... in Multiply (before facebook). 

so yeah, motivation to cosplay just because i want to be famous... really never came into my mind. 

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So, what's yours?

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PS: I'm actually going to make some original illustration here, rather than memes i found on the internet... but my pentab got broken... so yeah... :'(

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