About Yesterday

Okay, here’s the thing.

There will always be people who want to be hall monitors, people who look down on the way you express your love for the things you love.

They are not usually important. I’ve run into this attitude many, many times.

I’m not going to pretend the comments didn’t irritate and annoy me, they most certainly did. Cosplayers get enough shit already. Female comics fans get enough shit already. And yes, male comic readers also get enough shit already.

But to be honest, I don’t care about the commentator or his followers’ opinions. I don’t. They’re just a visible symptom of a much larger virus. And I didn’t want to spend all day stewing about it while people I really care about continued to feel ostracized and unwelcome because of some sad cases’ bulbous insecurity.

So I thought, what about celebrating the positives?  Nothing is better revenge than apathy towards those who want to bring you down.  I didn’t plan anything, it just came out, why not have Cosplay Appreciation Day?

This is why I love you people…that immediately spread out everywhere, and within hours, there were THOUSANDS of tweets and facebook entries and tumblr posts celebrating this day we all just made up and agreed should exist. It was everywhere, dozens of pros posted in support, and not just from the field of comics.

I have to tell you, it made me a bit misty…because YOU PEOPLE TURNED EVERYTHING AROUND. You said, “Oh, really?” to a dumbass, ugly rant, and made the internet the delivery system for a positive message bomb that was vastly more meaningful than the incoherent nonsense that triggered it.

I saw a lot of cosplayers I have met put up their favorite shots…I would LOVE to see someone call them ‘fake nerds’ to their faces. 

More than that, it made me think of some really treasured memories I’ve had dealing with cosplayers. Like the time I was surrounded by a bunch of cosplayers as they faced down those creeps from the Westboro Baptist Church, or the time I got to go with a group of cosplayers who routinely go to cheer up the kids at the Children’s Ward at their local hospital. Or the perhaps less charity-minded but equally memorable time I saw Superman and Nightwing making out like bandits after just meeting at a cosplay contest…

All over the world, in Singapore, Japan, China, Ireland, Spain, all over North America, I’ve seen cosplayers do their thing…they hurt no one and they improve every event they go to. This is their hobby, their art, their passion, their joy.

They’re not latching onto geek culture. They fricking ARE geek culture.

Everyone with a heart knows this all already. But it’s worth repeating loudly the next time someone tries to look down on something they don’t understand or have the capacity to appreciate.

So, that’s why a lot of people celebrated Cosplay Appreciation Day. And that’s how what started as a bunch of negative crap became something a lot more positive for a great many people.

I say, see you next November 13th! :)