F is for Followers

illoria
Apr 6, 2018
2 min read

L4L, S4S. These and others are part of the “Like Game”. Cosplay at its roots is about dressing up to celebrate your favorite fandoms and having your efforts be acknowledged or appreciated by others. Why else would cosplaying at conventions be so popular? You don’t cosplay alone. You do it in the company of others to celebrate together. In this day and age, though, being stopped for pictures at cons is not the main way to show off anymore. Now social media has taken over as the #1 way for someone to show off what they have done or accomplished. What becomes dangerous is when you base your entire self-worth on such acknowledgments.

It’s hard to separate the two though on social media, especially since gigs, promotions, or even guesting spots may be determined by the number of followers or likes you have. That makes it very hard to ignore the numbers or lack thereof if one is trying to go pro. Numbers are important. But they are meaningless if they are empty.

L4L and S4S encourage shallow, empty likes or follows. These aren’t the people who will truly engage in your pages. They don’t care about you, they care about gaming the system to get as many likes as possible. I played the numbers game for a while. But after I hit 1,000 followers on FB I decided to stop playing. Very few of those people interact with my posts or anything I put up so I’m glad I stopped when I did. But, conversely, growth has become like pulling teeth. It’s why I refused to play the game when I hopped over to other social media like Instagram or Deviant Art. I don’t do “follow backs” unless I actually like the person’s content and I try to engage with them when I can. It’s kept my numbers low but they are steadily increasing.

I think the key to beating the obsession with numbers is to focus on engagement instead. Promote and contribute to the community in the cosplay world. Make friends, engage with new people, and the followers will eventually come. If not, well, you are still enjoying yourself in the process.

How do you promote engagement on your social media accounts? What are your methods for beating this obsession with numbers?