Dear Cosplayers- Don’t Be Schmucks!

Oy! Big super OY!  This past Saturday night in Boca Raton, a photo-shoot ended when police drew guns on a group of cosplayers armed with realistic replicas of machine guns.   What the heck is wrong with people?

The cosplayers were doing a photo shoot on the roof of a parking lot to promote an upcoming convention.  I love copslay, but I am not a fan of cosplayers dressing up in public as TERRORISTS!  You read that right- these schmuck-faced fanboys decided it was a great idea to do a photo shoot dressed up as freakin’ terrorists.

And they took their realistic weapons and body armor out of their trunk in front of civilians who had no clue what the heck they were up to.  Of course, the civilians told the cops who arrived at the scene to find five dudes decked out in “military style outfits and armed with various firearms”, along with one dude with samurai swords on his freakin’ back.  The cops pulled their guns and ordered the insensitive fools to the ground.  The cosplayers were given warnings for trespassing and were let go.

This is a picture of the fake weapons that were confiscated

There are so many things wrong with this dang story.  Cosplay is about dressing as our favorite fantasy characters, not scaring the $^$% out of residents by looking like terrorists.  If you love Copslay, please do not dress up as actually scary murderers.  Instead stick to dressing as the wookies, gremlins, super-mutants and other obviously FAKE characters.  If I was a cop I would have pulled guns on these fools also.

You can clearly see that there is a Deadpool mask that was used in this shoot, and supposedly two of the dudes were trying to look like superheroes (even though I am pretty sure they failed).

When cosplaying, stick to dressing up at conventions and fantasy events.   When we cosplay we often look like a bunch of maniacs to non-fanboys and fangirls.  When we cosplay as murders in public, we do not just look like maniacs, WE ARE MANIACS!  So please, do not dress up as Deadpool in a dark alley and do not walk through town dressed as Cable (unless you are in Manhattan, then this is perfectly acceptable behavior)!

If you are cosplaying, do not use fake weapons that actually look like murderous death machines.  It will cause people to poo themselves.

In conclusion, when cosplaying, just don’t be a total schmuck!

This is an example of an awesome cosplay!

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Jay Deitcher, LMSW(@mrdeitcher) is an educator on comic history and runs successful Free Comic Book Day events yearly.  You can see a listing of his incredible articles at JayDeitcher.com.