Yaya Han: Conversations with an OG cosplayer
### Synopsis
Interview Date: 4/5/2026 Interview Location: Anime Boston 2026 Interview Format: In-Person, Round-Robin Anime Herald: Your last book came out in 2020. How do you feel cosplay has changed in the past five or six years? Yaya Han: I wrote my book in 2019. It has changed a lot. I think the pandemic shifted some priorities. There have been some positive and some negative changes. I think the pandemic forced a lot of gaming and tech companies to seek more digital marketing. There’s been a new trend since then towards hiring cosplayers to promote their games and products. That’s been really great for the industry, but it also opened this new rat race where every cosplayer now feels kind of invalidated unless they get a chance to work with a gaming company. It sort of makes everybody a little more frantic. Some people have trouble with enjoying the hobby for what it is. Now, it is about the hustle and trying to get noticed by these companies. But at the same time, some cosplayers have now been able to make a career with it and become full time influencers, so it is a double-edged sword. That’s a huge change. I think TikTok and short-form video has been the other major change since my book. The rise of easily accessible, pre-bought costumes. I think now, at conventions, you’ll see way more people in costume than you did in the 2010s. Now, everyone is in a purchased costume. Everybody kind of looks the same. There is not as much emphasis on being creative,…
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