Also "just do what you love regardless of whether it's successful" is good advice (and certainly the way I've gone) but uh it's not particularly helpful for all the people trying to make this a job, which seems like every third new cosplayer I talked to at DragonCon.
I still get messages here asking about cosplay social media advice-
Nothing I can tell you matters or is helpful anymore!
I firmly believe that cosplay online since 2020 has evolved into something so different no one doing what people did before can get successful from it.
I have multiple friends now whose apartments simply no longer have pedestrian access to people who don't live there. Like not even a code you can press you need a special key if you don't have a car. Man America hates people walking or taking the bus to see their friends.
@megabethbob DragonCon has a masquerade just separately from craftsmanship stuff, but it's a bit on an odd duck of a convention in many structural aspects. i hope a few more local ones pick it up!
@megabethbob I've asked a few local conrunners about why they choose not to, and they've all basically said variants of "we/other conrunners we know would usually get more complaining about the show being bad than people who enjoyed the show so we're not gonna bother (anymore)"
Btw I'm not planning on taking off work or anything for Anime Weekend Atlanta but I'll probably be stopping by for a few hours each afternoon, and I won't be booking photoshoots