April 10, 2018 • 49 mins
In episode 2, Dani and Ify get in to the world of Cosplay. They talk about where the word comes from, the first cosplay ever at a fan convention, how it has grown over the years, how the costumes are assembled, professional cosplaying, the consent movement within Cosplay, Patreon, & more. Plus they have professional cosplayer Stella Chuu on to discuss her own experiences with Cosplay and how she made a career out of it. Follow Stella on Twitter and Instagram at @StellaChuuuuu and find her on Patreon!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello, and welcome to Nerdificent. I am Danny Fernandez, and
today we are tackling costplay. Yeah, cosplay is that a
thing we're always going to do? Her? Did I force that?
I don't know. I don't know if we'll actually ever
get it at the same time, but cosplay something iffy
that you and I know quite a bit about because
(00:28):
our friends also do it. Oh yeah, we have Hello
cosplay friends. It's pretty great. Yeah. So, for those of
you that don't know, cosplay is actually just the two
words costume and play, and it is a hobby. Okay,
I didn't say this. This is the definition. It says
it's a hobby, but I bet most of my friends
would take issue in that. It's it's a lifestyle. Yeah, yeah,
(00:52):
it's a lifestyle. So for those of you that don't know,
it's basically where participants, known as couse players, they dress
up in costume to represent a specific character, so that
character can be from a video game, from manga, anime, cartoon,
basically anything like that. And we want to preface that
it's so much more than just dressing up for Halloween
(01:15):
or Marty Gras or whatever. It's not just having themed
clothing necessarily or just wearing it for a holiday. It
stems from a subculture of role playing. And actually I'd
say it's less like dressing up for Halloween and more
like wearing your favorite jersey for a sport. It's more
to support the culture that you're a part of and
(01:36):
less to dress up differently for fun, even though that
is an element of it. That is an element of it.
But I would say that cause players normally they take
a lot of pride, so they normally make their own
costumes as well as they actually embody the character. So
these are people that grew up with these characters or
they worship these characters. They know them really well, and
they normally try and have their mannerisms down, their catchphrases,
(02:00):
to sound like them and look like them as much
as possible. So I will say that it is like
if he was saying more of a lifestyle than just like, hey,
I'm gonna dress up for Halloween. Yeah, totally. It is
the highest form of I feel complimenting or imitation. Imitation yeah, yeah,
it almost is like it comes from the idea of
thinking a character is so cool, You're like, I want
(02:20):
to be that character, and for a lot of people.
You get to be that character for a day, and
it's not only cool for the person wearing the costume
or the cosplay. It's also cool for people to see
these characters come to life with great cosplay. It's just
fun all around. Yeah, it's like fully immersing yourself in
that character. And if he and I actually we do
know a lot of professional Cause players, which we will
(02:43):
get into. Yes, there is professional causeplay, but one of them,
just off the top of my head. If you remember
our friend, he lives the lifestyle of future Trunks from
Dragon Mozy. So this is a man. Yes, this is
a man who not only dresses like him, but has
made his word work out so that his body looks
like him. He has dyed his hair so that he
(03:04):
looks like him, and tries to live the lifestyle of
this character. So, like if he was saying, you're trying
to be as much as his character as possible. Now,
that's not everyone. Sometimes people will just Cause plays something
for a day at Comic conn or something like that,
but again they're trying to make it as close to
the character as possible most of the time. Definitely, And
(03:24):
I feel like we're going to have such a fun
deep dive into that because on this episode, uh, we'll
have our first guest professional costplayer, Stella Che. We're gonna
be interviewing her on the second half of this episode
is probably gonna be the meat of the episode because
we're going to get the information right from the genius's mouth.
I'll say, I didn't want to call her a horse.
(03:44):
I don't know if she would appreciate, although it's possible
she may have dressed up like that very So let's
let's deep dive. Let's do this is the deep dive.
I don't know if we're di dive. What is cosplay?
What is cosplay? So, like we said, it is essentially
the words costume and play, and it is where you
(04:04):
are embodying this character with not only a costume, but mannerisms,
body language. And it can be anything from a movie,
TV series, book, comic book, video game, music, band, anime,
or manga. Yeah, there's also a ton of mashups. So
I've seen at comic Con myself. I've seen like Stormtrooper,
Disney Princess. Have you seen that. What's cool about these
(04:27):
mashups is they become legends, like the hip hop Stormtroopers, yes,
they walk around. They have Adida's out Stormtrooper outfits, just
the whole run dmc dally, and they do it every
year and you become I feel like, just to take
a step back and talk about professional cost play, there's
two types of professional cost players. You have the professional
cost players who are known for a cost playing multiple
(04:48):
people like Stella Chu and Yah Yahan and those folks.
Then you have like professional cost players that are known
for one king character because it looks so much like them.
Oh yeah, outfit is just like like the hip hop Stormtroopers.
That's pretty much all they do. And a Deep Pity
who does Deadpool and he does all the comedy videos
and he like embodies Deadpool. Everyone loves them, you know.
(05:10):
And my friend Julian who is Future Trunks Future Trunks,
So someone's gonna branch out. But I've only seen sometimes
when they look so much like that character. I don't
want to say it's easier, but they just embody that
character so much. And so then what happens, and we'll
get into this as well, is that they end up
getting asked to be at these cons for that specific
(05:31):
character because they look so much like them that they
then make appearances, and they get paid to make appearances
and beyond panels and be in sketches and representing this character.
Um so iffy, Do you want to talk about the
first ever cause plan? Yes? Yes, yes. So. One thing
that's cool is I feel like women are trailblazers and
(05:52):
a lot of fields, especially nerdy ones, like, for example,
a woman was the first person to create science fiction.
And it's so funny that there's this flip now where
women are underrepresented in a lot of nerd groups. But
the first cosplay ever was at the first World Science
Fiction Convention in New York in nineteen thirty nine. A
(06:12):
twenty two year old forced Jay Ackerman and his friend
Myrtle are Jones appeared, And that is such we need
that back, and I feel like we might have talked
about the science fiction convention back when we first talked
about convintions. Yeah, so, murder R Jones and Vorg j
(06:35):
Ackerman appeared in their first San Francisco costumes among a
hundred eighty five attendees. The future editor of the famous
Monsters of Film Filmland was dressed as a rugged looking
star pilot and his female companion was adorned in a
gown recreated from the classic nineteen thirty three film Things
to Come. Both of them created quite a stir among
the somber gathering of writers, artists, and finn plural of fan.
(06:59):
I guess they're trying to say finn is plural a
fan even though people say fans. I don't. I don't.
This might be a breakthrough that we just found about.
But basically, what it seems like is they were like
one of the only people who dressed up since everyone
was kind of blown away, you know, Oh, okay, I see,
But still would you consider this causeplay? It sounds like
(07:22):
they just essentially dressed up. They were the only people
that were dressed for the con essentially where now everybody
is cause playing at cons. Well, I feel like, yeah,
they this was the This isn't the first group cosplay,
but I feel like this is the first evidence of
someone being like, I'm a dress up like these people,
especially since they came, especially since Myrtle came specifically from
(07:43):
the film Things to Come. It seems like our Man's
force Jay Ackerman was just a rugged looking star pilot
so and it seems like Myrtle was the one who
was like, no, there is a specific thing. I'm cosplaying
as I'm gonna give Myrtle the crown a rugged pilot.
It sounds like someone that rhymes with fawn Colo. Don't
(08:05):
edit that out. Okay, So that's in the States. But
I want to talk about the first cosplay in Japan. Yeah,
And a very important reason we should talk about that
is because the term cosplay was coined by someone in Japan,
by Nobuyuki Takahashi of the Japanese studio Studio Hard while
attending the Los Angeles Science Fiction World Cars. So he
(08:27):
was impressed by the hall and costume fans and reported
on both in the Japanese science fiction magazines. Yeah. So
he reported back in Japan in the science fiction magazines
and called it cosplay. And right before that, in ninety eight,
we had a young woman portraying to Zuko Sawmos character
Umino Trotan or Triton of the Sea. And again that
(08:49):
was back in ninety A lot of people think that
this took place at the comic market, but it actually
took place at Ashi Con, which was another science fiction convention.
So then the growth of cosplay also continued in Japan.
In the ninety nineties, we saw cosplay cafes that started
(09:09):
to pop up in Tokyo, which is normally seen as
like it's called the Otaku center. If you do you
want to tell people what otaku is, it's a general
Japanese term for people with obsessive interest, even though it's
more commonly used for anime fans. So otaku's I feel
like it's not derogatorially used, but it's pretty much used
for huge fans of anime, and web is the derogatory
(09:34):
for bo for fans of anime, we bou is the
ones that are It's a derogatory term for people that
are obsessed with like Japanese culture and anime um. You
think of people that have fetishes essentially, or people over
here that like their level of anime love is borderline
and appropriate. If you do you want to comment, basically
(09:56):
is where you kind of go over the line and
you almost obsessed about if it's your culture, fetishize Japanese women,
I'd say fetish Japanese culture, and it's just this whole
cool thing that you automatically assume you know more than
anyone about. It's kind of a tricky line, but I
feel like you would know, like if you met someone
(10:18):
like that's otaku that just like they love it and
appreciate it, as opposed to someone that fetishizes it, if
that makes sense. But not to be confused with we blow,
which is the boy Scouts. We be loyal Scouts. Have
you not heard that? If you know, okay, my brother
was a wee blow and bow. If you could be
(10:41):
both of those things, you could be a boy scout
that I bet there are tons of boy Scouts that
fetishized Japanese culture. So yes, Cosplay cafes were essentially themed
cafes where servers were dressed in costumes um for example,
like Made cafes where servers were dressed as maids and
would serve customers like Made would. So yeah, so that
(11:01):
was very popular in the ninety nineties, and then cause
place slowly started with the increase in comic conventions, we
saw more people coming out that would dress up and
really take on this lifestyle of cause play. Sorry, I've
really went into a deep dive of because we because
I'm trying to see what the word comes from. But
(11:24):
it seems like it just is a coined word, like
a we a bow is just a coined where there's
no real meaning of it. And then there was this
like whole interesting crunchy roll forum post that was like
the difference between otaku and a we a bow, and
they basically said otaku basically means by its American definition,
(11:44):
the Japanese one is drastically different and an insult there
that someone is obsessed with manga, anime, Japanese video games.
They often collect many versions of Japanese video games, manga,
and anime. Many people like myself probably put this label
on themselves. However, the other word we abo has been
around it as long and isn't used as much as otaku.
We Abo is basically just in a taku is taking
(12:05):
their passion into something more drastic. Basically, they start replacing
English words such as cat and cute let go in kawaii.
They will use these words almost all the time online
and offline and abuse them. Also, they curse how they
aren't Japanese and don't dare touch stuff as American video
games and watch any American media. We abow is an
insult because of this. A brief desh venition is this
(12:27):
picture and it's just stolen picture from now your man.
I feel like it's someone who doesn't understand that it's
also not their culture, because I've had to deal with weaves,
that's what they're called, weaves who argue about anime as
if it's like I don't know how to put it
where they crap on certain things, and it's like that's
not yours to decide. Who gets to enjoy this, Like
(12:48):
you're kind of borrowing it. At least that's how I
feel about it, And people will probably write us and
argue about it, because when we talked about this on
our other podcast, which was an anime one, we had
people that would write us and be upset. But to me,
it's like, that's not from your culture. Like, so just
remember that you get to enjoy it and borrow it.
You don't get to tell people what's wrong or they're
(13:09):
not allowed to enjoy it. Yeah, you don't get to
gate keep something. You don't get to gate keep, thank you.
That's the word I was looking for. You don't get
to gate keep something that comes from a culture that's
not yours and or correct people from that culture. Because
that's also what we'd see a lot as well, is
weaves would correct Japanese people about their own culture or
how it was represented in anime, and I know some
(13:31):
of our friends that our Japanese would have an issue
with that. So going back to this, going back to causplay, No,
I think there it's important. I did want to say so.
Pablo bay Ran, he's the president of Cosplay dot pH.
Uh So he created this website, so Cosplay dot pH
(13:53):
he started in two thousand and six and it was
essentially a website where Cause players could go and check
the schedules of convention so that they could be up.
So this was in the Philippines. He said. In the
early days of cosplay, the movement was kind of like
they were treated like zoo animals. That's literally his quote.
He said before cosplay was more of a side event
in comic and toy conventions. During that time, they were
(14:14):
sort of a side show. So usually Cause players are
stuck in a small space like mascots, but we're treated
a little worse because we were like zoo animals. So
I don't think they were as appreciated or respected the
way they are now, where people are literally lining up
and pain sometimes to take pictures with them. Yeah, that's
always I feel like the drama that comes with being
(14:36):
the first of something even within our lifetimes. I remember
cosplay wasn't as cool as it is now, Like it
always like, oh man, like these people dressing up and
you know, if you were in the culture, it was good.
But I feel like at this point, cosplay is generally
understood to the mainstream. I remember one of the first
(14:56):
Long Beach City comic cons, people would be out what
people are, like, what's going on? What? What? What is this?
And last time we went, it seemed like the general
city of Long Beach was pre in it. Yeah, I
would say, you know, but I still think my classmates
from Frisco High School in Dallas, Texas, if I was
a professional cause player, which they do. Dallas has professional
(15:18):
cause players. But I'm just thinking of like my specific town. Um,
I think they would think it was weird. I still
think that a lot of suburban like people that maybe
or maybe even that aren't in major cities, which Frisco
is now. Please don't write me, I know that, but
I still feel like if you're an adult that dresses
up every weekend, I feel like you're still going to
(15:40):
be treated like you're weird, just not an our group.
We're really lucky because we live in this nerd bubble
essentially where we get to go to cons all the
time and this is a regular thing. But I do
feel like there are probably people in other areas and
or rural areas where if you dressed up every weekend,
you would be seen as weird. So oh flee. That changes, though,
(16:01):
because people should be allowed to let their freak flag fly.
Not saying that this is a freak thing, but I mean,
if you some of the cause play which we're going
to get into, is a little freaky, though, And the
debate of whether it should be allowed to is one
of my favorites because I do feel like cousplay is sexy.
It can't be very sexy. You're you're often caused playing
(16:21):
video game girls or something like that that have major
you know, cleavage, not as much close I respected. I
respect you got to show the goods. If you got
the goods, show them. But there's been a lot of
debate of you know, a lot of these cons have
young kids, and sometimes a cause play can be b
(16:42):
d s m ish um. I think that's fair to say,
and so how much should be allowed is a conversation
that we're actually going to be having with Stella. Right
after the break, Welcome back to Nottificent. We are here
(17:05):
joined with professional cause player Stella Chew. Thanks for coming on. Hey,
how's it going? Yeah? So, I think before the break
we were talking about sex and cause play, which we're
going to get into, um, but still I wanted to
know how did you first get started? UM. So, I've
been cost playing for um probably like seven or eight
years now, doing it like seriously because prior to that,
(17:28):
putting on a Halloween costume kind of called class playing.
But after I graduated from college, I started to teach
myself how to make my own costumes and um, traveling
to a bunch of different conventions, and I think I've
been doing it like actually professionally for the last three
to four years. Day. It's crazy because it kind of
happened like out of nowhere. There wasn't like just one
day in which somebody was like, now you're a rail
(17:50):
profession quit your job, right. It's just like kind of
happened over time slowly. I knew people standing for you
at least two or three years before I'm at you,
because I my my ex was real into like yeah
yahan and then so I would go on those like
cosplay deep dives and I found you, so you know
you were you were like the underground king. You know
you g K before the rise to professional man. Thanks.
(18:15):
So as far as like your suits, because you make everything,
you make your car and you also stream it a
lot of the times, like live so people can watch
you making your cosplay. How much of that sewing and
talent and like stuff did you already have or did
you pick up? And how long does it take? Um?
So I went to school for like fine arts, like
(18:36):
graphic design, like drawing on the computer, but that did
not prepare me like at all where cosplaying because cosling
is all about working with your hands and like working
materials you've never heard of before, working with like really
cheap material because no one's gonna want to work with
like metal and wood. Instead you want to work with
like ava, foam and like fabrics and stuff. Um. And
(18:58):
so all of this is I stuff I taught myself,
and I've learned kind of with the community because we
all learned from each other. Like everyone figured out how
to paint armor the right way together at the exact
same time. Everyone started using war blood at the same time.
It's all skills I've developed over time. And I wish that,
like I could have gone to a school or had
some kind of like sense a they like come to
teach me on how to do all this stuff, because
(19:20):
I probably would have like saved a ton of money.
I have like fifty dollars in student loan. So now
I don't know if you need to go to school.
You didn't, your boys skipped that. Your boy was like, yo,
this comedy thing. There's no degree for that. So I'm
gonna just drop out. And it worked out fine for me.
But you know, for the listeners who may not know,
because this is a nerdy deep dive for everyone. So
(19:41):
we'd like to fill in everyone. What is av a
foam and war blood? Because I know about war Blow
Like when I was like, you know, confident and thought
I could get into a cosplay like war Blow was king,
And now it's all about av a phone. It's it's
still about war blood though, um, so let's talk about
some like materials. War Blaw is this material that was
and I want to say developed in Germany and like
(20:02):
it's being sold out of Germany and it's a like
thermal plastic. And when I say thermoplastic. It's basically just
a sheet of plastic that you can heat up with
like a hair dryer or a heat gun or even
in your oven, and you can shape it into, you know,
the way you want it to look. So it's kind
of like sheet clay. So imagine you're a little Plato
that you have at home, but instead it's it's in
cheat form and you can shape it however you want,
(20:23):
and when it cools, you have an epic set of armor.
So it doesn't take much technical know how, which is
fantastic for a lot of people who are just jumping
into it, and the like curve to like learn how
to use it is like it's so simple, it's so easy,
and once you get good at it, you get real
good at it, like super good. People have been making
the coolest looking things that will just blow your mind.
(20:46):
You're like, what that's made out of a thermoplastic? I
thought that was like real metal or something. Oh totally,
because in my head, when I started deep diving, my
idea of what war Blow was was, I thought they
were just shapes you would buy with the material. And
then when I went and looked it up and I
was like Oh, it's just a sheet and I have
to shape. But oh, I'm a just nope out because
(21:07):
I don't think I'll be good at it. But you're
saying it's easy. It's pretty easy. I feel like if
somebody just like sat down with you for like twenty minutes,
you'd like get it right away, versus like, you know,
spending five years as a metal spitting of systant and
stuff like that. Um. And then the other thing I
talked about was ava foam. So ava foam is children's
floor mats that you find in kindergarten. Letters on it.
(21:29):
You can paint that, you can shape it and it'll
look like really cool armor. Like I want to think
that some teacher like at KinderCare like figured that, you know,
and like they're off weekend or something. Was like putting
together their cause play for Comic Con. They're like, let
me just borrow this from my classroom. Hey, they have
all the arts and crafts, they're yeah, well, actually it's crazy.
(21:50):
Like most of the things I work with is like
crap kids, Yeah yeah, glitter Google like faux fur. So
it's it's crazy. What the difference between I guess, like
a cause player and like an actual costume designers. Like
costume designers use materials are really traditional and like someone
who started working in the film industry a hundred years
(22:12):
ago like taught you how to do this and stuff,
whereas cosse players are like I'm fourteen and I watch
YouTube and I guess I'm just gonna like work with
what I found at Michael's and what my mom has
in her sewing kit. But those I think looks so cool.
I love when people do low cost cause play, which
is kind of like just putting together something with stuff
that they had around their house, and I just think
(22:32):
it's so creative. I love it. It's awesome because you know,
we're presented with these like problems that we have absolutely
no idea what the solution is going to be, Like
we don't have a plastics factory that we can go
and buy all that. Instead, I have to like cut
open a bottle of water and then use like the
lid and like the end and then like that becomes
(22:53):
part of my gun and spray painting it and stuff.
So it becomes super creative and you start like really
be able to understand like how to dissect something to like, oh,
I can take this thing that's over here, and then
I'll take this thing that's over here and I'll glue
it together and it'll turn into something really cool. Yeah
that's why at a professional level though, Yeah, so I
want to talk about that a little bit. So you know,
(23:14):
before you at the professional level, you're doing it for
just the fun of it, to go to con and
show off your cool, you know, cosplay. How's the pressure
of now having an expectation set for you to have
maybe even the best costplay? Does it? Does it make
it harder? Doesn't make it? Does it take anything out
of it from you? I'd say, like back in the
(23:36):
day when I first started, was when the like rat
race of like online social media, like becoming famous having
the most amount of fans, like that was starting. Because
two thousand eleven, two thousand ten was right when like
Instagram came out, like Facebook had just added pages, and
like Twitter was already pretty big, and like YouTube is
already pretty big, and so there's all this potential and
(23:56):
everyone knew that, like the more likes you had, the
more potential you had. And actually even people thought that
the more likes you have, the more money you got,
Like they still think that, they still think that like,
oh my god, you have like twenty followers, you must
make millions. I'm like what they say that, give that
to me, It'll be like you l a writers and
your mansions, not at all. So how do you feel
(24:20):
cosplay has changed from when you were just starting out
as a humble, young crab bright eyed cosplayer to like now,
because not only has cosplay changed, but even the convention
going experience has grown in all that time. Yeah, it's
changed so much. I'd say it's changed in over three stages.
So the first stage was everyone go to conventions, get
(24:40):
as many goddamn photos as you can, and then post
them as quickly as you can to the internet, no
matter if it's a good picture or a bad picture,
and you'll get like, you'll get follows, kids, you'll become famous.
And then the second stage, um was, Okay, you're getting
hired by companies, and companies are are putting you at
their booths to represent their brand, and like, um, maybe
you're becoming a for media influencer. And then like the
(25:01):
third stage that we are at right now is um,
the money has run dry from these companies because everyone's
a social media influencer. But with the advent of things
like Patreon in other ways to monetize, we've actually taken
control of our own path and not relying on these
like companies or bigger people to write our future for us. Instead,
we're getting stuff directly from the fans and figuring out
(25:24):
what content that we want to make for ourselves. Yeah,
and the whole after the break, I want to go
deep into Patreon and that's a whole fun subject. But
for right now, when was the first time you were
approached by a company and what was that like as
a costplayer? Um? Wow, okay, let me see if I
can remember. Yeah, we gotta go down memory lane. Yeah,
I don't remember maybe the first time I was approached
(25:46):
by company, but I do remember the first time I
was invited to a convention, and I had to play
it real cool and be like, oh, yes, I've done
this before. Uh so, yeah, I had no experience, you know,
being a guest at con like booting at a on
and um traveling internationally even it was in the same year,
it was too conventions. So one convention was in UM
(26:06):
Houston called Anna Matsuri and they had invited me, and
then another convention in um Chile, in South America. Yeah,
like they like fly you out for it. Oh yeah, everything,
Like they put me up in the really nice hotel
that was really like it wasn't like one of those
five star hotels. It was like one of those boutique
hotels where like everything is it's almost like a better
(26:27):
breakfast but also a hotel. So that was really nice.
And they took me to like this beachside town and
like hung out with all these other cost players and
took a photo on the beach with all these beautiful rocks,
and I was like, what is going on in my life?
I'm like traveling internationally like by myself, dressed in cosplay
like my life now. So that was super awesome. And
then like you know, Anniama Matsuri. I have been there
(26:48):
for the last like five years, like going every single year, um,
being their guests there. It's been super awesome and they've
been so great to me, and they've really kind of
followed me throughout my career. Um, so it's yeah, it's
like crazy. Now I'm here like going to conventions like
almost twice a month at least. Yeah, flying all over
the world. How many suits and stuff do you think
that you have made. You could guess I wish I
(27:10):
took a picture of taking apart and use them for
other things. Are want to suit is complete? What do
you do with it? Man? So I used to live
in New York City in a five squarefoot apartment, and
so I could not keep the costumes that I built,
and so I had to sell some of them, throw
some of them away. I would probably I've only ever
repurposed costumes maybe like a handful of times, but usually
(27:33):
I just like straight up like put them in a
box and if I know where for like two years,
and I will say, Okay, it's time for me to
divorce you. I'll sell you off or I'll throw you away. Um.
I actually this morning, UM put up my Generos cosplay
from One Punch. Man. I know, I'm sorry, I know
you like. Um, So, I how much is it going for? Well,
it's just the armor pieces, so I had to like.
So it's a character called Genos and he is a
(27:55):
bionic boy. Both of his arms are bionic, and so
I had built the armor for that and I had
a wig and everything. But I haven't warned him at
all in two years. And I figured, like, I'm just
gonna like that's your time. Yeah, I put it up
on my store and be today. We'll see if anyone
wants it. But I mean I am really tiny's and
he's a boy, so I the only other person who
could wear this is a tiny girl, just like a
(28:16):
small child. Small child, they could they could put a
ten year old boy in it. That's fine. So I mean,
it is the industry at this point, and there's other
cost players. You know, you've got big dogs. The one
that we keep saying because that's the one that stuck
in my head is like, yeah, yeah, han, Like that's
like I think probably one of the top known cost players.
What is that like is it competitive or is it
(28:37):
more collaborative? So back in the day, it was very
collaborative because we all did not know what we were doing.
It was like, um, is this a business or are
we just like here having fun? Like we can't quite
our day jobs. We're not making any money. But also
I'm really petty and like catty because this is a
bunch of girls who are very narcissistic, and you know,
we're all fighting for numbers and the numbers game. So
(29:00):
like that was the environment. It was like we were
all friends, but we're also like very competitive, but like
we also collaborated, you know, like we're very professional with
each other. There wasn't a lot of drama in terms
of like the overarching like groundbreaking everyone divorcing from each
other type of drama. It was more like just like,
well she said that, and then I said that, and
then like there was what if someone dressed what if
(29:21):
you guys dress up at the same thing? To never
seemed to be a problem, but because the Internet is
full of idiots, it was their problem. Like it would compare,
you feel like, and then I'd be like, and then
it's a competition to see what you mean, Like, it
doesn't really matter to me if I like look like
somebody or if they look like me, or if my
costoms better their costoms better, like that, I don't care
(29:42):
about that. What I care about is the respect of
my peers. And if my peers think that what I
did was wrong, then I will feel like I did
something wrong. But the general audience is like me, then
I'm like, I don't care. You're not the people I'm
trying to impress. I'm trying to impress like my peers
who I respect and are also talented and would actually
make me feel like I don't belong in this community
if I actually did something terribly wrong. Well, that's actually
(30:04):
a good time to like segue into like, yeah, the
audience versus the cost player and the things, because Cosplay
has been in a weird roller coaster because you know,
Cosplay can be like Genos this like badass, kick ass guy,
but and no fault of the cost player. It's really
just the men who draw women this way an anime,
it can be very sexy. So then you have these
(30:25):
weird rules that con set up in like how much
you can show or how much you can and then
like the flip of like you know dudes who are
like I'm gonna be the schoolgirl and be scantily clad
because you know for low Yeah yeah, but like I
feel like sometimes the dudes who do that get away
with doing that, and then if a female is wearing
(30:45):
the same outfit, it's like it's against rules. So how
do you feel about all of that? I think that
the situations you're talking about are like not as common
because like when there's like somebody not dressed appropriately, like
the con will like tell them to please stop. And
when there are people dressed inappropriately inappropriate? Well okay, so
(31:08):
at a con Okay, So the things that I consider inappropriate,
um are things that it's really contextual for me, because
it's like I wouldn't wear this in front of like
families and stuff like that's not fair to them. Um,
They're at an event that's public, regardless of it's a
family event, like or if it's like an adult event
like Dragon Con is for adults to get drunk at.
(31:28):
When I see a five year old kid there, I'm like,
why what your parents are probably getting drunk into that
right now. So, but like San Diego Comic Con very
family friendly, but like I'm just like, okay, then don't
wear you know, a thong outdoors, Like in no context
(31:49):
would it be okay to wear a thong outdoors in
your bedroom taking photos? Like for Patreon, Totally fine to
do that, right, Like if it's cannon to like a
specific character, hell yeah, totally to do that. I've totally done,
like scantily Cloud costumes, Like every month I do scantily
Cloud Costumes page that people can find on Stella's patreo. So,
but like it's all about context and about like I
(32:11):
don't understand why people even have to argue about it
in a way, because to me, it just makes sense. Okay,
you do not cross the line, right, you do not
wear something that is like very obviously not for the art,
it's like very obviously for the sexual attention or slash lulls.
Like it's it's just people just need to learn to differentiate.
But for the people who can't differentiate, let's just write
(32:33):
that down a little bit. Yeah, it's okay to wear
what you would wear to a beach, But if you're
just wearing a bikini at a convention in which people
who are attending are wearing a full outfit of clothes,
and you're probably not being appropriate because like that's not
an appropriate situation to where But if like everyone at
the con was all about wearing the bikini, such as
Colossal Con, which is in Ohio, which I'm going to
(32:55):
this Year's such a great con, so like we call
it bikini Con because it's at a water park and
everyone makes a bikini version of of a character. Um,
But if you're wearing that at like Anime Expo in
the middle of like the Anime Expo hall, it's kind
of like you're in a convention center that is indoors.
There's no context in which like a bikini would make
sense and stuff like that. And then when people just
(33:16):
like wear joke costumes for the lulls that are like
very inappropriate for people to see. Then they told me
one that someone like didn't have anything covering their ass. Yeah.
So when I was seventeen years old going o decon,
I saw this woman wearing this costume where it was
basically a piece of craft foam, like really crappy craft
foam that you can buy at like a craft store
glued to her crotch, no underwear, and then like two
(33:39):
pieces of craft room glued to her nipples so as pasties.
And then she was wearing a cape and she had
a hat on and a wig, but that was all
she had on, so she didn't have any hear, who
are she supposed to be waiting for? Maybe enough information?
And then I have no idea of what even reference
it is like, but her maybe it was a girl
(34:01):
if you get her own character. But what you were
telling me is like if her cape blue, you would
see the back of her maybe and also part of
her front. Uh. And we were discussing before this, like
you know if that were a dude around young children, yeah,
it'd be so yeah yeah, So like it's all about
I guess these people aren't just getting like not saying
(34:21):
that it's not for a woman. I want to say that.
I'm just saying the way that society views it is
that society would be harsher on the man for having
his growth and women are beautiful. It's like, there's okay,
so there's just too many situations in which not enough
people are asserting the rules, and then there's too like
(34:41):
many situations in which the opposite is happening. So it's
like we see all these extremes. Were like Cosplayer gets
banned from con for wearing like like something that shows
her underbut but then like Cosplayer doesn't get banned for
just wearing pasties two trucks. You know, it's like there's
there's not like a centralized list of rules because not
everyone has this same kind of frame guiding them, right,
(35:03):
and not every con is in the same place, like
not every like you were saying, you know, some of
them are more adult oriented, um and have a lot
of drinking happening, and like where some cons where body
painting is totally fine. And then some cons were like
being nude is totally fine. It just depends what kind
is that. Well they're not they're not anime cons, but
(35:27):
they are Okay, okay, talk after but like you're saying, yeah,
it seems like it's just the time the place. Understand
the context because you know, some cons you want to
keep a family family, and some it's cool and on
the Patreon yeah, Well, the thing is like I'm a
person who follows the rules, and like when there are
no rules in place, then I will do what I want, right,
(35:49):
and so I never want to offend anyone I don't
want to, Like, I follow societal rules and I follow
actual rules, right, so I won't wear something super ultrasexual
to a con. If it's in appropriate, I will do
it behind doors. But I would certainly post that photo
online where it's appropriate, right for for the people who
are you know, of appropriate agency, and if a kid
sees it, like not my fault, the parents didn't um,
(36:11):
So yeah, for Patreon, Like that's what Patreon has kind
of created, this place in which people can be lud
and do badour and do whatever their interpretation of their careers,
and like this is a place where like sex cells,
like you can finally feel comfortable doing the thing that
you want to do for like expressing your sexuality, and
(36:31):
like being able to make money from costplain characters that
would otherwise be not okay to a costplay in real
life because you know, anime and video games are very
Have you seen the new costume for Ivy Valentine from
Soul Caliber. Those pieces are basically glued onto her, So
it's just and people want to be accurate. So that's
(36:52):
what I'm saying. That's that's what I'm saying. That's the
beauty of Patre. You can finally see these and we'll
get like deep in the Patreon and ludes and that's
all about. I'll talk right after that break and we're
back here with stell It. You as always your boy
if you and Ryan across from him, I'm Danny Fernandez.
(37:14):
So we were talking about ludes. Do you want to
tell people what those are? So ludes is the new
Internet term for like sexy photos and doing things like
really sexy, and they're not pornographic, they're just nudes. There'll
be news and they will be literal porn right, So
like dudes are like that line, that big old glass
(37:35):
door right on the other side. You know, you can't
cross over it, but you can see it. So it's
the new word we're using because it really does describe
like everything that fits under there, so things that it
could be just making a sexuy face. There's like that
whole a hagal face, which is the organs orgasm like
entie and stuff like, which is Japanese porn. I gotta yeah,
(37:58):
so Japanese and made it porn. Yes, thank you, yes
for clarifying that. Um. So there's a you know, like
making like orgasm face to like legit like implied nudes, um,
but without actually showing any body parts and stuff. You know,
always dressing up as a character of some kind. But
it doesn't always have to because people can just do
ludes that have nothing to do with cosplay. Um. So yeah,
(38:21):
those are ludes and people can find those on your Patreon.
So my patreon is a wide spectrum, like I have
something for everyone. They're not just my ludes and my
sexy stuff. But um, Patreon is an opportunity for me
to be able to make a living off of my cosplay. Um.
It's a site where people can literally donate to you
(38:43):
every month, and they have different tiers, so depending on
your donation, they get different things. Yeah, and so like
at the lower tiers, you're getting patterns, you get how
to tutorials, get vlogs, you get photo sets of like
costumes that I've done, such as like my Ferra cosplay
from Overwatch, which is a bionic robot woman covered fully
head to toe in armor. You know, I've done customs
(39:06):
from Legal Legends in which I was holding a glowing
sword that I made myself and stuff. Um, so I
do do those like very epic builds that take a
lot of different kinds of skills and like special effects
and stuff. But as you climb higher in the tears,
like that's when I start like dishing out like more
ludes and stuff like that. Because if I'm going to
create sexual content things for you know, like that, then
(39:27):
why not you should be getting paid. Should be getting paid.
I've seen them and they are worth money. But quick question,
because I was curious about this when I noticed this,
But you recently separated your Instagram to having like just
your Stella Chew Instagram and Stella ludes. Was there just
(39:48):
like a request for them? There's so many reasons why
I did that, Like Facebook has been killing Instagram like
share ability, and it's been killing me, and like I'm
just trying to figure out, like to figure out all
their algorithms and stuff. But basically, um, I had somebody
say to me that, like, hey, why don't you try
starting a new Instagram. You might see like your shadow
(40:10):
band and see all these like new things happening. Like
maybe you're not affected by this like bad algorithm and
you think, and you know what, they're right, I'm getting
like the same amount of engagement on my brand new
Instagram account that only has five thousand followers. Yeah, can
you tell everyone what shadow banning is? Basically, it means
that Instagram does not care to show your content followers
(40:31):
anymore at all, and it sucks and nothing I'm doing
is actually fixing it. Like I'll post to like something
that's very, very engaging, and I know why it's engaging.
It's because it shows a little bit of sexy stuff.
But then I'll post like something that's you know, fully
armored costume and like no one cares. My heart just
like shatters into a million pieces. Well it's weird, because yeah,
(40:53):
Instagram has been very dra cony and recently because I
posted a progress photo of just me shirtless three and
showing you know, my new type body. I will say
that was a little imprint, but like nothing, God, there
wasn't anything crazy. It got deleted. It got deleted. What Yeah,
Instagram deleted it said it was against community. Got but wait,
that means that someone had to report it, right, No,
(41:16):
because if it was reported, it'll like you'll get a
notification that says someone reported it. But this one was
like Instagram has found your post. There's no way some
like Instagram intern it like sees the little bump that
you big bump that you have. There's no way that
I can't imagine that. I mean, I haven't been targeted yet,
(41:36):
but like, let's not tell the whole world that I
haven't been targeted yet, and I don't tell them, so
if I know you had some questions for Stella about
how Patreon has affected cosplay. Yeah, so, like I noticed
in a kind of funny way, how Patreon has kind
of changed the game for cosplay because like I think
a year or two ago, I found like one cost
(41:57):
players like lewd Patreon and I subscribed and I thought
it was just this one off thing. I was like, Oh,
this is a cool thing she's doing. Like then I noticed, like, no,
a lot of cosplayers are doing it, and a lot
of cost players have the lewd model. There was a
subway that now got shut down because they're being assholes
in there. So when one person does something right, the
(42:20):
entire cosmic community is just all of a sudden, like
a wave, like a tsunami wave. We all just do
it at the exact same time. And it's because we're
all friends with each other on Facebook, we all like
our messaging groups together, We're all in like these like
brainstorming groups together. Yeah, so when one person joins a
new social media thing, everyone does it. When one person
(42:41):
does a thing on Patreon that's really successful, everyone does it.
And so that's why you're seeing an explosion of like
lewd models for cosplay on Patreon is because everyone has
figured out that this is the model, this is where
the money is, this is what the fans want, and
it gives us the ability to continue to do cosplay
because without doing luds, we do not have the money
(43:02):
to continue to We are the dudes also, But I
feel like, yeah, yeah, I know, guys, dude ludes. But
I'm saying, are the majority of the dude cause players
that I know, like once I'm thinking of are like
I think living Ichi Go and like Leo Camacho and
like are they doing No, I don't think Leo is.
I don't think Sarah. I feel like Leo. Oh I
didn't know. Oh yeah, never mind, I don't know. I'm
(43:24):
getting there with a pretty face. Yeah, I'm saying, once
I get the nb J bottom really going to get
this doom fist lud going. You know, any cosplayer welcome
to have me. Yeah yeah, any cosplayers. Look, you can
use my body because I'm not gonna I'm not gonna
do another Patreon because I think it's real cute when
cost players. Do you like the duo thing? Yeah? Yeah,
(43:46):
when we collaborate with that's I guess that's the way
you say collaborate, not the duo thing. There are guys
who are very successful in Patreon. Yeah, so you probably
go check them out. They're great. And the more guys
that you support who doom, it's the more guys who
will do loose movement. Yeah. So, um, I mean people
(44:07):
think that Okay, then the only thing that's on patreon
is lutes, and it's not. It's not actually um. In fact,
like some of the most successful patreons don't have anything
to do with lutes. Like Kimpotsu is a costplayer from
South Africa and her patreon is very successful, like hundreds
and hundreds of supporters for her, and she produces costumes
(44:27):
Like I thought I was a fast costplayer. No, she
can pump out beautiful, immaculate costumes faster than I can. UM.
And yeah, she's like South Africa, Like how would you
think that it would be at least someone here in
l A America, where like all the cosplay economy is
But no, she's over there by herself, like she's building
her own community there. She's a powerhouse. She's amazing. UM.
(44:50):
There's like so many other very very successful costplayers that
aren't using the LUDE model in order to become successful,
and that's because they have like this amazing talent and
skill that a lot of the rest of us don't
have or haven't figured out how to channel it. UM.
And so that's our own fault and it's not anyone
(45:10):
else's fault, because these amazing cost players have proven that
they can make this model work. They can make the
non lewd model work, and it's our own faults for
perpetuating the lewd model even though we want to do it.
But it is a problem. It is legitimately problem because
it's of what's out there and that's not fair. It
should be a balance. Um. So that's why I try
so hard to continue to build the craftsmanship of my
(45:34):
work and give that out to everyone, Like I sell
patterns on my store, Like I give out patterns to
my patrons, and I make sure that people know that,
Like you know, I'm a lot about what I make,
but I'm also about like the sexy stuff too, because
you should be Yeah, I me myself as a person,
I try and balance both sides, right. I haven't trying
to be fifty fifty. I just want the community to
(45:54):
as well. This is an interesting thing and it's something
I brought up, and I feel like it's just a weird,
toxic thing. And the nerd can be you because I
feel like if you wanted to lose because that makes
you happy, you should be fine. But I feel like
nerds have this weird way of being like, no, you
have to be the full package, where like a lot
of times I'll see a lot of lude cost players
post things on Twitter where it's like like genuine like
(46:17):
hot photo of themselves and then they're doing like an
ugly face, and I feel like there's almost like a
need because like weird nerd men are like, you can't
just be sexy because then I disrespect you. You know. Yeah,
the thing that you're pointing out right now is something
that I completely noticed. I noticed that the first time
I saw someone do a dirt face, and I'm like,
it's because the threatened. Do you remember the iffy that
(46:40):
picture that I did where I was like in full
pin up sexy makeup, but I was picking my nose
and so many no one's could have bothered so many people.
But the reason why it's because at that time I
was doing stand up. I'm like, well, I can't just
be a hot sexy girl and pin up, so I'm
gonna pick my nose. So it's like, oh, I'm also
funny though, like, remember it's a weird thing. Where's like
me when I post my THIRSDT trap, it's full action mine.
(47:03):
I got rid of that thirsted out. But it is
funny because it is like if you look at like
people who and I think in general over comedy that's
been a weird thing because when I started doing fitness stuff,
I split, like, I still have Iffy lifts versus Iffy,
But then you have guys like Reggie wats are like, no,
I'm in the gym right now. Because it's a weird
(47:24):
balance where I feel like both a nerd them and
in comedy it's like you can't take anything too seriously
because then you, I mean, you will believe that. I
do want to say that I do feel like if
the nerd guys that you and I know, if he
had Stella's body, that they would easily be posting it constantly. Look,
the nerd guys we know who are fit like me
(47:45):
have shirtless pictures up. I'm looking at you. Paris. Yes,
oh god, Paris has like a six pack. I didn't
even know. That's so mad. I was like, so mad.
I wanted to be the buffets and then he pulled
out that six packs. Still, I did want to thank
you for coming on. Where can people catch your Patreon?
Yeah so patreon dot com, slash tell you. You can
also find me on twitch dot tv slash tell you,
because I stream five days a week it's basically a
(48:07):
job now it's pretty cool. Um. And that's also where
I build all my costumes, so you can come watch
me make stuff and sew my fingers together. Dope, you
know me. It's your boy. If you y I F
Y n W A d I E on Twitter and Instagram,
follow Nerdificent. It's Nerdificent on Twitter. It's near deficent on Instagram,
and there's a nerdifficent Facebook, and I'm at ms Danny Fernandez.
(48:30):
It's M S D A n I F E r
n A n d e z on all the social media's. Yeah,
rate us and review us on iTunes because that helps
us out. And maybe you'll get a lude. I don't know.
We can send you one. We'll work it out. It'll
be if that band. Oh my gosh, I'm so mad.
I want to repost it out of just anger, but
on my like main Facebook. All right, we'll get you
(48:54):
guys next week. Yeah. By the tap of local
Hello, and welcome to Nerdificent. I am Danny Fernandez, and
today we are tackling costplay. Yeah, cosplay is that a
thing we're always going to do? Her? Did I force that?
I don't know. I don't know if we'll actually ever
get it at the same time, but cosplay something iffy
that you and I know quite a bit about because
(00:28):
our friends also do it. Oh yeah, we have Hello
cosplay friends. It's pretty great. Yeah. So, for those of
you that don't know, cosplay is actually just the two
words costume and play, and it is a hobby. Okay,
I didn't say this. This is the definition. It says
it's a hobby, but I bet most of my friends
would take issue in that. It's it's a lifestyle. Yeah, yeah,
(00:52):
it's a lifestyle. So for those of you that don't know,
it's basically where participants, known as couse players, they dress
up in costume to represent a specific character, so that
character can be from a video game, from manga, anime, cartoon,
basically anything like that. And we want to preface that
it's so much more than just dressing up for Halloween
(01:15):
or Marty Gras or whatever. It's not just having themed
clothing necessarily or just wearing it for a holiday. It
stems from a subculture of role playing. And actually I'd
say it's less like dressing up for Halloween and more
like wearing your favorite jersey for a sport. It's more
to support the culture that you're a part of and
(01:36):
less to dress up differently for fun, even though that
is an element of it. That is an element of it.
But I would say that cause players normally they take
a lot of pride, so they normally make their own
costumes as well as they actually embody the character. So
these are people that grew up with these characters or
they worship these characters. They know them really well, and
they normally try and have their mannerisms down, their catchphrases,
(02:00):
to sound like them and look like them as much
as possible. So I will say that it is like
if he was saying more of a lifestyle than just like, hey,
I'm gonna dress up for Halloween. Yeah, totally. It is
the highest form of I feel complimenting or imitation. Imitation yeah, yeah,
it almost is like it comes from the idea of
thinking a character is so cool, You're like, I want
(02:20):
to be that character, and for a lot of people.
You get to be that character for a day, and
it's not only cool for the person wearing the costume
or the cosplay. It's also cool for people to see
these characters come to life with great cosplay. It's just
fun all around. Yeah, it's like fully immersing yourself in
that character. And if he and I actually we do
know a lot of professional Cause players, which we will
(02:43):
get into. Yes, there is professional causeplay, but one of them,
just off the top of my head. If you remember
our friend, he lives the lifestyle of future Trunks from
Dragon Mozy. So this is a man. Yes, this is
a man who not only dresses like him, but has
made his word work out so that his body looks
like him. He has dyed his hair so that he
(03:04):
looks like him, and tries to live the lifestyle of
this character. So, like if he was saying, you're trying
to be as much as his character as possible. Now,
that's not everyone. Sometimes people will just Cause plays something
for a day at Comic conn or something like that,
but again they're trying to make it as close to
the character as possible most of the time. Definitely, And
(03:24):
I feel like we're going to have such a fun
deep dive into that because on this episode, uh, we'll
have our first guest professional costplayer, Stella Che. We're gonna
be interviewing her on the second half of this episode
is probably gonna be the meat of the episode because
we're going to get the information right from the genius's mouth.
I'll say, I didn't want to call her a horse.
(03:44):
I don't know if she would appreciate, although it's possible
she may have dressed up like that very So let's
let's deep dive. Let's do this is the deep dive.
I don't know if we're di dive. What is cosplay?
What is cosplay? So, like we said, it is essentially
the words costume and play, and it is where you
(04:04):
are embodying this character with not only a costume, but mannerisms,
body language. And it can be anything from a movie,
TV series, book, comic book, video game, music, band, anime,
or manga. Yeah, there's also a ton of mashups. So
I've seen at comic Con myself. I've seen like Stormtrooper,
Disney Princess. Have you seen that. What's cool about these
(04:27):
mashups is they become legends, like the hip hop Stormtroopers, yes,
they walk around. They have Adida's out Stormtrooper outfits, just
the whole run dmc dally, and they do it every
year and you become I feel like, just to take
a step back and talk about professional cost play, there's
two types of professional cost players. You have the professional
cost players who are known for a cost playing multiple
(04:48):
people like Stella Chu and Yah Yahan and those folks.
Then you have like professional cost players that are known
for one king character because it looks so much like them.
Oh yeah, outfit is just like like the hip hop Stormtroopers.
That's pretty much all they do. And a Deep Pity
who does Deadpool and he does all the comedy videos
and he like embodies Deadpool. Everyone loves them, you know.
(05:10):
And my friend Julian who is Future Trunks Future Trunks,
So someone's gonna branch out. But I've only seen sometimes
when they look so much like that character. I don't
want to say it's easier, but they just embody that
character so much. And so then what happens, and we'll
get into this as well, is that they end up
getting asked to be at these cons for that specific
(05:31):
character because they look so much like them that they
then make appearances, and they get paid to make appearances
and beyond panels and be in sketches and representing this character.
Um so iffy, Do you want to talk about the
first ever cause plan? Yes? Yes, yes. So. One thing
that's cool is I feel like women are trailblazers and
(05:52):
a lot of fields, especially nerdy ones, like, for example,
a woman was the first person to create science fiction.
And it's so funny that there's this flip now where
women are underrepresented in a lot of nerd groups. But
the first cosplay ever was at the first World Science
Fiction Convention in New York in nineteen thirty nine. A
(06:12):
twenty two year old forced Jay Ackerman and his friend
Myrtle are Jones appeared, And that is such we need
that back, and I feel like we might have talked
about the science fiction convention back when we first talked
about convintions. Yeah, so, murder R Jones and Vorg j
(06:35):
Ackerman appeared in their first San Francisco costumes among a
hundred eighty five attendees. The future editor of the famous
Monsters of Film Filmland was dressed as a rugged looking
star pilot and his female companion was adorned in a
gown recreated from the classic nineteen thirty three film Things
to Come. Both of them created quite a stir among
the somber gathering of writers, artists, and finn plural of fan.
(06:59):
I guess they're trying to say finn is plural a
fan even though people say fans. I don't. I don't.
This might be a breakthrough that we just found about.
But basically, what it seems like is they were like
one of the only people who dressed up since everyone
was kind of blown away, you know, Oh, okay, I see,
But still would you consider this causeplay? It sounds like
(07:22):
they just essentially dressed up. They were the only people
that were dressed for the con essentially where now everybody
is cause playing at cons. Well, I feel like, yeah,
they this was the This isn't the first group cosplay,
but I feel like this is the first evidence of
someone being like, I'm a dress up like these people,
especially since they came, especially since Myrtle came specifically from
(07:43):
the film Things to Come. It seems like our Man's
force Jay Ackerman was just a rugged looking star pilot
so and it seems like Myrtle was the one who
was like, no, there is a specific thing. I'm cosplaying
as I'm gonna give Myrtle the crown a rugged pilot.
It sounds like someone that rhymes with fawn Colo. Don't
(08:05):
edit that out. Okay, So that's in the States. But
I want to talk about the first cosplay in Japan. Yeah,
And a very important reason we should talk about that
is because the term cosplay was coined by someone in Japan,
by Nobuyuki Takahashi of the Japanese studio Studio Hard while
attending the Los Angeles Science Fiction World Cars. So he
(08:27):
was impressed by the hall and costume fans and reported
on both in the Japanese science fiction magazines. Yeah. So
he reported back in Japan in the science fiction magazines
and called it cosplay. And right before that, in ninety eight,
we had a young woman portraying to Zuko Sawmos character
Umino Trotan or Triton of the Sea. And again that
(08:49):
was back in ninety A lot of people think that
this took place at the comic market, but it actually
took place at Ashi Con, which was another science fiction convention.
So then the growth of cosplay also continued in Japan.
In the ninety nineties, we saw cosplay cafes that started
(09:09):
to pop up in Tokyo, which is normally seen as
like it's called the Otaku center. If you do you
want to tell people what otaku is, it's a general
Japanese term for people with obsessive interest, even though it's
more commonly used for anime fans. So otaku's I feel
like it's not derogatorially used, but it's pretty much used
for huge fans of anime, and web is the derogatory
(09:34):
for bo for fans of anime, we bou is the
ones that are It's a derogatory term for people that
are obsessed with like Japanese culture and anime um. You
think of people that have fetishes essentially, or people over
here that like their level of anime love is borderline
and appropriate. If you do you want to comment, basically
(09:56):
is where you kind of go over the line and
you almost obsessed about if it's your culture, fetishize Japanese women,
I'd say fetish Japanese culture, and it's just this whole
cool thing that you automatically assume you know more than
anyone about. It's kind of a tricky line, but I
feel like you would know, like if you met someone
(10:18):
like that's otaku that just like they love it and
appreciate it, as opposed to someone that fetishizes it, if
that makes sense. But not to be confused with we blow,
which is the boy Scouts. We be loyal Scouts. Have
you not heard that? If you know, okay, my brother
was a wee blow and bow. If you could be
(10:41):
both of those things, you could be a boy scout
that I bet there are tons of boy Scouts that
fetishized Japanese culture. So yes, Cosplay cafes were essentially themed
cafes where servers were dressed in costumes um for example,
like Made cafes where servers were dressed as maids and
would serve customers like Made would. So yeah, so that
(11:01):
was very popular in the ninety nineties, and then cause
place slowly started with the increase in comic conventions, we
saw more people coming out that would dress up and
really take on this lifestyle of cause play. Sorry, I've
really went into a deep dive of because we because
I'm trying to see what the word comes from. But
(11:24):
it seems like it just is a coined word, like
a we a bow is just a coined where there's
no real meaning of it. And then there was this
like whole interesting crunchy roll forum post that was like
the difference between otaku and a we a bow, and
they basically said otaku basically means by its American definition,
(11:44):
the Japanese one is drastically different and an insult there
that someone is obsessed with manga, anime, Japanese video games.
They often collect many versions of Japanese video games, manga,
and anime. Many people like myself probably put this label
on themselves. However, the other word we abo has been
around it as long and isn't used as much as otaku.
We Abo is basically just in a taku is taking
(12:05):
their passion into something more drastic. Basically, they start replacing
English words such as cat and cute let go in kawaii.
They will use these words almost all the time online
and offline and abuse them. Also, they curse how they
aren't Japanese and don't dare touch stuff as American video
games and watch any American media. We abow is an
insult because of this. A brief desh venition is this
(12:27):
picture and it's just stolen picture from now your man.
I feel like it's someone who doesn't understand that it's
also not their culture, because I've had to deal with weaves,
that's what they're called, weaves who argue about anime as
if it's like I don't know how to put it
where they crap on certain things, and it's like that's
not yours to decide. Who gets to enjoy this, Like
(12:48):
you're kind of borrowing it. At least that's how I
feel about it, And people will probably write us and
argue about it, because when we talked about this on
our other podcast, which was an anime one, we had
people that would write us and be upset. But to me,
it's like, that's not from your culture. Like, so just
remember that you get to enjoy it and borrow it.
You don't get to tell people what's wrong or they're
(13:09):
not allowed to enjoy it. Yeah, you don't get to
gate keep something. You don't get to gate keep, thank you.
That's the word I was looking for. You don't get
to gate keep something that comes from a culture that's
not yours and or correct people from that culture. Because
that's also what we'd see a lot as well, is
weaves would correct Japanese people about their own culture or
how it was represented in anime, and I know some
(13:31):
of our friends that our Japanese would have an issue
with that. So going back to this, going back to causplay, No,
I think there it's important. I did want to say so.
Pablo bay Ran, he's the president of Cosplay dot pH.
Uh So he created this website, so Cosplay dot pH
(13:53):
he started in two thousand and six and it was
essentially a website where Cause players could go and check
the schedules of convention so that they could be up.
So this was in the Philippines. He said. In the
early days of cosplay, the movement was kind of like
they were treated like zoo animals. That's literally his quote.
He said before cosplay was more of a side event
in comic and toy conventions. During that time, they were
(14:14):
sort of a side show. So usually Cause players are
stuck in a small space like mascots, but we're treated
a little worse because we were like zoo animals. So
I don't think they were as appreciated or respected the
way they are now, where people are literally lining up
and pain sometimes to take pictures with them. Yeah, that's
always I feel like the drama that comes with being
(14:36):
the first of something even within our lifetimes. I remember
cosplay wasn't as cool as it is now, Like it
always like, oh man, like these people dressing up and
you know, if you were in the culture, it was good.
But I feel like at this point, cosplay is generally
understood to the mainstream. I remember one of the first
(14:56):
Long Beach City comic cons, people would be out what
people are, like, what's going on? What? What? What is this?
And last time we went, it seemed like the general
city of Long Beach was pre in it. Yeah, I
would say, you know, but I still think my classmates
from Frisco High School in Dallas, Texas, if I was
a professional cause player, which they do. Dallas has professional
(15:18):
cause players. But I'm just thinking of like my specific town. Um,
I think they would think it was weird. I still
think that a lot of suburban like people that maybe
or maybe even that aren't in major cities, which Frisco
is now. Please don't write me, I know that, but
I still feel like if you're an adult that dresses
up every weekend, I feel like you're still going to
(15:40):
be treated like you're weird, just not an our group.
We're really lucky because we live in this nerd bubble
essentially where we get to go to cons all the
time and this is a regular thing. But I do
feel like there are probably people in other areas and
or rural areas where if you dressed up every weekend,
you would be seen as weird. So oh flee. That changes, though,
(16:01):
because people should be allowed to let their freak flag fly.
Not saying that this is a freak thing, but I mean,
if you some of the cause play which we're going
to get into, is a little freaky, though, And the
debate of whether it should be allowed to is one
of my favorites because I do feel like cousplay is sexy.
It can't be very sexy. You're you're often caused playing
(16:21):
video game girls or something like that that have major
you know, cleavage, not as much close I respected. I
respect you got to show the goods. If you got
the goods, show them. But there's been a lot of
debate of you know, a lot of these cons have
young kids, and sometimes a cause play can be b
(16:42):
d s m ish um. I think that's fair to say,
and so how much should be allowed is a conversation
that we're actually going to be having with Stella. Right
after the break, Welcome back to Nottificent. We are here
(17:05):
joined with professional cause player Stella Chew. Thanks for coming on. Hey,
how's it going? Yeah? So, I think before the break
we were talking about sex and cause play, which we're
going to get into, um, but still I wanted to
know how did you first get started? UM. So, I've
been cost playing for um probably like seven or eight
years now, doing it like seriously because prior to that,
(17:28):
putting on a Halloween costume kind of called class playing.
But after I graduated from college, I started to teach
myself how to make my own costumes and um, traveling
to a bunch of different conventions, and I think I've
been doing it like actually professionally for the last three
to four years. Day. It's crazy because it kind of
happened like out of nowhere. There wasn't like just one
day in which somebody was like, now you're a rail
(17:50):
profession quit your job, right. It's just like kind of
happened over time slowly. I knew people standing for you
at least two or three years before I'm at you,
because I my my ex was real into like yeah
yahan and then so I would go on those like
cosplay deep dives and I found you, so you know
you were you were like the underground king. You know
you g K before the rise to professional man. Thanks.
(18:15):
So as far as like your suits, because you make everything,
you make your car and you also stream it a
lot of the times, like live so people can watch
you making your cosplay. How much of that sewing and
talent and like stuff did you already have or did
you pick up? And how long does it take? Um?
So I went to school for like fine arts, like
(18:36):
graphic design, like drawing on the computer, but that did
not prepare me like at all where cosplaying because cosling
is all about working with your hands and like working
materials you've never heard of before, working with like really
cheap material because no one's gonna want to work with
like metal and wood. Instead you want to work with
like ava, foam and like fabrics and stuff. Um. And
(18:58):
so all of this is I stuff I taught myself,
and I've learned kind of with the community because we
all learned from each other. Like everyone figured out how
to paint armor the right way together at the exact
same time. Everyone started using war blood at the same time.
It's all skills I've developed over time. And I wish that,
like I could have gone to a school or had
some kind of like sense a they like come to
teach me on how to do all this stuff, because
(19:20):
I probably would have like saved a ton of money.
I have like fifty dollars in student loan. So now
I don't know if you need to go to school.
You didn't, your boys skipped that. Your boy was like, yo,
this comedy thing. There's no degree for that. So I'm
gonna just drop out. And it worked out fine for me.
But you know, for the listeners who may not know,
because this is a nerdy deep dive for everyone. So
(19:41):
we'd like to fill in everyone. What is av a
foam and war blood? Because I know about war Blow
Like when I was like, you know, confident and thought
I could get into a cosplay like war Blow was king,
And now it's all about av a phone. It's it's
still about war blood though, um, so let's talk about
some like materials. War Blaw is this material that was
and I want to say developed in Germany and like
(20:02):
it's being sold out of Germany and it's a like
thermal plastic. And when I say thermoplastic. It's basically just
a sheet of plastic that you can heat up with
like a hair dryer or a heat gun or even
in your oven, and you can shape it into, you know,
the way you want it to look. So it's kind
of like sheet clay. So imagine you're a little Plato
that you have at home, but instead it's it's in
cheat form and you can shape it however you want,
(20:23):
and when it cools, you have an epic set of armor.
So it doesn't take much technical know how, which is
fantastic for a lot of people who are just jumping
into it, and the like curve to like learn how
to use it is like it's so simple, it's so easy,
and once you get good at it, you get real
good at it, like super good. People have been making
the coolest looking things that will just blow your mind.
(20:46):
You're like, what that's made out of a thermoplastic? I
thought that was like real metal or something. Oh totally,
because in my head, when I started deep diving, my
idea of what war Blow was was, I thought they
were just shapes you would buy with the material. And
then when I went and looked it up and I
was like Oh, it's just a sheet and I have
to shape. But oh, I'm a just nope out because
(21:07):
I don't think I'll be good at it. But you're
saying it's easy. It's pretty easy. I feel like if
somebody just like sat down with you for like twenty minutes,
you'd like get it right away, versus like, you know,
spending five years as a metal spitting of systant and
stuff like that. Um. And then the other thing I
talked about was ava foam. So ava foam is children's
floor mats that you find in kindergarten. Letters on it.
(21:29):
You can paint that, you can shape it and it'll
look like really cool armor. Like I want to think
that some teacher like at KinderCare like figured that, you know,
and like they're off weekend or something. Was like putting
together their cause play for Comic Con. They're like, let
me just borrow this from my classroom. Hey, they have
all the arts and crafts, they're yeah, well, actually it's crazy.
(21:50):
Like most of the things I work with is like
crap kids, Yeah yeah, glitter Google like faux fur. So
it's it's crazy. What the difference between I guess, like
a cause player and like an actual costume designers. Like
costume designers use materials are really traditional and like someone
who started working in the film industry a hundred years
(22:12):
ago like taught you how to do this and stuff,
whereas cosse players are like I'm fourteen and I watch
YouTube and I guess I'm just gonna like work with
what I found at Michael's and what my mom has
in her sewing kit. But those I think looks so cool.
I love when people do low cost cause play, which
is kind of like just putting together something with stuff
that they had around their house, and I just think
(22:32):
it's so creative. I love it. It's awesome because you know,
we're presented with these like problems that we have absolutely
no idea what the solution is going to be, Like
we don't have a plastics factory that we can go
and buy all that. Instead, I have to like cut
open a bottle of water and then use like the
lid and like the end and then like that becomes
(22:53):
part of my gun and spray painting it and stuff.
So it becomes super creative and you start like really
be able to understand like how to dissect something to like, oh,
I can take this thing that's over here, and then
I'll take this thing that's over here and I'll glue
it together and it'll turn into something really cool. Yeah
that's why at a professional level though, Yeah, so I
want to talk about that a little bit. So you know,
(23:14):
before you at the professional level, you're doing it for
just the fun of it, to go to con and
show off your cool, you know, cosplay. How's the pressure
of now having an expectation set for you to have
maybe even the best costplay? Does it? Does it make
it harder? Doesn't make it? Does it take anything out
of it from you? I'd say, like back in the
(23:36):
day when I first started, was when the like rat
race of like online social media, like becoming famous having
the most amount of fans, like that was starting. Because
two thousand eleven, two thousand ten was right when like
Instagram came out, like Facebook had just added pages, and
like Twitter was already pretty big, and like YouTube is
already pretty big, and so there's all this potential and
(23:56):
everyone knew that, like the more likes you had, the
more potential you had. And actually even people thought that
the more likes you have, the more money you got,
Like they still think that, they still think that like,
oh my god, you have like twenty followers, you must
make millions. I'm like what they say that, give that
to me, It'll be like you l a writers and
your mansions, not at all. So how do you feel
(24:20):
cosplay has changed from when you were just starting out
as a humble, young crab bright eyed cosplayer to like now,
because not only has cosplay changed, but even the convention
going experience has grown in all that time. Yeah, it's
changed so much. I'd say it's changed in over three stages.
So the first stage was everyone go to conventions, get
(24:40):
as many goddamn photos as you can, and then post
them as quickly as you can to the internet, no
matter if it's a good picture or a bad picture,
and you'll get like, you'll get follows, kids, you'll become famous.
And then the second stage, um was, Okay, you're getting
hired by companies, and companies are are putting you at
their booths to represent their brand, and like, um, maybe
you're becoming a for media influencer. And then like the
(25:01):
third stage that we are at right now is um,
the money has run dry from these companies because everyone's
a social media influencer. But with the advent of things
like Patreon in other ways to monetize, we've actually taken
control of our own path and not relying on these
like companies or bigger people to write our future for us. Instead,
we're getting stuff directly from the fans and figuring out
(25:24):
what content that we want to make for ourselves. Yeah,
and the whole after the break, I want to go
deep into Patreon and that's a whole fun subject. But
for right now, when was the first time you were
approached by a company and what was that like as
a costplayer? Um? Wow, okay, let me see if I
can remember. Yeah, we gotta go down memory lane. Yeah,
I don't remember maybe the first time I was approached
(25:46):
by company, but I do remember the first time I
was invited to a convention, and I had to play
it real cool and be like, oh, yes, I've done
this before. Uh so, yeah, I had no experience, you know,
being a guest at con like booting at a on
and um traveling internationally even it was in the same year,
it was too conventions. So one convention was in UM
(26:06):
Houston called Anna Matsuri and they had invited me, and
then another convention in um Chile, in South America. Yeah,
like they like fly you out for it. Oh yeah, everything,
Like they put me up in the really nice hotel
that was really like it wasn't like one of those
five star hotels. It was like one of those boutique
hotels where like everything is it's almost like a better
(26:27):
breakfast but also a hotel. So that was really nice.
And they took me to like this beachside town and
like hung out with all these other cost players and
took a photo on the beach with all these beautiful rocks,
and I was like, what is going on in my life?
I'm like traveling internationally like by myself, dressed in cosplay
like my life now. So that was super awesome. And
then like you know, Anniama Matsuri. I have been there
(26:48):
for the last like five years, like going every single year, um,
being their guests there. It's been super awesome and they've
been so great to me, and they've really kind of
followed me throughout my career. Um, so it's yeah, it's
like crazy. Now I'm here like going to conventions like
almost twice a month at least. Yeah, flying all over
the world. How many suits and stuff do you think
that you have made. You could guess I wish I
(27:10):
took a picture of taking apart and use them for
other things. Are want to suit is complete? What do
you do with it? Man? So I used to live
in New York City in a five squarefoot apartment, and
so I could not keep the costumes that I built,
and so I had to sell some of them, throw
some of them away. I would probably I've only ever
repurposed costumes maybe like a handful of times, but usually
(27:33):
I just like straight up like put them in a
box and if I know where for like two years,
and I will say, Okay, it's time for me to
divorce you. I'll sell you off or I'll throw you away. Um.
I actually this morning, UM put up my Generos cosplay
from One Punch. Man. I know, I'm sorry, I know
you like. Um, So, I how much is it going for? Well,
it's just the armor pieces, so I had to like.
So it's a character called Genos and he is a
(27:55):
bionic boy. Both of his arms are bionic, and so
I had built the armor for that and I had
a wig and everything. But I haven't warned him at
all in two years. And I figured, like, I'm just
gonna like that's your time. Yeah, I put it up
on my store and be today. We'll see if anyone
wants it. But I mean I am really tiny's and
he's a boy, so I the only other person who
could wear this is a tiny girl, just like a
(28:16):
small child. Small child, they could they could put a
ten year old boy in it. That's fine. So I mean,
it is the industry at this point, and there's other
cost players. You know, you've got big dogs. The one
that we keep saying because that's the one that stuck
in my head is like, yeah, yeah, han, Like that's
like I think probably one of the top known cost players.
What is that like is it competitive or is it
(28:37):
more collaborative? So back in the day, it was very
collaborative because we all did not know what we were doing.
It was like, um, is this a business or are
we just like here having fun? Like we can't quite
our day jobs. We're not making any money. But also
I'm really petty and like catty because this is a
bunch of girls who are very narcissistic, and you know,
we're all fighting for numbers and the numbers game. So
(29:00):
like that was the environment. It was like we were
all friends, but we're also like very competitive, but like
we also collaborated, you know, like we're very professional with
each other. There wasn't a lot of drama in terms
of like the overarching like groundbreaking everyone divorcing from each
other type of drama. It was more like just like,
well she said that, and then I said that, and
then like there was what if someone dressed what if
(29:21):
you guys dress up at the same thing? To never
seemed to be a problem, but because the Internet is
full of idiots, it was their problem. Like it would compare,
you feel like, and then I'd be like, and then
it's a competition to see what you mean, Like, it
doesn't really matter to me if I like look like
somebody or if they look like me, or if my
costoms better their costoms better, like that, I don't care
(29:42):
about that. What I care about is the respect of
my peers. And if my peers think that what I
did was wrong, then I will feel like I did
something wrong. But the general audience is like me, then
I'm like, I don't care. You're not the people I'm
trying to impress. I'm trying to impress like my peers
who I respect and are also talented and would actually
make me feel like I don't belong in this community
if I actually did something terribly wrong. Well, that's actually
(30:04):
a good time to like segue into like, yeah, the
audience versus the cost player and the things, because Cosplay
has been in a weird roller coaster because you know,
Cosplay can be like Genos this like badass, kick ass guy,
but and no fault of the cost player. It's really
just the men who draw women this way an anime,
it can be very sexy. So then you have these
(30:25):
weird rules that con set up in like how much
you can show or how much you can and then
like the flip of like you know dudes who are
like I'm gonna be the schoolgirl and be scantily clad
because you know for low Yeah yeah, but like I
feel like sometimes the dudes who do that get away
with doing that, and then if a female is wearing
(30:45):
the same outfit, it's like it's against rules. So how
do you feel about all of that? I think that
the situations you're talking about are like not as common
because like when there's like somebody not dressed appropriately, like
the con will like tell them to please stop. And
when there are people dressed inappropriately inappropriate? Well okay, so
(31:08):
at a con Okay, So the things that I consider inappropriate,
um are things that it's really contextual for me, because
it's like I wouldn't wear this in front of like
families and stuff like that's not fair to them. Um,
They're at an event that's public, regardless of it's a
family event, like or if it's like an adult event
like Dragon Con is for adults to get drunk at.
(31:28):
When I see a five year old kid there, I'm like,
why what your parents are probably getting drunk into that
right now. So, but like San Diego Comic Con very
family friendly, but like I'm just like, okay, then don't
wear you know, a thong outdoors, Like in no context
(31:49):
would it be okay to wear a thong outdoors in
your bedroom taking photos? Like for Patreon, Totally fine to
do that, right, Like if it's cannon to like a
specific character, hell yeah, totally to do that. I've totally done,
like scantily Cloud costumes, Like every month I do scantily
Cloud Costumes page that people can find on Stella's patreo. So,
but like it's all about context and about like I
(32:11):
don't understand why people even have to argue about it
in a way, because to me, it just makes sense. Okay,
you do not cross the line, right, you do not
wear something that is like very obviously not for the art,
it's like very obviously for the sexual attention or slash lulls.
Like it's it's just people just need to learn to differentiate.
But for the people who can't differentiate, let's just write
(32:33):
that down a little bit. Yeah, it's okay to wear
what you would wear to a beach, But if you're
just wearing a bikini at a convention in which people
who are attending are wearing a full outfit of clothes,
and you're probably not being appropriate because like that's not
an appropriate situation to where But if like everyone at
the con was all about wearing the bikini, such as
Colossal Con, which is in Ohio, which I'm going to
(32:55):
this Year's such a great con, so like we call
it bikini Con because it's at a water park and
everyone makes a bikini version of of a character. Um,
But if you're wearing that at like Anime Expo in
the middle of like the Anime Expo hall, it's kind
of like you're in a convention center that is indoors.
There's no context in which like a bikini would make
sense and stuff like that. And then when people just
(33:16):
like wear joke costumes for the lulls that are like
very inappropriate for people to see. Then they told me
one that someone like didn't have anything covering their ass. Yeah.
So when I was seventeen years old going o decon,
I saw this woman wearing this costume where it was
basically a piece of craft foam, like really crappy craft
foam that you can buy at like a craft store
glued to her crotch, no underwear, and then like two
(33:39):
pieces of craft room glued to her nipples so as pasties.
And then she was wearing a cape and she had
a hat on and a wig, but that was all
she had on, so she didn't have any hear, who
are she supposed to be waiting for? Maybe enough information?
And then I have no idea of what even reference
it is like, but her maybe it was a girl
(34:01):
if you get her own character. But what you were
telling me is like if her cape blue, you would
see the back of her maybe and also part of
her front. Uh. And we were discussing before this, like
you know if that were a dude around young children, yeah,
it'd be so yeah yeah, So like it's all about
I guess these people aren't just getting like not saying
(34:21):
that it's not for a woman. I want to say that.
I'm just saying the way that society views it is
that society would be harsher on the man for having
his growth and women are beautiful. It's like, there's okay,
so there's just too many situations in which not enough
people are asserting the rules, and then there's too like
(34:41):
many situations in which the opposite is happening. So it's
like we see all these extremes. Were like Cosplayer gets
banned from con for wearing like like something that shows
her underbut but then like Cosplayer doesn't get banned for
just wearing pasties two trucks. You know, it's like there's
there's not like a centralized list of rules because not
everyone has this same kind of frame guiding them, right,
(35:03):
and not every con is in the same place, like
not every like you were saying, you know, some of
them are more adult oriented, um and have a lot
of drinking happening, and like where some cons where body
painting is totally fine. And then some cons were like
being nude is totally fine. It just depends what kind
is that. Well they're not they're not anime cons, but
(35:27):
they are Okay, okay, talk after but like you're saying, yeah,
it seems like it's just the time the place. Understand
the context because you know, some cons you want to
keep a family family, and some it's cool and on
the Patreon yeah, Well, the thing is like I'm a
person who follows the rules, and like when there are
no rules in place, then I will do what I want, right,
(35:49):
and so I never want to offend anyone I don't
want to, Like, I follow societal rules and I follow
actual rules, right, so I won't wear something super ultrasexual
to a con. If it's in appropriate, I will do
it behind doors. But I would certainly post that photo
online where it's appropriate, right for for the people who
are you know, of appropriate agency, and if a kid
sees it, like not my fault, the parents didn't um,
(36:11):
So yeah, for Patreon, Like that's what Patreon has kind
of created, this place in which people can be lud
and do badour and do whatever their interpretation of their careers,
and like this is a place where like sex cells,
like you can finally feel comfortable doing the thing that
you want to do for like expressing your sexuality, and
(36:31):
like being able to make money from costplain characters that
would otherwise be not okay to a costplay in real
life because you know, anime and video games are very
Have you seen the new costume for Ivy Valentine from
Soul Caliber. Those pieces are basically glued onto her, So
it's just and people want to be accurate. So that's
(36:52):
what I'm saying. That's that's what I'm saying. That's the
beauty of Patre. You can finally see these and we'll
get like deep in the Patreon and ludes and that's
all about. I'll talk right after that break and we're
back here with stell It. You as always your boy
if you and Ryan across from him, I'm Danny Fernandez.
(37:14):
So we were talking about ludes. Do you want to
tell people what those are? So ludes is the new
Internet term for like sexy photos and doing things like
really sexy, and they're not pornographic, they're just nudes. There'll
be news and they will be literal porn right, So
like dudes are like that line, that big old glass
(37:35):
door right on the other side. You know, you can't
cross over it, but you can see it. So it's
the new word we're using because it really does describe
like everything that fits under there, so things that it
could be just making a sexuy face. There's like that
whole a hagal face, which is the organs orgasm like
entie and stuff like, which is Japanese porn. I gotta yeah,
(37:58):
so Japanese and made it porn. Yes, thank you, yes
for clarifying that. Um. So there's a you know, like
making like orgasm face to like legit like implied nudes, um,
but without actually showing any body parts and stuff. You know,
always dressing up as a character of some kind. But
it doesn't always have to because people can just do
ludes that have nothing to do with cosplay. Um. So yeah,
(38:21):
those are ludes and people can find those on your Patreon.
So my patreon is a wide spectrum, like I have
something for everyone. They're not just my ludes and my
sexy stuff. But um, Patreon is an opportunity for me
to be able to make a living off of my cosplay. Um.
It's a site where people can literally donate to you
(38:43):
every month, and they have different tiers, so depending on
your donation, they get different things. Yeah, and so like
at the lower tiers, you're getting patterns, you get how
to tutorials, get vlogs, you get photo sets of like
costumes that I've done, such as like my Ferra cosplay
from Overwatch, which is a bionic robot woman covered fully
head to toe in armor. You know, I've done customs
(39:06):
from Legal Legends in which I was holding a glowing
sword that I made myself and stuff. Um, so I
do do those like very epic builds that take a
lot of different kinds of skills and like special effects
and stuff. But as you climb higher in the tears,
like that's when I start like dishing out like more
ludes and stuff like that. Because if I'm going to
create sexual content things for you know, like that, then
(39:27):
why not you should be getting paid. Should be getting paid.
I've seen them and they are worth money. But quick question,
because I was curious about this when I noticed this,
But you recently separated your Instagram to having like just
your Stella Chew Instagram and Stella ludes. Was there just
(39:48):
like a request for them? There's so many reasons why
I did that, Like Facebook has been killing Instagram like
share ability, and it's been killing me, and like I'm
just trying to figure out, like to figure out all
their algorithms and stuff. But basically, um, I had somebody
say to me that, like, hey, why don't you try
starting a new Instagram. You might see like your shadow
(40:10):
band and see all these like new things happening. Like
maybe you're not affected by this like bad algorithm and
you think, and you know what, they're right, I'm getting
like the same amount of engagement on my brand new
Instagram account that only has five thousand followers. Yeah, can
you tell everyone what shadow banning is? Basically, it means
that Instagram does not care to show your content followers
(40:31):
anymore at all, and it sucks and nothing I'm doing
is actually fixing it. Like I'll post to like something
that's very, very engaging, and I know why it's engaging.
It's because it shows a little bit of sexy stuff.
But then I'll post like something that's you know, fully
armored costume and like no one cares. My heart just
like shatters into a million pieces. Well it's weird, because yeah,
(40:53):
Instagram has been very dra cony and recently because I
posted a progress photo of just me shirtless three and
showing you know, my new type body. I will say
that was a little imprint, but like nothing, God, there
wasn't anything crazy. It got deleted. It got deleted. What Yeah,
Instagram deleted it said it was against community. Got but wait,
that means that someone had to report it, right, No,
(41:16):
because if it was reported, it'll like you'll get a
notification that says someone reported it. But this one was
like Instagram has found your post. There's no way some
like Instagram intern it like sees the little bump that
you big bump that you have. There's no way that
I can't imagine that. I mean, I haven't been targeted yet,
(41:36):
but like, let's not tell the whole world that I
haven't been targeted yet, and I don't tell them, so
if I know you had some questions for Stella about
how Patreon has affected cosplay. Yeah, so, like I noticed
in a kind of funny way, how Patreon has kind
of changed the game for cosplay because like I think
a year or two ago, I found like one cost
(41:57):
players like lewd Patreon and I subscribed and I thought
it was just this one off thing. I was like, Oh,
this is a cool thing she's doing. Like then I noticed, like, no,
a lot of cosplayers are doing it, and a lot
of cost players have the lewd model. There was a
subway that now got shut down because they're being assholes
in there. So when one person does something right, the
(42:20):
entire cosmic community is just all of a sudden, like
a wave, like a tsunami wave. We all just do
it at the exact same time. And it's because we're
all friends with each other on Facebook, we all like
our messaging groups together, We're all in like these like
brainstorming groups together. Yeah, so when one person joins a
new social media thing, everyone does it. When one person
(42:41):
does a thing on Patreon that's really successful, everyone does it.
And so that's why you're seeing an explosion of like
lewd models for cosplay on Patreon is because everyone has
figured out that this is the model, this is where
the money is, this is what the fans want, and
it gives us the ability to continue to do cosplay
because without doing luds, we do not have the money
(43:02):
to continue to We are the dudes also, But I
feel like, yeah, yeah, I know, guys, dude ludes. But
I'm saying, are the majority of the dude cause players
that I know, like once I'm thinking of are like
I think living Ichi Go and like Leo Camacho and
like are they doing No, I don't think Leo is.
I don't think Sarah. I feel like Leo. Oh I
didn't know. Oh yeah, never mind, I don't know. I'm
(43:24):
getting there with a pretty face. Yeah, I'm saying, once
I get the nb J bottom really going to get
this doom fist lud going. You know, any cosplayer welcome
to have me. Yeah yeah, any cosplayers. Look, you can
use my body because I'm not gonna I'm not gonna
do another Patreon because I think it's real cute when
cost players. Do you like the duo thing? Yeah? Yeah,
(43:46):
when we collaborate with that's I guess that's the way
you say collaborate, not the duo thing. There are guys
who are very successful in Patreon. Yeah, so you probably
go check them out. They're great. And the more guys
that you support who doom, it's the more guys who
will do loose movement. Yeah. So, um, I mean people
(44:07):
think that Okay, then the only thing that's on patreon
is lutes, and it's not. It's not actually um. In fact,
like some of the most successful patreons don't have anything
to do with lutes. Like Kimpotsu is a costplayer from
South Africa and her patreon is very successful, like hundreds
and hundreds of supporters for her, and she produces costumes
(44:27):
Like I thought I was a fast costplayer. No, she
can pump out beautiful, immaculate costumes faster than I can. UM.
And yeah, she's like South Africa, Like how would you
think that it would be at least someone here in
l A America, where like all the cosplay economy is
But no, she's over there by herself, like she's building
her own community there. She's a powerhouse. She's amazing. UM.
(44:50):
There's like so many other very very successful costplayers that
aren't using the LUDE model in order to become successful,
and that's because they have like this amazing talent and
skill that a lot of the rest of us don't
have or haven't figured out how to channel it. UM.
And so that's our own fault and it's not anyone
(45:10):
else's fault, because these amazing cost players have proven that
they can make this model work. They can make the
non lewd model work, and it's our own faults for
perpetuating the lewd model even though we want to do it.
But it is a problem. It is legitimately problem because
it's of what's out there and that's not fair. It
should be a balance. Um. So that's why I try
so hard to continue to build the craftsmanship of my
(45:34):
work and give that out to everyone, Like I sell
patterns on my store, Like I give out patterns to
my patrons, and I make sure that people know that,
Like you know, I'm a lot about what I make,
but I'm also about like the sexy stuff too, because
you should be Yeah, I me myself as a person,
I try and balance both sides, right. I haven't trying
to be fifty fifty. I just want the community to
(45:54):
as well. This is an interesting thing and it's something
I brought up, and I feel like it's just a weird,
toxic thing. And the nerd can be you because I
feel like if you wanted to lose because that makes
you happy, you should be fine. But I feel like
nerds have this weird way of being like, no, you
have to be the full package, where like a lot
of times I'll see a lot of lude cost players
post things on Twitter where it's like like genuine like
(46:17):
hot photo of themselves and then they're doing like an
ugly face, and I feel like there's almost like a
need because like weird nerd men are like, you can't
just be sexy because then I disrespect you. You know. Yeah,
the thing that you're pointing out right now is something
that I completely noticed. I noticed that the first time
I saw someone do a dirt face, and I'm like,
it's because the threatened. Do you remember the iffy that
(46:40):
picture that I did where I was like in full
pin up sexy makeup, but I was picking my nose
and so many no one's could have bothered so many people.
But the reason why it's because at that time I
was doing stand up. I'm like, well, I can't just
be a hot sexy girl and pin up, so I'm
gonna pick my nose. So it's like, oh, I'm also
funny though, like, remember it's a weird thing. Where's like
me when I post my THIRSDT trap, it's full action mine.
(47:03):
I got rid of that thirsted out. But it is
funny because it is like if you look at like
people who and I think in general over comedy that's
been a weird thing because when I started doing fitness stuff,
I split, like, I still have Iffy lifts versus Iffy,
But then you have guys like Reggie wats are like, no,
I'm in the gym right now. Because it's a weird
(47:24):
balance where I feel like both a nerd them and
in comedy it's like you can't take anything too seriously
because then you, I mean, you will believe that. I
do want to say that I do feel like if
the nerd guys that you and I know, if he
had Stella's body, that they would easily be posting it constantly. Look,
the nerd guys we know who are fit like me
(47:45):
have shirtless pictures up. I'm looking at you. Paris. Yes,
oh god, Paris has like a six pack. I didn't
even know. That's so mad. I was like, so mad.
I wanted to be the buffets and then he pulled
out that six packs. Still, I did want to thank
you for coming on. Where can people catch your Patreon?
Yeah so patreon dot com, slash tell you. You can
also find me on twitch dot tv slash tell you,
because I stream five days a week it's basically a
(48:07):
job now it's pretty cool. Um. And that's also where
I build all my costumes, so you can come watch
me make stuff and sew my fingers together. Dope, you
know me. It's your boy. If you y I F
Y n W A d I E on Twitter and Instagram,
follow Nerdificent. It's Nerdificent on Twitter. It's near deficent on Instagram,
and there's a nerdifficent Facebook, and I'm at ms Danny Fernandez.
(48:30):
It's M S D A n I F E r
n A n d e z on all the social media's. Yeah,
rate us and review us on iTunes because that helps
us out. And maybe you'll get a lude. I don't know.
We can send you one. We'll work it out. It'll
be if that band. Oh my gosh, I'm so mad.
I want to repost it out of just anger, but
on my like main Facebook. All right, we'll get you
(48:54):
guys next week. Yeah. By the tap of local
Nerdificent News
Hosts And Creators
Dani Fernandez
Ify Nwadiwe
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