"Y'all Do It, Too..."

When browsing the internet, you can't go but so far before finding an article, blog post, or social media rant status that focuses on one group or another, whether it be a particular sex, race, political party, religion, or what have you.  The piece may be giving advice to, offering constructive criticism of, or just blatantly calling out that group.  Regardless of how respectful and constructive (or not) the piece may be, you are bound to find a member of the group in question who is "all in their feelings" and has replied in the comments section with a statement that says something to the effect of "well, y'all do it, too."

I get it.  Nobody likes being called out, criticized, or told they need to change something.  However, I've always had a problem with this particular response.  IMHO, "Y'all do it, too" is the laziest, weakest, most immature response to anything, ever.  Here's why I believe this so strongly:

We already know that.

Every time I read a YDIT response, my inner sailor wants to say, "No $#!t, Sherlock".  9 times out of 9.5, it goes without saying that the other group does "it" as well.  And unless the they're completely out of touch with reality, the author knew this when they wrote it.  They just weren't talking about that group at that moment, for whatever reason, but we'll get to that momentarily.  Some may be all too ready to shout that the author is a hypocrite, which could be the case, but isn't necessarily.  But yes, under most circumstances, either side has been guilty of whatever "it" is.  Both men and women cheat.  People of all races have had some sort of prejudice towards some others.  Both the major political parties in the US have used smear campaigns and done other shady things.  I could keep going with this, of course, but you get the picture.  You're not stating anything new by saying YDIT.  You're not covering any new ground.  All you're doing is putting on your "Captain Obvious" cosplay and getting fully into character.  

It doesn't justify anything.

Regardless of who did what first (with most things, it'd be pretty impossible to trace back to exactly who), neither side doing something foul justifies the same for the other.  If you think that it does and therefore are using it as an excuse to keep doing whatever "it" is, all you're doing is keeping the cycle going, adding gasoline to the bonfire.  

You're "All lives matter"-ing the situation.

When you respond with YDIT, you're also doing a couple of similar things.  First, you're invalidating that person's experience.  This is a very mild example, but let's just pretend I went out salsa dancing last night, and I danced with an unusually high amount of women who had, as I like to call it, "scorpion hands", where they put a vice grip on their partners hands, which is very uncomfortable.  In my frustration, I may post a Facebook status saying "Ladies, please don't give your partner scorpion hands".  Though this would be the exception among my circle of FB friends, it wouldn't surprise me to see someone reply with "well, leads do this to ladies all the time."  But if I, as a lead, am not guilty of this (I'm not), what does that have to do with me and my particular situation?  So I'm not allowed to feel bad about this because other guys who aren't me have done this to their partners?  And I'm keenly aware that guys do it too, and I address both if I'm teaching a class.  But if I'm venting about what has happened to me, I'm not talking about everyone, and I honestly don't feel I need to.  If a woman posted the opposite, I'm not going to jump into her comments with "well, ladies do this too, ya know."

I'm taking a slight detour with this next point, but also, when you reply with YDIT (or its close cousins, "What about ___" and "It happens to us, too"), you're vilifying the person for having the "audacity" to only speak about their experience and not include every other possible group who has also experienced it.  That's why I and several other associates of mine have turned #AllLivesMatter into a verb.  You're "all lives matter"-ing someone's post when you interject with "well, we go through this, too", effectively derailing the conversation.  If someone is speaking about their personal experience, or if they're focusing on one group or another, often times it's for a reason.  For example, both men and women get abused, harassed, and sexually assaulted.  However, #metoo focused on women because they are far more often the victims.  No reasonable woman who posted #metoo was inherently saying "this never happens to men", nor did any reasonable man assume that.  Also, there's a separate "Breast Cancer Awareness Month" and "Prostate Health Awareness Month" as opposed to just a general "Cancer Awareness Month" because, although they are similar, they each have nuances that deserve specific attention, and therefore it would be a disservice to lump them all together.  So, it'd be very tasteless to say "what about breast cancer?" when someone decides to post about prostate cancer.  Obviously, not every situation that gets all lives mattered is as heavy as the examples I just gave, but hopefully you catch my drift.

Your defensiveness and lack of maturity is showing.

I would only apply this in the case that said criticism is constructive and not just random (insert group here)-bashing, but when you comment with YDIT, all you're doing is being defensive.  You're using it as a deflection to avoid addressing the issue at hand.  Even those of us who are very self-aware still don't always notice our flaws and correct them without someone calling them to our attention.  Personally, I know that, even though I consider myself to be pretty self-aware, I know many of my former flaws would still exist if it weren't for others talking to me about them, and my current ones would be worse than they are.  Just my opinion, but those of us who are mature are able to move past our initial feeling of "how dare you call me out?!" and see that "ok, maybe I do need to work on that."  If your immediate response to a criticism or offering up of advice is to "clap back" with YDIT, you're just showing your lack of maturity and self responsibility.  It's immaturity that makes us say "well, if you're gonna call me out, you'd better be calling out everybody else who does this, too".

At the end of the day, there are always going to be posts about particular topics, and they aren't all going to cover all sides of everything.  And quite frankly, I don't think they need to.  I don't think people should have to walk on eggshells, worrying that someone will get all in their feelings if their post doesn't cover every possible angle.  Maybe I'm asking too much, but I think people should have the maturity to be able to read a post about a group they're a member of and not take it personally, especially if the criticism doesn't apply to them specifically.  Unless explicitly stated, the author isn't saying "all (insert group)", so if it doesn't apply, no need to get defensive.  Hit dogs won't holler.  But if that shoe fits, tie 'em up tight and get to runnin'.  See if there's a lesson you can learn about how your behavior makes others feel.

Cosplayin': My Cosplay Is Not For YOU.

If you're like me and you're an avid cosplayer and unapologetically geeky to boot, you inevitably end up having conversations with your associates, friends, and family about your hobby.  Some of these conversations can be pleasant, while others can go left really quick.  I've heard a fair amount of horror stories from other cosplayers who've had their "loved ones" ridicule their passion, tell them to grow up, or even go so far as to accuse them of devil worshiping.

Fortunately, my discussions about cosplay with my friends and family have been positive.  Well, positive towards me, anyway.  You see, while I haven't received any negative feedback about my hobby or my costumes, I find myself having to defend some of my fellow cosplayers from the comments of those close to me.  For example, my wife and I were showing her aunt and uncle some photos we took back at Dragon*Con 2015.  We proceeded to show them a pic of my wife and her favorite cosplayer (after me, of course), Lonstermash.  This guy is, in me and my wife's opinion, as spot-on of a movie-version Wolverine as you can get.  However, both our aunt and uncle looked at him and said "Meh.  He needs to work out more."  Even worse, we showed this same pic to my mom a few weeks later, and her reaction was pretty much the same.  "He's not buff enough to be Wolverine."  This was a severe case of blasphemy to me, 'cause I look at Lon and think "#BODYGOALS!!!"  I thought to myself, how could anyone possibly look at this man and think he's not anything enough to be Wolverine?  Heck, I look at him sometimes and have to remind myself that's not Hugh Jackman!

Other friends and family have also had similar things to say about other cosplayers they've seen in photos that I show them.  They almost immediately begin to compare people and pick them apart.  They'd say "Myron, your's is so much better than this one" or "this girl's cosplay has nothing on this other girl."  I even had a friend tag me in her comment of another cosplayer's pic, saying "here's your match", as if we were competing.

 

 If this dude ain't a perfect Wolverine, nobody is.

Of course, this only gets worse when it comes to people on the internet.  Over the Summer, a video posted by one of my favorite cosplayers, Alicia Marie, was shared in a nerd group that I used to belong to on Facebook (the reasons why I left are pretty much the same reasons why I'm writing this blog).  Alicia's video was a snapchat of her cosplaying as Storm.   There were people who shared my opinion that she looked awesome, but there were countless people who nit-picked her, saying she was too light-skinned to be Storm.

 

The internet has taught me that you can look like both a supermodel AND an action figure, 
and haters STILL gon' find a way to hate.

I made a post later that night, defending Alicia and every other person who had been criticized by that group.  I gave a stern reminder to them that cosplay is for everyone, regardless of gender, body type, race, sexual orientation, or anything else.  The post was well accepted by all except one idiot who proclaimed that "fat cosplay is trash" and that cosplayers should "be humble".  This guy kept saying "be humble" and "stay humble" throughout our argument, giving me the impression that he had no idea what being humble really meant.  Based on the context, he confused being "humble" with "staying in your lane", believing that cosplayers should only cosplay characters that look like them or that match their body type.

Just one snippet of our altercation...

(I had originally posted the 2nd screenshot, with 

the names crossed over, in a more positive cosplay group on FB.
However, after seeing this dude's foolishness, 

the other members were in favor of NOT blocking his name out.  You don't get the 

privilege of anonymity when you're bold enough to be 

this much of a jerk to people, apparently.)

All of the above has lead me to the conclusion that many people who don't cosplay just don't get cosplay.  In the case of my family and most of my friends, they mean well and their comments aren't out of malice, but I can still tell they just don't get it (mom, family... if y'all are reading this, I promise that the following angst is not aimed at you).  We dress up as our favorite characters to show our love for them and to express ourselves, and have never brought what other people think about it into consideration when doing so.  We aren't trying to out-do each other; only ourselves.  And unless we actually enter a contest, we're not competing with anyone.  We don't care if we're the "wrong" race, gender, or body type for a character.  After all, the majority of us aren't doing this to audition to play the part of our favorite character in their next live action movie.  We also don't care if our interpretation or personal spin on a character doesn't resonate with someone else's.   However, now that cosplay is mainstream, all of a sudden your cosplay isn't acceptable or "doesn't work" if it doesn't fit what the rest of the world thinks it should be, and there's no shortage of internet basement trolls who have no qualms about letting you know in the most brutal way possible.  You see, one of the unfortunate side-effects of cosplay (and geekery as a whole) becoming mainstream and "cool" is that the people think cosplayers are now subject to the standards of what is acceptable and beautiful in the media.  On top of that, many geeks tend to be very anal about the things they love, so if you don't look exactly like a character in both costume and body, or if you don't fit that particular geeks' vision of a character, it's a problem.

What I'm here to tell you all is this...  While we definitely appreciate when others like our work (who doesn't?), we cosplay for ourselves.   As I said before, cosplay is not a movie audition, so there is no requirement to look exactly like that unrealistically-drawn character.  Therefore, any comments and opinions of "He's not ___ enough to be ___" or "She's too ___ to be ___" are completely invalid.  If we should so happen to look like that character, whether by genetics and/or working out, then that's simply icing on the cake.  Nothing more.  Our cosplays are not here for anyone's critique, consumption, or judgement, and neither are our bodies.  Contrary to popular belief, just because someone posts themselves on the internet, it's not an open invite to give your unfiltered opinions (which you are entitled to, of course, but you're not entitled to be a jerk to anyone).  While I'm at it, people kill me with this posting of someone else's cosplay on their social media pages, captioning it with "Thoughts?", "How'd (s)he do?", and even "Rate them 1-10", which does nothing but invite criticism & judgement.

Like I stated before, we may not be competing, but we definitely want to grow, so constructive criticism is usually welcome.  But keep the disrespect to yourself, along with any comments about someone not being the right race, gender, or body type.   These are things that we either cannot change or are not willing to change just to please others and appeal to their vision of a character.  I can't stress enough that cosplay does not play by society's rules.  Therefore, if a white guy wants to dress up as Storm, he can do that.  If a black woman wants to be Superman, she has every right to.  A skinny dude can be Thor.  A fat girl can be Jessica Rabbit.  Not something you want to see?  That's fine.  Don't think a person's cosplay "works" or is "appropriate"?  That's cool, too.  But just remember that, while you're free to enjoy (or not) someone's cosplay, they're not cosplaying for you.  You'll be ok.