Diary

2025.07.17

Somehow managed to find the login info back to this place and whoa the previous ramblings have been depressing. A lot of things happened since the last update, but today's rambling will be focused more on the changes within the US/Western con scene over the last decade or two.

There's been a trend of treating cosplay as fast fashion now with how easily accessible the hobby is now with ready-made outfits floating everywhere, and while it's great news to newcomers, the colalteral effects have been hard to look at. Costumes that normally would take months to hand-make at home are now being treated as quick, disposable content to post on social media. On one hand it's great that the hobby is now more accessible, but on the other it's perpetuating the idea that $100 (video game) costumes are on the expensive side of things and there's less respect for the labour and material that goes into building a costume from scratch. There's nothing wrong with not having the skills to make your costumes and preferring to have something premade, but treating a costume as a disposable asset after one or two wears is insanely wasteful. This has been happening since the rise of cheaper manufacturing of premade fits from China in the 2010s, but the problem really started becoming a infestation around 2020 when Genshin popped off and introduced a whole new market of new cosplayers for manufacturers to milk profits from. The devaluing of the work put into a creative hobby and monetization of it is honestly quite disheartening to see; but I get it, this is the inevitible effect of going mainstream.

2023.03.27

I feel that I've had this conersation many times in the past with different people, but the idea of immediate contact and accessibility to anyone at anytime is probably the single worst side effect of social media--or social networking nowadays. It didn't occur to me that I've always been checking my sns in the past because I knew some people (or at least someone) would be sending me messages every day, and even multiple times a day. I never know when people like that expect to see a reply, but it's likely because of this constant pressure that I feel burnt out of social media and decided to hibernate now. Sure, there are some things where I'd like to post up and share in hopes friends would see them, but this is different than demanding everyone in my sns friend circle to react and respond with a strict deadline. In fact, sometimes it's just nice to post stuff somewhere without an audience for the quietness. It's like just dumping things into the void. There's no expectations anywhere. And it's probably because my motivation is different from other people. I'm not making art or writing things to get any approval from the outside, I'm doing things because I simply enjoy them or need an outlet to vent. The idea of feeling let down because nobody reacted to something you've worked on for hours and days on is not something I can really empathize with because it was never about getting recognition for me. Though there isn't anything wrong with feeling let down, it's merely a difference in perception and motivation. This is why I don't like the idea of making myself or my works available at any time of the day; I'm not writing or drawing to a schedule or meet anyone's expectations, and I really hope that other people can be more sympathetic and respectful of each other's time.