What I’ve learned in the past 26 years is this: our community is a patchwork of misfits. This modge-podge of individuals is much like the Island of Misfit Toys – except we stole the conch from Lord of the Flies on the way over. Over the past twenty years, this community has become dog-eat-dog with sandbagging, gatekeeping, drama, bad business deals, and even worse event organizing. Meanwhile every one of us has the same objective: a place to belong, a shot at being seen, and an opportunity to profit from our passion.

When the Gates slam shut

Here is the part that makes me want to run into a wall… When people start to see their opportunity to succeed, many start guarding the gates they once fought to get through as if it’s 3pm at Buckingham Palace.  Not out of spite, but out of fear and ego. Fear of falling back, of losing status, of being forgotten. Fear is the true villain. Ego is just the cosplay it wears at cons and on Instagram. 

That’s when the shift happens; when individuals stop fighting for the community and turn their passion to protecting their place within it. It’s nothing new; history tends to repeat itself. Just like when punk turned into pop and underground became mainstream. The art stayed, but the soul of it was lost to focus groups and marketing panels.

We aren’t Escaping

A large portion of society look at this community of ours and call it escapism. Costumes, fantasy, make-believe? They think we’re running away from the world. They think of us when they want to patronize someone for their attempt to be someone else (poorly), and they couldn’t be more wrong… We’re not escaping our destinies; we’re REWRITING THEM. We’re piecing together a world that lets us be whole. One where you don’t have to shrink to fit. One where weird is welcomed, and different is indistinct. This isn’t make-believe; this is self-made belief. We’re visionaries armed with trauma and hot glue. We are the architects of the impossible. We’re building what didn’t exist and daring to live inside it, even for just a weekend…and we are just getting started.

We don’t live in a fantasy; we work within a framework. This isn’t a retreat from modern society It’s a cultural rebellion against it. Every stitch, every snap, every Con badge, Ribbon, and wristband is not a disguise.  It is a declaration from the highest rooftop. And on that rooftop, we say to all the naysayers “If the world won’t make room for me, then I’ll carve one out myself!”

A world we built, a world worth defending.

In this culture, you’ve got the self-professed nerds forging the armor they were denied. Neurodivergent fans speaking fluently in joy. People rediscovering beauty in their reflection because they finally look like the hero they always saw in their hearts. That’s not escapism, that’s cultural evolution.

I can’t continue to stand by and watch something I love to continue to get drained, sterilized, and sold back to us in plastic wrap for triple what we got it for last year. I’ve cherished this journey long enough that it gets its own car insurance discount. I’ve seen the beauty, the grit, the chaos that makes this culture breathe. And I’ve seen what happens when outsiders try to simplify it into something profitable and empty. Where you are nothing but a consumer-minion, there to do nothing but consume the pre-packaged fandom they serve you through the lines they tell you to stand in. 

Our Culture Deserves Better.

This culture deserves protection. Why? Because conventions should feel like coming home—not like shopping malls with autographs. A con should be safer than the real world; It should not a place where people feel disposable and discarded. Because the ones who really build this community; the staff members that watch the board take all the credit, the cosplayers who are consistently told to give up because someone else is “the pro”, the radical dreamers who want to create something, and sell it. They deserve more than the complimentary applause and corresponding Domino’s pizza party. They deserve a say in how all of this works.

We Can’t fix it – we need to rebuild it.

I don’t want to fix the broken system. I want to rewrite the rules.

I want to help people who sew break the quilted ceiling, so they can buy a sewing machine and learn to sew at a local shop without intimidation and gatekeeping.

I want to tell purists using a laser cutter is not cheating. Then show them where they can use one locally. 

I want there to be cosplay contest rules that are uniform. Rules without loopholes that judges read, follow and enforce without giving the award to their friend, or the person that has the most likes and follows.   

I want guests, employees, contractors and panelists to be compensated fairly for their time and effort and given the recognition they deserve. Everyone deserves the right to profit from their passion.

I want to tell the person at their first small con wearing a store-bought Cosplay of their favorite character that they are awesome and should keep cosplaying. Because they are our future and they want to be recognized too.

I want to design and create systems that protect the soul of this community while planning for the future. To remind organizers that accessibility, honesty, and empathy are not perks for VIPs, they’re the foundation of your show. To tell every burned-out volunteer, silenced speaker, and overlooked artist: you are not the background noise. You’re the power grid that keeps all of us going.

I’m not here to burn it all down.

 I’m here to pick up my blade and foam, and forge armor for this community…before the soul gets stripped away for good. My passion is helping people chase their dreams in this community before they give up. Because in a sea of gossip, gatekeeping, and burnout finding the right resources shouldn’t feel impossible.

Candidly speaking, the danger is already here. The Corporate world has smelled the money. Cosplay is a nearly fifty-billion-dollar US industry worldwide, growing faster than nearly every other niche in pop culture. Cons, Cosplay, K-pop and Anime are on the radar, just as comic books were thirty years ago (and we saw what happened there). As artists and vendors face copyright takedowns on the con floor, and international cosplay contests collapse into chaos, you can bet there’s someone in a boardroom next to a whiteboard gearing up to make it their next acquisition.

They already have the blueprint for our demise

Where we go from here is critical. Because the same people who hire slaughterhouse line designers for celebrity meet-and-greets are now trying to blueprint the soul right out of cosplay. If they have a cosplay contest at all, they try to charge for them. Then they write rules with loopholes big enough to fall through and bring out judges that don’t know the difference between a sewing machine and a 3D printer. Their only goal is turning our community into queues of consumer-minions, where we flock to shows to meet our favorite guests and lose our life savings for two minutes with them.

If we don’t cut the infighting and start thinking strategically, every con is going to turn into a traveling Disneyland; same guests, same overpriced experiences, and the same soulless attractions and panels. We’ll be shelling out $500 for a selfie with a tired celebrity, sitting through another $45 “maid café” where someone half-heartedly hands you a microwaved bowl of ramen and an Oreo while filling out a crossword puzzle for your entertainment. And don’t forget the cosplay contest: pay-to-enter, zero support, and prizes that only reward the same steamrolling five master-class names so they can continue to sandbag then move on to the next con and do it all over again. Meanwhile, the rest of us? We’ll be lucky to find a table in a VFW basement or local community center.

Collaboration over Ego

We cannot let them win. As cosplayers, photographers, vendors, artists—we must stop burning bridges. Stop the backstabbing, the whisper networks, the jealousy wars.

We need to talk to each other again.

We need to work with each other again.

Dream together. Collaborate.

Stop trying to knife-fight your way through this community alone.

These petty turf wars between subcultures—crafters vs. influencers, vendors vs. artists, anime cons vs. comic cons – they must come to an amicable peace. It’s not a war; It’s a symbiosis. Crafters bring depth. Influencers bring reach. One builds the soul, the other spreads the signal. You need both to make the magic last. The same goes for the vendor selling prints and the artist painting originals. The big-name guest on stage and the unsung contractor working 45 hours in a weekend, managing the chaos behind it. We’re all part of the same ecosystem.

Somewhere along the way, we forgot that.

It’s time we remember…

If we don’t – Someone else will

If we don’t get our house in order, someone else (with a stock ticker symbol) will do it for us. They will not have any empathy about what made this culture sacred in the first place. Cosplay and con life isn’t just culture, it’s ours. I’m passionately saying this because I’ve watched this world of ours save many people – including me. I remember my first con vividly; the feeling of finally being somewhere I didn’t have to pretend to be someone else. No filters, just fire and passion. I knew I was home.

Crafting a cosplay, making your new art print, organizing your own event is not escapism, it’s home-building. Cosplay has never been an escape from reality, it’s a remix of it. Every one of us built this piece by piece, thread by thread. This is not our Fantasy; It’s our Identity. And identity deserves to be seen like myth, like legend, and like truth. That’s not why I wrote this. Not for trends, and not for metrics. But because I know what it means to be seen. Showing the truth isn’t enough; we must protect it. We cannot allow our passions to become just another branded experience.

All of us

Because all of us:

The builders, the crafters, the kit-bashers, and the tinkers.

The Vendors and the Artists.

The knitters, the upcyclers, the thrifters, the needle mages, the foamsmiths, the leatherworkers, the molders, the vacuum formers, the metalworkers, the 3D Printers, and the influencers.

The photographers, the videographers, and the guys that make those slick music videos on YouTube.

The staff members, the guests, the organizers, the panelists, the board members, the event venues, the sponsors, and the musicians.

The wargamers, the card gamers, the board gamers, the video gamers, and the tabletop gamers.  

The Fellow misfits, freaks, geeks, nerds, brothers, sisters, and siblings in cosplay and con life That I forgot, and those that just arrived to the party.

We deserve to shape what’s next.

Not the hedge funds.

This Community deserves better.

It is my desire to help this community build systems that carry the heart forward. Ones that are available to everyone, with any budget. Systems that can hold space for the past, yet still radically dream bigger for the future. Anything that can stop this culture from becoming the next footnote next to discos and roller rinks, where people go to basements of community centers to play on some dude’s Nintendo 64 while others peruse white boxes of manga and comic books next to the estate sale tubs of toys.

I am not saying we burn it all down, but I will not stand by while others drain the soul out of it either.

This is more than cosplay.

This is more than going to a con.

It’s our culture. And our culture deserves to be protected, uplifted, and championed.

I’m not writing this to prove I belong.

I wrote this because I already do.

Because when we all rise, the whole tide lifts. And when the current pulls, sharks don’t look back. Because a high tide raises all ships…

…and sharks have no necks.

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