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The Rise of Cosplay and Escapism from America’s New Normal Economy
My recent The Week column, “Why the rise of cosplay is a bad sign for the U.S. economy,” may be the most read piece I’ve written strictly for the Internet.
It may also be the most misunderstood. Based on the comments and tweets I’ve received, the most common misunderstanding is that I was arguing that the increase in “costume playing” — primarily based on Japanese anime and manga, as well as similar American media — is somehow responsible for the anemic economic recovery. (Lots of comments by cosplayers about how the money they spend on costumes actually helps the economy or how some even turn their hobby into a small business.)
And for that, I partly blame this io9 story on my column: “Apparently The Economic Downturn Is Cosplayers’ Fault.” Or to be more specific, I blame the io9 headline. The actual piece by Rob Bricken, though hyperbolically and theatrically critical, acknowledges that I am saying just the opposite of the headline. Bricken:
To be fair, despite the headline and subhed that seems to indicate that cosplayers are in fact responsible for the sluggish growth of America’s economy, Pethokoukis states it’s the opposite: “It’s not to say that all or even most cosplay aficionados are struggling to find work. It’s only to say that any rise in people fleeing reality for fantasy suggests problems with our reality.”
Bricken goes on to wonder why I am focusing on cosplay as opposed to other possible diversions:
If our economy is driving people to escape from reality, then perhaps television, movies, sports, books, alcohol, drugs, and videogames might be somewhat more recognizable factors than cosplayers. And if that’s the case, then I also have to wonder if maybe — just maybe — this desire to escape is true of people of all ages who are being f—-d over by the lacks of jobs and job growth, people struggling to find jobs and to hold them, who resent their lack of advancement, or more likely their lack of anything resembling job security.
The reason isn’t because I have something against cosplay. As a comics guy with kids who are into anime and manga, I actually think it’s pretty cool and understand all kinds of people participate for all kinds of reasons. The reason I chose cosplay was because I was making a comparison between the Japanese and American economies. From my column:
Indeed, Japan’s Lost Decades have coincided with a major spike in “people escaping to virtual worlds of games, animation, and costume play,” Masahiro Yamada, a sociology professor at Chuo University in Tokyo, recently told the Financial Times. “Here, even the young and poor can feel as though they are a hero.”
So perhaps, to some degree, the rise in cosplay here — at least more recently — similarly reflects escapism from a depressing economic reality for some cosplayers (not all, of course), particularly 20-somethings facing a depressed labor market. So that’s the theory. Connecting cosplay with escapism doesn’t seem like a huge conjectural leap, as Bricken concedes. Neither does io9′s sister publication Kotaku. From its 2013 piece “Cosplayers Are Passionate, Talented Folks. But There’s A Darker Side To This Community, Too“: “Perhaps not surprisingly, there is also an element of escapism to cosplay.”
Now the Kotaku story wasn’t talking about escape from a bad economy, but it is well known — even commonsensically — that we humans look for diversions during tough times. As the consultancy Euromonitor put it in a 2009 report:
With the global financial crisis hitting home for many, all consumers really want is to do is flee from reality: just as they flocked to see Fred and Ginger movies during the Great Depression, consumers are turning to products and media that take their minds off the daily doom and gloom. This new report examines how leisure trends are changing in the face of recession and ongoing digitalisation, how much consumers are spending and what the impact of these changes will be going forward.
Escapism, then, is perhaps a soft metric that reflects sustained economic weakness. And for some, cosplay serves as economic escapism. And from that perspective, cosplay’s increased popularity is a bad sign for the US economy, as it is for Japan’s — though, on the bright side, at least there is something positive to escape to.
Image credit: Tofudevil / Shutterstock.com
I’m not a cosplayer, but I am someone who owns over 1,500 board games. That’s not including all of the D&D and other RPG books I own.
I’m also a non-profit program director, a Ph.D. student in Political Science, an MBA, a happily married man, and the father of two wonderful twin girls.
As a member of GenX, I learned to love child-like things while rejecting the childishness of the Boomers. All of the things I own are things I can share with my family and friends. I fully embrace the wonder and beauty of popular culture – from Aristophanes to Michael Bay – without a drop of cynicism. For those who mock celebrants of popular culture and recreation, I can only say that we work to live and that we should never live to work.
I believe that the joy that hobbies, games, and recreation give to people is one of the virtues of the state.
I wish I had come up with that.
Just a few more examples of the “cos play” impulse before the name: New Orleans Mardi Gras krewes and Philadelphia mummers societies, Society for Creative Anachronism, sci-fi cons, perhaps even soccer hooligans. All have costuming and a deeply involving social structure.
Don’t forget all the Civil War and Revolutionary War reenactors out there, preferring to escape into a bloody war fantasy instead of dealing with the crushing realities of the 21st century economy.
And the Monty Python sketch about the dare-not-speak-its-name people who gathered to dress up as mice, squeak, and <shamed to admit it> eat cheese.
I don’t know what goes on at “cos-play” events, but with the possible exception of dressing up at sci-fi cons, all of the other activities above have goals or products to which the costuming is complementary but incidental: a performance or exhibition, practicing arts and crafts, terrorizing opposing teams’ fans.
And I have to take exception to “escape into … fantasy instead of dealing with the crushing realities of the 21st century economy“. The SCA, historical re-enactors, etc. flourished long before the Obama Recession.
You may want to get your sarcasm detector recalibrated if you’re going to read posts from Misthiocracy.
When I do it it’s called “irony”, not “sarcasm”.
;-)
Since we can’t see your face on the internet, I guess we’ll let you call that ironic. :D
It’s not so much of a stretch to call cosplay a type of performance or craft. Some (though not all) people choose to stay in character, but pretty much all of them are either trying to show off either their artistic ability or their creativity.
I don’t “recalibrate” to people’s sarcasm; they calibrate to mine.
Actually, it is a stretch. Life as a “performance” isn’t in the same league as an objective performance such as doing marching maneuvers while playing in a band, or making mead and practicing martial arts. Maybe somewhere, somewhen the conceit of “the singer is the song” is a coherent thought, but regardless, it is not the same as “the singer sings a song”.
Cosplay is not a “lifestyle.” Apart from a vanishingly small minority of nutjobs, the majority of cosplayers dress up maybe a handful of weekends a year. Some of the really dedicated ones might do it once a month, but even those are rare.
FYI: This is Gene Roddenberry’s and Majel Barrett’s wedding photo:
I’m just sayin’…