H is for HELP!!!

illoria
Apr 9, 2018
2 min read

Welcome back to the second week of the A to Z challenge on my blog. If you missed the previous posts you can check them out by clicking on the links in the side bar or by going back to the first post by clicking here.

One of the amazing parts of the cosplay community is the willingness to help others. It’s what makes it a community instead of a group of random people. There are always a few downers in every group, but most people don’t mind answering questions or actively seek out ways to help others. I encourage everyone to pitch in to help. That way we can continue to pay it forward, so to speak, and keep the tradition of helping alive and well.

When we first start out in the community, we are mostly on the taking or receiving side. We ask for help because we have no idea what we are doing. Or we get stuck on a problem area and need new eyes and a fresh perspective to help us fix it. The key thing is to be gracious about the advice or help given and not be instantly offended. You know those people. The kind who never take advice and think anything critiquing them is an insult. They only way we can learn is by swallowing that knee jerk reaction and learning from the advice given. Does that mean you have to listen to everything? No. Take it with a grain of salt. It’s other people’s opinions. They may be right, they may be wrong. You don’t have to follow the advice or tutorial, but you can still learn from it or pick up tips.

But when you “level up”, it’s time to start giving back to the community. This could be running panels at conventions, mentoring cosplayers, creating tutorials, writing books, or any of a variety of things that help other cosplayers. I help out in a FB advice group but I also run panels focused on crafting. Even this blog series is aimed at helping others. It’s my way of giving back to the community which helped me get started. We do have to be careful that we don’t come across as stuck up, arrogant, or all-knowing when we try to help. We need to be gracious about it as well. If our advice is not followed, well, it is out of our hands. We presented a topic to the best of our knowledge and now it’s in their hands to make of it what they will. Let them do it without harassment. Then we go on our way and help someone else and so on as long as we are able.

How will you give back to the community?