The Story And Impact Of #29DaysOfBlackCosplay

Throughout the month of February you may have noticed a certain hashtag all over Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc… and that hashtag is #29DaysOfBlackCosplay. Now many have had mixed reactions to this, and many wondered what this was all about when it first popped up.

This all started actually last year with Chaka Cumberbatch a.k.a Princess Mentality Cosplay having an idea to do it for both Black History Month as well as for the cosplay community. The idea was simple, according to Chaka, who said she “wanted to do something positive within our community, particularly during February. We’ve spent so much time, especially recently, combating the use of ‘Blackfacing’ and blatant inequality — I just thought it’d be good for all of us to flip the script and uplift each other for a month.” And what an extremely positive event to happen in this community it was.

Some have confused #29DaysOfBlackCosplay with a platform for black cosplayers to try to say they are better than everyone else or that they are bringing race issues into the community when there aren’t any — or that this was pretty much our way of trying to make one another “cosfamous.” This couldn’t be further from the truth and actually I, along with dozens — possibly hundreds — of people of color cosplayers have been on the receiving end of racial attacks, messages, and labels multiple times. I know I actually was told I couldn’t cosplay Batman back in September while working on my Batman Play Arts Kai cosplay for NYCC. While I just deleted the comment and moved on, I am sure other cosplayers could show you even more stories.

The hashtag campaign reinforces the idea that you don’t have to cosplay within your race, and the need to darken or lighten yourself for a costume is utterly pointless. Some examples include Kaybear Cosplay with amazing her Jinx, Enasni Volz who happens to have my favorite Mad Moxxi Cosplay, and Jazzmin Jolly as Zero Suit Samus — a personal favorite. All of these girls are amazing and cosplayed both characters really well. I even have a few friends who cosplayed Storm who aren’t black and I absolutely loved their costumes.  And no, those are not examples of black/whitewashing characters — those are entirely different circumstances.

Use of #29DaysOfBlackCosplay has prompted people to showcase some really impressively talented cosplayers, as well as show that there are people of color who do cosplay, encouraging those who want to get into the hobby but were afraid. I have seen a lot of relatively new cosplayers who I now follow such as Ashe Cosplay, Sooyong (Schizo-Alias), and Ariel Cosplay to name a few. And I even managed to spark conversations with a few newcomers and meet them at Katsucon to have conversations. Cosplayers such as Maki Roll, Tony Ray, Jay Justice, as well as photographer AshB Images. and the owner of Pop Culture Uncovered, Harry Crosland, have been very vocal on their support of this movement and have been sharing whatever post correlates to the hashtag. Compared to last year, there has been an overwhelming amount of positive support for this. #29DaysOfBlackCosplay has been featured on The Nerdist, Huffington Post, Kotaku and Afropunk, among others.

With such overwhelming support and rise in awareness, this year’s #29DaysOfBlackCosplay has been very inspiring. To see people in this community come together to share some positivity has been refreshing to see. I often see many people post about how this community is toxic and nothing good comes out of it. While I disagree about that statement, things like this remind me why I love this community.

While we fight, bicker, and bump heads with one another on certain topics, things like #29DaysOfBlackCosplay show that as a community we can come together and do something positive for a change. I still love going to cons and seeing my friends. And I will support any positive movement that occurs within this community. We could use more positivity in this community. I hope this leads off to more positivity in the future and I am already excited to see what 2017 will have in store for #28DaysOfBlackCosplay.