Entertainment industry is built around more rejection that a month before high school prom. Yet those who can take it are the ones who prevail while others end up muttering about being a "contender" while getting weird looks in the checkout line. I've had to develop particuarily tough skin being both a cosplayer, and a model/actress. There's always someone who's intimidated, jealous, or just ate the wrong burrito for lunch who tells you that "Animals that lack opposable thumbs could sew better than you". What's ridiculous are those that believe them, and then bail out too soon.
I heard some of those words today. One person told me that I'm not a professional model; and I would be lying if it wasn't the first time I heard that. For a lot of people in the US, promotional modeling isn't model. I say the USoA because if you venture to countries like Japan, half of their entire modeling industry is built around promotion. It's only here that fashion is the one and only, though there's no mention of the Actors/Actresses who've taken over the covers of fashion mags for the past 10 yrs now.
Now, I could be really upset about it, and post all over livejournal that they're a "boogerhead", and make impassioned comments about their mother and power tools...but I'm not. I know I'm better than them. I was better than the ones that told me I couldn't be a model 5 yrs ago. I was better than the people who told me I could never get in a magazine. I was better than the people who told me I wouldn't find a real agent. And if you really think someone's stupid technicality is going to stop me now then I have some fabulous land to sell you in the 9th Ward of New Orleans!
When you're a popular cosplayer, the old-school witch branding of "elitism" comes forth like B.O. in the game room at con. Fortunately I'm totally guilty of being "stuck up" leaving me at an impass with "the community", and desparately needing a rez for Gandalf. There's just too many people on set/in class/at gigs who tell me that they want "to get out", and then about all those idiots who can't fathom the truth from the blowhole the center of their pelvis, need to seek therapy for loss of "Mr Fluffy" when they were 5 yrs old, or most often are too cowardly to even put themselves "out there". Which makes me wish that I could summon "Homie the Clown" to be their permanent life partner because I actually believe in a lot of these people. I know a lot of cosplayers who don't want to be models, actors, or performers, but have more tearsheets, a longer list of credits, and are just incredibly talented. And if it means that I'm an elitist because I don't want to be in the same class as "those idiots", then so be it.
Besides, it's less people on my Christmas Card list that I have to worry about.
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