Cosplaying as a Raiders Fan
“That is the same weekend as the con[1]! I can’t miss that!”
“But this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I MUST see this football game!”
A husband and wife are bickering over what they plan to do during Memorial Day weekend. The husband insists that they both watch the Raiders versus the 49ers game that weekend but the wife wants to go to an anime convention[2] instead.
The wife thinks for a moment. “Wait, how about this?” she explains. “The football game is on Saturday so we will go then. On Sunday, we can go to the con for one day.”
Reluctantly, after hearing his wife’s compromise, he agrees that he will go to the convention the day after the football game.
There really is not much of a difference between this couple’s pastimes. These two both don’t realize that their hobbies are one and the same. What you do in each of them can be different, but the people involved, the experiences, the thrills… they are the same.
~*~
What can I say? He is half-naked and painted on his very skin is his favorite team’s colors – silver and black. Resting on his head is a pair of black horns that roughly measure twelve inches. This is my husband. He is the crazy, 250 pound man you probably have seen on television. His belly protrudes out in a menacingly way as his excitement builds up.
Suddenly, a touchdown was made. He jumps out of his seat nearly spilling his beer and high-fives an anonymous man who adorns the Raiders jersey next to him. Even though they may not know each other, they seem like the best of pals at this very moment as they share the experience of this miraculous touchdown. I sit there smiling because he just seems really focused. He has placed himself within the game. He is not just a mere spectator. He is what people like to call a Super Fan.
Looking through the crowd, I feel the exuberance of the silver and black sea of Raiders jerseys as they shout with enthusiasm because their team just made another touchdown. Complete strangers are congratulating each other and expressing what it truly means to be a Raiders fan.
Everyone is social and having the time of their lives. While there are lulls in the game, people can be seen discussing stats of their favorite players or who should be traded out of the team. Fierce debates occur when people start disagreeing with each other. They are acting as if there is a difference in what they are talking about. They may think that their discussion sessions will be considered in the various coaches’ decisions.
The game is over and we back to our hotel room. He starts talking in rapid succession like a speeding bullet. He explains the different highlights of the game, the grave errors the other team made, and how much fun he had.
~*~
Because she was hauled to a football game, I am now forced to attend this weird event – an anime convention according to my wife. She is going to dress up in some type of costume. I was unaware that she was into geeking out in – what she called – cosplay. She explained beforehand that cosplaying means a person dresses up as fictional characters from various media such as shows, movies, and books. Apparently she has worked on this costume for months. Oh well. Whatever. Just as long as she is not those freaks who believe they are fictional characters is when I will deal with this problem. Oh Crap. I am going to run into those kind of people. Better stick close to my wife. I don’t want to run into a 300 pound, delusional loser who still lives in his parents’ basement. He would proclaim that he is Darth Vader or some other random character from Star Wars.
As I wait for my wife to change in the women’s restroom located within the convention center, I notice that many attendees of this convention are wearing very intricate costumes. I glance around the room and see photographers going up to cosplayers[3] and asking them to pose. No one seems crazy yet. No one tried to convert me into that one Jedi religion I saw on CNN yet. No one has convinced me that these losers actually have lives outside of conventions.
The person who walks out of the bathroom has my wife’s face but she looks very different. Her short, blonde locks are replaced with a long black wig. From head to toe, she is wearing a formfitting outfit made completely from a leather-like material. She has leather gloves on and matching boots. My wife may have gone into the bathroom, but out comes the famous video game character Tifa[4].
“Honey! Don’t I look really cute? Hopefully, some of my friends get here soon. We organized a Final Fantasy VII group online and we’ll be having a photo shoot. I met a cosplayer on a forum who looks EXACTLY like Cloud[5]!”
Online? She met people online? When was this? As I stood there thinking about these things, she starts waving frantically at a group of people.
“Hey RedRoses! Faerietayle! You guys!” she yells as she runs towards the group of people I haven’t seen before in my life. They aren’t any of her friends I have met before. “How are you all doing?”
“I’m doing well. Thank you for asking Otaku Love,” one of the people answers.
Wait… why did she just call my wife “Otaku Love?” And just reading my confused face, my wife turns around and says that Otaku Love is her user name she goes by on the forums she met these people in.
As the entourage of cosplayers surround me while walking to the location of the photo shoot, I made small talk with everyone. At first, I figured I would meet people who thought they were the characters they were cosplaying but they all seemed normal. This group is actually very diverse. A high school student. A nurse. A lawyer. Everyone has normal jobs and families back home where they lived. Each person came from different parts of the country like and and and . Perfectly healthy lives.
After the photo shoot, we all decided to go to a restaurant. What was interesting about this dinner was the fact we did not just talk about some random sci-fi[6] book or Japanese anime; all of us discussed current events and how our lives were going. Everything was normal. It was a wonderful evening.
~*~
As the wife and husband head home after their eventful weekend, they both thought about what they learned. Even if the husband is a bit of an extreme fan to the point where he is half-naked, he still was accepted with the other audience members; however, the wife has a hobby society deems peculiar but in actuality is quite normal.
As other hobbies have shown such as the husband’s football craze, cosplay has degrees of involvement. There are casual cosplayers that would dress up once or twice a year while attending a convention. There are other cosplayers who spend hundreds of hours to get every single detail correctly portrayed for the character. People can spend as low as ten bucks to as high as a thousand dollars for a single costume. Likewise, in football, there are extreme and casual fans. The extremes would spend hundreds of dollars to don their favorite player’s jersey and would paint their face for a game. People can buy season tickets or just buy a single game ticket if they feel the urge to just watch one game.
Society may deem cosplaying as “nerdy” but all hobbies are debatably too. Essentially, they all are a waste of time and money but it’s all about dedication and drive within the person. The expenses are monumental sometimes but the experiences at a convention are well worth it. Just like costuming, the football game sells various tickets depending on the location of the seat. Depending on how much you are willing to spend, you may get the highest seat and not see much of a game. If you spend the extra cash, the faces of the players come alive and the game feels more real compared to the high seats.
A football fan and a cosplayer are not that much different. One just happens to be a more “acceptable” fan than the other. What really matters is that friends are made, it is a refreshing idea to be surrounded by likeminded people, and the experiences gained in either hobby are priceless.
[1] “Con” is a nickname for the word “convention.” Attendees who go to anime or science fiction conventions will usually call them “cons.”
[2] An anime convention is an event that usually has different panels and other activities that relate to Japanese animation.
[3] Cosplayers are people who cosplay.
[4] Tifa is from the video game Final Fantasy VII. The wife is cosplaying as Tifa in the spin-off movie of Final Fantasy VII called Advent Children.
[5] Cloud is another character from Final Fantasy VII.
[6] Sci-fi is a shortcut for “science fiction.”
