Title:
Dressed to thrill, cosplayers bring fantasy to life at comic expo
Date: 27th July
Source: SCMP
Feedback: This news is about the annual Ani-Com & Game
Hong Kong fair. Like the past years, there are a lot of cosplayers showcasing
the characters of different comics, animations or computer games this year. The
majority of the cosplayers are teenagers and they love cosplay because they
love the characters they are dressing and want them known to others by bringing
to life. Also some of them said that cosplay can make them meet new friends and
have a kind of nice and feel likeable.
In recent years,
cosplay becomes a hot topic on teenagers in Hong Kong. Many people believe that
cosplayers are lazy and have academic failure, there is not many parents
supporting their children to be cosplayers due to the stereotypes.
In fact, cosplay has certain benefits to teenagers.
First cosplay can help youngsters build up confidence. Most
cosplayers are shy and introverted who always stay at home and afraid of socializing
with others. However when they dress up, they are different people, they
become confident and extroverted. It is because they love the characters they
are cosplaying and they think they become the characters, having a new identity
so they have courage to interact with others. The heart of cosplay is their
source of confidence. Besides cosplay needs to face lots of people as they need
to join the competition or be taken pictures by many photographers. Therefore
in some ways, cosplay can help teenagers become confident because they can have
a new identity which is stronger than their original identity which only stays
at home all the time and afraid of interact with others as most of the
characters they love are heroes who are powerful.
Cosplay can also increase the creativity of teenagers. Since
the teenagers need to make the clothes and crops by themselves, they need to
create wonderful clothes and crops for example, they need to think how to make
the clothes are exactly the same in the animation in order to get all people's eyes
or win the champion. Creativity is increasing while they are making their
clothes and crops.
Social skill can also be improved through cosplay. As
the cosplayers will meet lots of other cosplayers from different districts or
even countries, so they can improve their social skills as they have the same
interest and they may discuss it together like the favourite comic character,
the plot of animations, the process of making the clothes etc. Hence social
skill is developed and social circle is enlarged.
Nevertheless cosplay does have disadvantages to teenagers.
Teenagers
may waste a lot of money. As they need to make the clothes and crops, they need
to buy lots of materials to make it, for instance, the girl spent $600 to buy
the materials to make the clothes which is expensive. Cosplay requires much
money and this is wasting lots of money of teenagers.
Furthermore the self-concept of teenagers may be twisted.
Since most of the cosplayers identify themselves as the characters in the
comics, animations or computer games, they are away from the reality and refuse
to accept their real identity. As most of them may get failure in real life
like academic, love and familys relationship etc, they try to escape from these
by identifing themselves as the strong characters in the comics, animations or
computer games. Soon they can not remember who they are actually and the
self-concepts are twisted.
Except the self-concept may be twisted, the teenagers may
receive wrong values. It is because nowadays many comics, animation and
computer games obtain lots of wrong concepts like violence, sex, brutality etc.
Once the teenagers identify themselves as the characters in those comics,
animations or computer games, they are brainwashed to be violent, brutal and
have wrong concepts like sex, for example there was a news about a boy raped a
woman like the main character did in the animation or in the past weeks, there
was a parent killed by their son as the son thought the parent are the enemies
he played in the computer game. These show that teenagers easily absorb wrong
concepts through cosplay as they may identify themselves as the characters in
the comics, animations or computer games which obtain violence, sex or
brutality etc.
To sum up, cosplay does have benefits and drawbacks to
teenagers. However this is up to the teenagers'chioces of the comics,
animations and computer games and their attitudes towards cosplay. If they
choose the right comics, animations or computer games, they definitely will not
be able to obtain wrong concepts; If they have a right attitude towards cosplay
like it is a kind of entertainment and study is more important than it right
now, they will not become addicted to it and have academic failure. Therefore
it is the choice for the teenagers whether let cosplay become good to them or
not.