-Oh.
-Sorry.
[ Laughing ]
I jumped the gun there.
-I have been a geek
for my whole life.
-I am just basically
a huge nerd.
-The crowning achievement
in my life when I was a kid
was knowing more about Star Wars
than my older brother, so...
Cosplay is short
for costume play,
and it is where
people dress up as
or act as
their favorite characters.
-People identify
with a character,
and they just love
that character so much.
It's not enough to just wear a
backpack with their face on it.
Like, you want to be
that character.
-I was about 16.
And a couple of my friends
were like,
"Hey, there's
this convention thing,
and we all kind of dress up
and go there.
Like, a lot of people
dress up as characters."
I was like,
"Oh, that sounds really fun."
-All of a sudden, I get there,
and there's costumers
as far as the eye can see,
and I felt like I was
the only person out of costume,
so I was like,
"I got to do this!"
-The costuming community
has a term
for people who don't wear
costumes to conventions,
which is "mundane."
My uncle didn't want me
to be mundane,
so he put a little tunic on me,
and I wore khaki pants
with boots that went up,
and he put a belt on me,
and it had a lightsaber on it,
and I was a Padawan.
-I just kind of taught myself to
sew just from trial and error.
-As soon as I learned
how to sew a seam,
I just could not stop sewing.
-Last year...
[ Sighs ]
How many? I think I built...
25 costumes last year.
As you can see,
the bottom is quite flowy.
She has mechanical arms.
-We say we level up...
[ Laughs ]
...when we make
a really hard costume.
-I spent over $1,000 on it.
I'm not sure of the exact total.
-I actually have a tutorial
on how I made this one.
Just knowing that something
goes from, you know, in my mind
to a sketch to a pattern
to just this garment
that I've created from nothing,
it's a really cool feeling.
I think there's been
a really strong movement lately
where women feel
that they need to be portrayed
better in comic books.
A study in particular
going around
about the "damsel in distress"
thing,
about how women
are always the plot point,
not so much the main character.
It'd be nice if more people
demanded the opposite.
-I think the biggest problem
or difference that we have
is with mostly
just the older fans.
And the older,
kind of, community
isn't used to having females
in their community.
-"Oh, she probably doesn't even
read comics," and --
I mean, it's really
not that hard
to pick up a comic book
and read it.
-I think everyone wants
to belong to something.
There's always going to be
someone that gets left out,
and nobody ever wants to be
that person that's left out.
-You have people now that are
"gate-keeping" the fandom,
where they'll be like,
"These people
aren't allowed to like this
because they don't like it
as much as I do."
-There's this whole, like, "real
nerd" thing that's going on,
and it's baloney.
I can understand that there is
sort of an animosity
for people who were probably
teased for years
for being a nerd,
and then they finally find
a community that accepts them,
and then, of course, they don't
want other people in that.
As far as I'm concerned,
the more people get involved,
like, the more fun everybody's
gonna have with each other.
Something that's really
important to me
is all the positive things
that cosplay has done for me
in my life.
-I was that kid.
I was that kid
that nobody talked to,
because I had the giant glasses,
and I had braces on my legs,
and my hair
was just a greasy mess.
-I was different from everybody,
and, you know,
maybe if I had let go
of some of these, like, passions
that I had,
maybe I would fit in
a little bit bitter.
-'Cause I didn't want
to be anybody different.
I just wanted somebody like me.
-In just a short amount of time,
I could have very easily become
a different person.
But I started going
to these conventions,
and I started
meeting these people,
and they made me feel like I was
awesome just the way I was.
-I remember I was in, I think,
a math class once.
And someone came up,
and they're like, "I heard you
write Sailor Moon fan fiction."
And I'm like, "Yeah."
They're like, "So do I,"
and, like, gave me
some of theirs to read.
-I started making friends
who were into the same things,
so I didn't feel
as weird anymore.
-To be able to express
your fandom for something
and be able to be like, "Wow,
this is something I enjoy,
and so do other people,"
and to create something from it
was just a really good thing
to have.
-Things have kind of
blown out of proportion now,
like getting invited
to convention stuff.
-I get flown to Mexico
or to Russia.
I started to have fans,
which is very odd experience
when you're just -- I just
dress up as a cartoon character.
-And it was just like
click, click, click, click,
click, click, click,
and, like, flashes everywhere,
and I was just like, posing
the whole time,
and I felt like such a badass.
-It's weird. I can't even --
There's no other word for it,
'cause I still feel like
just the no-name nerd
that sits in my room
and sews all day.
-I went from being
this really awkward,
really uncomfortable
in my own skin person
to someone who -- I am just
very proud to be who I am.
-I can't imagine being what
people would consider normal.
I would think
that I'm really boring.
I like what I do.
-The costuming community and
the geek community in general
had such a profoundly positive
effect on me
that I would love to continue
to see that positive effect
on younger people
who are afraid of being nerds,
but they can learn
to be themselves.
-Don't stop being a nerd.
We're pretty awesome.
[ Laughs ]
