00:00There are so many black people into nerd culture.
00:06Being a Blurred is empowering now because we're a movement.
00:14People know that representation matters.
00:17Hey everyone, my name is Saatchi.
00:19I'm really excited about getting into the cosplay community like seriously and seeing how far I can go.
00:25My name is Zero Gravity. I'm a cosplayer.
00:28I'm Team Villain and I'm a Blurred.
00:32Cosplay is literally costume play.
00:35Putting yourself in the shoes of a character that you care about and you really love and you identify with
00:43and seeing yourself as that character.
00:45I've been cosplaying for about five years or so, but taking it super seriously maybe about the last two or
00:52three years.
00:52Growing up as a Blurred was difficult.
00:55Not seeing people that look like me.
00:58First character I fell in love with was Sailor Moon, Usagi.
01:01She's super clumsy and lazy.
01:04Big cry baby.
01:05I related super hard.
01:06Seeing her like with the magical transformation and then just changing to this like super badass protector of her friends.
01:13It was like, whoa, I can do this too.
01:16Storm, of course.
01:18I'm sure you would hear a lot of Blurds say the same thing.
01:22The fierce black woman that even Wolverine wouldn't cross.
01:26She was, I guess, the first role model for me and for a lot of other black cosplayers as an
01:32image that like that could be me.
01:33There's a lot of discouragement in the POC cosplay community.
01:39We don't get the same support.
01:40We don't get the same opportunities.
01:42As a black cosplayer, sometimes out in public I have felt unsafe about my cosplay.
01:48POC cosplayers get nasty comments and nasty messages 24-7 all the time.
01:53It's definitely time for more acceptance as far as POC and also different sized cosplayers too.
02:00This is my new Negasonic suit.
02:04Sometimes as a cosplayer, there's this introduction to this character and you're like spirit animal like instantly.
02:11I love her like andro look.
02:14I feel like if I were in X-Men, like I would, I would look like that.
02:18Blackfire is a character from the comic Teen Titans.
02:22She is actually Starfire's sister.
02:24I loved her costume and like her attitude.
02:26I kind of wanted to highlight her even though she's not like on the main Teen Titans team.
02:30My favorite part of cosplay is meeting new people through cosplay.
02:34The thing I love most about cosplay is getting to dress up as a character and kind of like channel
02:39their energy.
02:40Characters will have just really complicated, almost impossible designs.
02:46So mimicking that, having fun with it and finding out different techniques.
02:49It's just about creativity and like you have an idea in your head and just spitting it out and making
02:54it real.
02:55And I think especially if you're a POC that if you're going to cosplay, go hard and be unapologetic about
03:00it.
03:01Wakanda forever.
03:01Wakanda forever!
03:04Wakanda Forever
