Alcohol vs Cosplay - I swear I’m not drink driving my Gundam suit, officer.

Usually I write poetry when I’m driving on the Intershitty expressway, but this time the proverbial spring of inspiration has a dead cow floating in it. So, instead of forcing poetry out of my system in some painful and rather messy procedure, I thought I might address a slight niggle that has been unnerving me for the past couple of days. It was prompted by a picture on Facebook, and it essentially shows a comparison between the merits of cosplay and drinking/drug usage/boning each other’s eye sockets out of place as a social hobby, or more importantly, how one of them is much better than the other. Three guesses where the flak goes.

Now, if you are involved in cosplay, you may have seen it do the rounds – if not, here is the picture I’ll be ranting and raving about for the next couple of hundred words or so. Well, fair enough, methinks. Cosplay is a rather underrated hobby laced with stereotypes and undermined purely because of the connotations that surround the community. But this is where my limited praise shrivels and dies, because from here, it falls right into my dogbox. The creator of the image seems to be on a horse so high it could nibble on Chuck Norris’s almighty thundercock.

And I won’t deny that the drinking culture in New Zealand is a little difficult to decipher unless you’re already completely hosed yourself, but to say that drinking, sex and drugs are inherently bad without the experience to back yourself up is just as shallow of a statement to make as the one you are refuting. I’ve been around, in all senses of the word, and if I’ve figured out anything on my endeavours, it’s that there is nothing so terrible or so incredible that it can instantly be transcendental or completely discarded, depending which end of the spectrum it lands in. Even if it appears on someone’s “how-not-to-royally-screw-the-pooch” list, it has some merit somewhere.

To this token, slagging off all consumers of alcohol or the like is not necessarily a wise decision to make. We get grumpy if we don’t have our daily dose of gin. This doesn’t mean to say I’m wholeheartedly defending the little bastards who prance around believing that they can destroy themselves for a few quickies and a bottle of bourbon, though. I hate the GED attitude that these young people take to life and how they usually find themselves in stupid situations because of their inability to plan ahead two seconds. Unfortunately, the New Zealand-ese of the now generation have taken it upon themselves to give the entire 16-24yo demographic an enema of methylated spirits for the sake of a $20 bet.

To get off the topic of awkward sexual fetishes and respond to the image at hand; while I will concede that alcohol is not essential for people to have fun, the only reason it has gained such popularity is that it is an incredible social lubricant. Take the quietest person in the room, give them a couple or three beers and boom – you could be chatting to your new best friend and/or in-law. Rereading that last sentence, however, I can see how it could potentially be misconstrued as irresponsible behaviour, and that seems to be the worst part of all.

What people seem to fail to grasp is that being totally hammered is not usually a good idea. . I personally despise drinking for the sole purpose of getting drunk, and any rational person would not plan to get completely tanked for the sole purpose of having a good time doing so. But here’s the rub: being mildly inebriated feels pretty damn good. It opens up new social interactions. It allows different ways of looking at things. It allows people to side-step judgemental barriers deep within themselves. Most importantly, however, it allows people to experience something beyond the norm. If you have to blow your brain to undergo that sort of change, I don’t think alcohol does what you think it does.

The last paragraph can also be applied to sex and drugs, albeit loosely. The latter gets especially difficult to wrangle with all the illegal shit floating around these days. The trick to making all of these things reconcile is moderation. If someone knows their limits and keeps their head on when things go from positive and enjoyable to bat-shit bonkers, they won’t overstep their boundaries. A joint, a cigarette, a shag, a beer: all of these things are not bad in and of themselves. But take ten joints, ten cigarettes, ten shags and ten beers and then suddenly that blurred line becomes a lot clearer cut. Maybe not the shags, though. I may have to experiment with that.

Again with the awkward sex jokes, but that one had a point to it. See, experimentation and exploration is the crux of the entire argument. You have to step out of the closet and experience all of these things to form a truly cogent opinion of them. I wouldn’t ask a surgeon about how to install solar panelling, and in the same mind I wouldn’t ask a sweet Catholic girl where to find some kickass dope. And you wouldn’t try because they simply have no clue what the fuck they are doing, and could possibly run away screaming if approached with the prospect. They simply don’t have the experience.

Don’t think I’m on the pure defensive here, because cosplay doesn’t just scoot past without at least a scathing retort towards its name either. Consider the time and effort it takes to create a truly spectacular cosplay. Think about the money it takes to put together all the little pieces, the stress that every minor detail initiates when it isn’t quite right. Ill directed, cosplay efforts can leave people emotionally, financially and physically drained, and I know enough professional cosplayers to have seen it happen at every single cosplay exhibition I have been to.

Does this process sound familiar to anyone else? Why do people cosplay, really? Why do they endure all the hard work, all the sleepless nights, all the fatigue and stress that it causes them? It isn’t all that different to why people drink and smoke and fuck themselves silly: because they enjoy the better parts of the hobby, because they want to share their exploits with kindred spirits who know the ways of the hobby, to push yourself into states of being you have never imagined.

But most importantly of all, because you all fucking love it. Some people fucking love drinking, some people fucking love smoking and some people just fucking love fucking. It is judgemental dickbags like the poster of the image to turn the affair into a 2D image of right and wrong ways to live. If you want tango with stereotypes, step the fuck off your computer, sit the fuck down and have a beer with me. Have a chat. Hell, maybe when you try it, it may not be such a dreary prospect anymore.

And with that, I just accomplished a new PB for profanity density in a paragraph. I’d like to thank the Academy for my sailor-worthy silver tongue.

Peace out, guys.