Cosplayer Of Color Profile: Gesiha Vi

To celebrate Black History Month, we take a moment to highlight seven cosplayers of color whose contributions to geek culture and the greater cosplay community go well beyond their costumes. Fifth up:

Geisha Vi

Geisha Vi is a powerhouse of positivity. She’s an accomplished cosplayer, entertainer, speaker, published model, and makeup artist. She’s spoken on many diversity panels encouraging multicultural awareness and anti-bullying in the world of comics and geekdom, and she’s been featured, in costume, on shows like “Cake Boss.” Though she’s always busy with various costuming, styling, hosting, and makeup work, she’s gone back to school to learn how to be a top hairstylist. Recently, Vi posted progress photos of the first wig she made from scratch and the finished product is amazing.

In 2015, Geisha Vi filmed a documentary short with www.Bustle.com about cosplay and that the key to dressing up as someone else is loving yourself first. In the video, she discusses what it means to be truly “body-pos,” and the pain of dealing with backlash after winning awards for her cosplay. Like many other cosplayers, she’s faced online bullies and hateful remarks that were aimed not at her cosplay, but at her personally. It takes a strong person to handle such things with grace and maturity, and an even stronger person to step up into a position of activism and advocacy. In doing the mini-documentary, Vi wanted to tell her story as a plus-size cosplayer of color, and encourage others to continue doing what they love regardless of their body type, skin tone, or what mainstream media projects as beautiful. The video has received an enormous amount of support all over the world.

Geisha Vi is a beautiful, fearless lady whose love of comics, anime, and Japanese fashion shines through in her work. To see more, including cosplays of her original characters who come with rich backstories of their own, check out her website or Facebook page.

For more incredible cosplayers of color, find and follow the #29DaysofBlackCosplay hashtag on Twitter and Instagram. And find Gogo Incognito at http://Facebook.com/GogoIncognito and http://Instagram.com/geekchicsuperfreak.

Feature photo by G Edwards Photography.