Cosplayers in Singapore reveal the unspoken dangers of their hobby, which is dressing up as specific characters from anime, video games, or shows.
Nur Adlina Binte Adam and Adam Karim Sadick
Have you ever been to Marina Bay, Botanical Gardens or Gardens by the Bay and spotted youths in vibrant wigs and brightly colored contact lenses? Combined with their larger-than-life outfits and attention-grabbing props, they are cosplayers. They are people who enjoy dressing up as their favorite characters, who they dress up as ranges from, and are not limited, to characters from anime, movies, to even books or manga.
In the eyes of society, they are seen as troublemakers, students who never performed well in school and the ones who are unable to outgrow their childish fantasies and are just begging for attention. But little do they know what lies in the road ahead for cosplayers. While it may seem like a childish and fun hobby to do, there is a skeleton in the closet when it comes to the cosplay community in Singapore. Sexual harassment is highly overlooked in the cosplay community and is usually brushed off. The question is, how prevalent is sexual harassment towards cosplayers?
Cosplayer Vanessa Chua dresses up as a video game character, Nightingale, from Arknights. She has been actively cosplaying for the past eight years, ever since her first time at a cosplay event when she was 11 years old. (PHOTO: VANESSA CHUA)
One of many
“I was first harassed perhaps when I was 13,” Vanessa Chua bluntly confessed, recalling her earliest experience at a cosplay event.
The 19-year-old cosplayer has since attended over 100 events in Singapore and overseas. She sighed as she recollected one such experience out of the many others where she was modelling for a wall of photographers during an event. She felt that something was off about one of the photographers around the front, as she noticed that he was in an unusual position. Just then, realization struck and she knew that he had just attempted to take an up-skirt photo of her.
“Sexual harassment is rampant in Singapore, especially in (cosplay) events,” Vanessa pressed. Throughout her eight years of cosplaying, she has been a victim of harassment multiple times, both physically and verbally.
According to Vanessa, she is now accustomed to the various acts and has since grown numb to it. She also ignores the offensive messages she received on her social media.
Eva, who goes by Yami Nokoribi in the cosplay community, was first into anime when she stumbled upon cosplayers on Instagram and decided to pick up the hobby. (PHOTO: CK EDDY/FACEBOOK)
Aside from events, cosplayers also face harassment during their photoshoots. Eva Loy Ning Shuen, a hobbyist cosplayer, recalls an unforgettable experience when she went for a casual photoshoot with her 15-year-old friend. It happened at Punggol Beach, where the girls were getting ready and touching up their make-up at the common sink. The photographer was sitting a few inches away from them, where he attempted to take up-skirt photos of them with his phone. If it wasn’t for the passer-by who spotted his action, the girls would never have known that their usual photographer was a creep. In the end, the photographer was held back by the police and had his mobile phone checked out for the photos of the girls.
After the incident, both girls learned to be more selective of the photographers they liaise with when they cosplay in the future. However, this would not be as easy as it sounds. In the cosplay community, they usually rely on the same group of photographers that are considered to be trustworthy.
Eva and her dance group, Tsukisume, performed at Cosfest XVIII on 20 July 2019, held at Downtown East. (PHOTO: KITSKA MIYANO/FACEBOOK)
Sexual Harassment in Singapore
Ironically, common cosplay events such as Comic Con Singapore and Anime Festival Asia (AFA) have Anti-Harassment Policies that have to be abided, spotlighting the fact that the participants are at the risk of being a victim of sexual harassment. “It’s kind of sad that this has to be a rule,” said Eva Loy Ning Shuen.
According to UK-based research firm YouGov, about 26 per cent of Singaporean women have been sexually harassed, as of July 2019. From those who had faced sexual harassment, 61 per cent said that they had been sexually assaulted before, while another 44 per cent had reported verbal harassment of a sexual nature.
Currently, there is a lack of official statistics or reports on the number of sexual harassment cases that are imposed on cosplayers in Singapore. Out of all the victims that were harassed, only 52 per cent of them reported the incident. As for the remaining victims, the cases were unreported mainly due to embarrassment.
Surprisingly, as Vanessa talked about the various occasions where she was harassed, she could not recall an instance where she was sexually harassed in cosplay, while overseas when she was invited to Indonesia for an event. However, she pressed that experiences will be different for everyone, which meant that what she faced in the cosplay world may not be what others do.
Together we can
Due to this underlying issue, one would expect that the security would be tight at cosplay events to ensure the safety of its participants. However, in the eyes of Vanessa and Eva, this was certainly not the case.
“There is not a lot of protection around cosplay events, not as much as I wished there would be,” shared Vanessa. Despite reporting the incident she went through, it was merely shrugged off by the authorities who made the whole incident feel like a normal occurrence.
Eva believed that any Tom, Dick, and Harry could turn out to be perpetrators of sexual harassment crimes, even her own friends or photographers she had trusted. This led to her losing faith in the security of cosplay events.
To make up for the lack of security, cosplayers would step up and help to defend victims from the harasser. It became an unspoken rule that cosplayers could approach each other if they felt that they were in danger or even being followed.
Change for the better
With that being said, Vanessa claimed that more security guards are needed in cosplay events, not only for the sake of sexual harassment but also for theft and fights. The relevant authorities should be keeping a closer watch for these acts so that they can be kept under control during the ‘family friendly’ events.
This is especially significant as the majority of the cosplayers who are taking up this hobby are girls. Some of them are even as young as 11-years-old. Without resolving the overly common occurrence of sexual harassment, these girls may feel vulnerable and refrain from attending cosplay events. The same events which were supposed to be outlets for them to have fun and relax have now been turned into a stressful game of keeping an eye out for perverts.
Besides going for events, cosplayers also go for photoshoots where they could set the characters they dressed up as into the anime or video game environment (PHOTO: MELVIN TAN/INSTAGRAM)
Passion above all
In spite of it all, both girls are not backing down from doing what they love most.
“It’s a hobby and resilience thing really. I hate and love this hobby because of this issue, but the aftermath shouldn’t ever dampen the starting reason to love something,” Vanessa declared, full of pride.
Looking back at all the past occasions when she was harassed, she emerged stronger as she grew up to be more outspoken about sexual harassment issues so that she could relay the message to her friends to be careful about it as well.
With the bonds she forged with her friends in Tsukisume, it made Eva more passionate about cosplaying as her hobby. (PHOTO: CHAN YEW MUM/FACEBOOK)
The elephant in the room
At the end of the day, it is unfair for cosplayers at events to be looking for each other instead of security guards when push comes to shove. The people who have been employed to ensure their safety have since been regarded as nonessential. While they may be dressed as characters from another universe and seen as eccentric from society, they are still humans. Children, students, or even working adults, they deserve to be respected by others as members of society despite their differences. The lack of relevant statistics regarding the issue is also worrying.
A common excuse overhead by cosplayers is when people say “Oh well she was dressed like that”. They are made fun of and belittled for choosing to dress up as a character of their choice. They get mocked and shamed if the character is one which requires more skin to be exposed. The cosplayers choose to dress up as who they want, so why are people unable to appreciate their craft? Why is it that people choose to take advantage of them instead?
Cosplay is not consent.
It is catchphrase that gained traction after online discussions about female cosplayers experiencing sexual harassment at cosplay events. The purpose was to remind fans that cosplayers are human and deserve to be treated with respect. It is even regarded as the golden rule of cosplay.
The passion of cosplaying may help people look past the dangers that come with the hobby, but at what cost?
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