Punk & cosplay

John Ohno
John Ohno
Jul 26, 2017 · 5 min read

This morning I wrote a toot about cosplay. I knew it would be unpopular, but it spawned a lot of discussion based on a number of unintended readings.

What I said was:

If you didn’t make your cosplay costume, you’re cheating.

What I meant was not that only expert tailors should cosplay. Instead, I was trying to criticize the encroachment of commerce into fandom spaces.

I don’t mean to say commerce in fandom spaces is new. It’s not. It presents a unique kind of toxicity to fandom spaces, however — one I’d like to unpack here.

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John Ohno

Written by

John Ohno

Resident hypertext crank. Author of Big and Small Computing: Trajectories for the Future of Software. http://www.lord-enki.net

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