At various conventions and other events, it’s quite common to see cosplayers carrying fake weapons (including very realistic looking ones) to point them at other cosplayers and spectators at those events as a way to have fun. But, is that really something that should be done without asking first?
Naturally, other cosplayers and spectators attending an event will presume that any cosplayers that decide to point a weapon at them is doing so for fun, that the weapon that their pointing at them is harmless and that there is no malicious intent. But, here are some things to take into consideration:
Do the other cosplayers and spectators know who the weapon-pointing cosplayer is?
Do the other cosplayers and spectators know that the weapon being pointed at them is harmless?
Is it lawful for someone to point a weapon, including a harmless fake one, at someone else?
That third point is of particular interest here. Within the United States, each of the individual 50 states enacts its own laws pertaining to this particular activity, which, in legal terms, is generally referred to as “assault” or “brandishing”. Many other counties have far more stringent laws pertaining to weapons, both real and fake.
California’s Penal Code 417
Paragraph (a)(2) of California’s Penal Code 417 states the following:
(2) Every person who, except in self-defense, in the presence of any other person, draws or exhibits any firearm, whether loaded or unloaded, in a rude, angry, or threatening manner, or who in any manner, unlawfully uses a firearm in any fight or quarrel is punishable as follows: (A) If the violation occurs in a public place and the firearm is a pistol, revolver, or other firearm capable of being concealed upon the person, by imprisonment in a county jail for not less than three months and not more than one year, by a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by both that fine and imprisonment. (B) In all cases other than that set forth in subparagraph (A), a misdemeanor, punishable by imprisonment in a county jail for not less than three months.
So, in California, if a cosplayer pointed a fake weapon at someone and that person felt threatened even though there was possibly no intent to cause harm, that cosplayer could face the possibility of being convicted of a misdemeanor and up to 3 months in a county jail. Should the cosplayer have asked the person first whether they would like to have the fake weapon pointed at them? If they had said “no”, then the cosplayer would simply have gone on his or her way, as would the person who didn’t want to have that happen.
Without asking first, if a cosplayer points a fake weapon at someone who could be suffering from PTSD, for example, that individual could potentially feel extremely threatened.
Michigan Penal Code Section 750.234e
Michigan Penal Code Section 750.234e is written as follows:
750.234e Brandishing firearm in public; applicability; violation as misdemeanor; penalty. (1) Except as provided in subsection (2), a person shall not willfully and knowingly brandish a firearm in public. (2) Subsection (1) does not apply to either of the following: (a) A peace officer lawfully performing his or her duties as a peace officer. (b) A person lawfully acting in self-defense or defense of another under the self-defense act, 2006 PA 309, MCL 780.971 to 780.974. (3) A person who violates this section is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for not more than 90 days, or a fine of not more than $100.00, or both.
Similar to the California law, conviction of brandishing a firearm is a misdemeanor punishable up to 90 days (3 months); however, the Michigan law makes no distinction between whether the blandishment is threatening or not.
Do Any Costume Clubs have Weapons Policies Prohibiting the Pointing of Fake Weapons at Others?
The simple answer is “no”, but we will provide what each of the major “Star Wars” costume clubs have in terms of a “weapons policy”, if any.
The 501st Legion
The 501st Legion does have a brief published weapons policy shared on a website page that is not part of the club’s charter or bylaws. It can be summarized as follows;
Prop weapons are no longer required for membership.
The club recognizes that there are differences in regional policies affecting members differently.
The 501st Legion has no apparent public policy pertaining to the appropriateness of members pointing fake weapons at others.
The Rebel Legion
There is no apparent public weapons policy.
The Mandalorian Mercs Costume Club
While the Mandalorian Mercs Costume Club does not appear to have an official weapons policy (at least not anything that is publicly viewable), Section 8.1 (pages 18-19) of the “Mandalorian Mercs Costume Club ‘Member Policy and Procedure Book'” states the following:
6.) Mandalorian Mercs is strongly against and prohibits the use of “Functional Projectile and Edged/Tipped Bladed Weapons” or of any variety at any event. The Mercs defines “Functional Projectile and Edged/Tipped Bladed Weapons” as: Any toy, prop, costume part, or costume accessory that launches projectiles of any nature and/or uses a spring and/or projectile mechanism to eject projectiles from forward from housing. Any toy, prop, costume part, or costume accessory of a bladed/pointed variety that may cause a lacerating and/or puncture wound. Members found using functional projectile weapons or edged/pointed weapons are subject to punishment up to/including dismissal from the organization. 7.) Official Members must carry prop weapons considered “legal” within the country, state, or province to which they are taking part in events. Any Official Member asked to remove their prop weapon from an event MUST do so immediately and without question. Official Members who fail to do so may be punished up to and including removal from the Mandalorian Mercs.
Section 8.1 (pages 18-19) of the “Mandalorian Mercs Costume Club ‘Member Policy and Procedure Book'”
While this is the most exhaustively written weapons policy of any of the “Star Wars” costume clubs, it also does not provide guidance specific to whether members can point weapons at others without asking their permission.
3. The Dark Empire expressly forbids active lightsaber choreography demonstrations while at conventions or any costumed event. Persons representing TDE are not permitted to swing or handle any blade or elongated object in a manner depicting lightsaber combat while in a crowded or confined area. “Battle scenes” may be posed for the purpose of pictures as long as they are completely posed.
Again, there is no specific guidance on whether weapons can be pointed or otherwise brandished towards others.
Conclusion
If someone points a weapon at you, how do you know whether its real or fake? You may not; and if you routinely point fake weapons at others while cosplaying, the people you’re pointing at may not know either. Consider that before you point a fake weapon at someone without their express permission.
#Racism is, unfortunately, alive and well in the #cosplay & #costuming communities. In an article published by “Cosplay Central” on Feb. 26, 2021, eight #cosplayers of color expressed their personal feelings on situations that they have encountered.
Regardless of veiled it may be, racism is never acceptable.
We’ve discussed racism within the cosplay, #costuming & #fursuiting communities before. The communities still have a long way to go it would seem:
From the “Cosplay Central” article, cosplayer CosplayNay explained his experiences in this way:
“…there will come a time when every black cosplayer will encounter some form of negativity within the community. At times, it is hard being a POC cosplayer because sometimes people won’t accept you (or the character you decide to cosplay) because you’re black. For example, there are people that will look down on a POC cosplay because the fictional character is NOT black, and other times they will only recommend a specific character for you to cosplay because their black, forgetting the most important part of cosplay is that ‘Cosplay is for EVERYONE.'”
Just as we brought up in our 2018 blog post Inappropriate & Unacceptable Cosplays, CosplayNay then brought up this very interesting point regarding accuracy:
“POC cosplayers should not limit their range of cosplay to only black characters, which brings me to accuracy. So many people are hung up on ‘accuracy,’ to the point where they don’t understand that Black facing is offensive. In short, don’t do it.”
“The cosplay community and its receptiveness of cosplayers of color is a work in progress. I do think the changes that are necessary to bring forth inclusion have already begun. From the pages to the tv screen, to the big screen, change is upon the horizon. The rest is up to us cosplayers. We must educate the uneducated, promote, and support one another despite race, sex, etc.”
Similar to what CosplayNay said, cosplayer Jonathan Belle said the following:
“Sometimes there is a seemingly extra layer of judgment and pressure that Black Cosplayers get. Sometimes we continually get told to cosplay certain characters because ‘it fits us better.’ Sometimes we get told not to cosplay certain characters ‘because it’s not canon.’ When it comes to cosplaying in the Black Community, these are inevitable responses that are bound to come up, which is why I believe cosplay is being comfortable in our own skin.”
“When I think about the community being inclusive, as a black cosplayer, I definitely love that most people have a general opinion that anyone can cosplay. Of course, there are those gatekeepers who believe either a black person can’t cosplay an anime character or want the ‘pure’ form of whatever character. Diversity is a great way to have equal representation of whatever character, as long as a label isn’t added to the character. Quite honestly, I don’t like when someone says, ‘I love the black version of your Kirishima.’ I prefer when a comment is more so acknowledging that they never imagined Kirishima to be black, and they love it. Those are two very separate comments.”
“As a cosplayer of color, you often face negativity, racism, and hateful comments from trolls who want to discourage you from doing what you love. That’s why we work so hard to encourage and lift each other up so others can know that you can cosplay whatever character you want even if they do not look exactly like you. You are the embodiment of that character and not an ‘insert ethnicity’ version of the character, no matter what anyone says. Although there has been improvement in the cosplay community, we still have a long way to go. Cosplayers of color need to know that their work is valued and appreciated and that the community as a whole will be there to support them and stand up against those who will try to discourage them or tear them down.”
Cosplayer Lucky Luna not only discusses racism, but fat-shaming as well:
“I cosplay to have a community with other nerds, and it’s just a great creative outlet. I will say that as a black cosplay, I do experience criticism, whether it be for my skin tone or my size as a plus-sized cosplayer. I would like to see more cosplayers come together and support black and brown cosplayers the way lighter-skinned, thin cosplayers get that automatic support. As a black, plus-sized cosplayer cosplaying in itself feels like an act of defiance.”
Cosplayer Venture Bros didn’t hold anything back in his comments:
“Each time I have cosplayed, I have been called the ‘N’ word or told the character I’m cosplaying isn’t black. I hope that the cosplay community changes and helps stand up for the black cosplayers that experience racism. I would like there to be more inclusion with black cosplayers in big conventions as far as contest judging and panels because we are a big part of the community as well, and we notice when we are never featured or included. We all love to cosplay, so why not enjoy it together.”
“As a little girl, I didn’t have very much representation. While there were black characters, a majority of the time, they had only one gender represent both parties. So I ended up identifying with the tan girl or the one that wasn’t blonde. I didn’t realize it when I was younger, but I thought white was the default. I believed that white people could be anything and the only way I could live out my crazy daydreams was to be someone completely different than who I was. It inadvertently messed with my self-esteem. I’ve matured past that to a certain point, but it hurts to look back and think about all the time I wasted wanting to be something that not only I would never be, but something that was so systematically ingrained into everyday life. Once I finally began to love what I looked like, I decided to cosplay predominately black characters to bring awareness to what characters are out there for little girls that might be suffering as I did. I believe it is hard enough being a person. Everyone has insecurities. But to add on to that racist’s notion of what the ideal beauty should look like is something that I personally want to end for girls and boys of color growing up now.”
Never let anyone tell you that you can’t cosplay a particular character because of your skin color or body size.
Top row from left to right: CosplayNay, Kai.Esh_Black, Jonathan Bele, LeRoyal; bottom row from left to right: Utahime Cosplay, Lucky Luna, Venture Bros, Brown.suga.outlaw.
If you have ever attended a comic or anime convention, or some other event (before the #pandemic began), in which there were people dressed in high-quality #costumes or #cosplays, and these people were representing a particular #CostumeClub, you may have found yourself attracted to the idea of possibly joining such a costume club yourself. Further, if you spoke with any of the costume club members and told them about your potential interest in joining, it’s very likely that they would have given you glowing reports about the costume club and what it’s like to be a member. Naturally, this would probably have added to the appeal that you may have experienced as you imagined yourself wearing a similar high-quality costume depicting one of your favorite characters as part of the costume club.
⛔️ But, what do you actually know about the costume club? Do you know the costs involved in joining and participating?
Before you start spending any of your hard-earned money, as well as your time and effort, to own a high-quality costume in order to join and participate with a costume club, it is in your personal best interest to know exactly what you may be getting yourself into. Not everyone who joins a costume club is happy with their decision after they have experienced it first hand; and many who leave often regret ever having joined in the first place. If you base you decision to join a costume club solely on its members glowing reports and the costume club’s glowing PR on social media, then you are doing yourself a huge disservice. Not everything may be as rosy as either of them claim; and eventually, you too may only want to leave it behind, but only after you spent thousands of your own dollars to join and partiipate. The intent of this post is to assist you in making a more informed deiciosn for yourself by sharing at least some of the hard truths that costume club members and their official PR officers won’t disclose, beginning with the actual costs involved and many of the not-so-rosy truths about what actually goes on inside of the costume clubs themselves.
Here are some introductory considerations:
From an outsider’s perspective, any costume club can appear to be a truly fun experience for its members; but their “happy-face” public behavior may be hiding negative feelings and experiences that occurred within the club.
It’s very unlikely that costume club members will fully disclose everything that they had to do (including how much money they spent) to join, or what it’s actually like to be a part of the costume club. Any internal conflict and drama won’t be disclosed, or its importance may be downplayed if someone directly asks if any is occurring.
If you start to follow a costume club’s public webpage or social media accounts, what you will see are pictures being shared by the clubs’ PR officers intended to only show the most positive public image possible. By only sharing positive images and PR reports, costume clubs use the appeal to emotion logical fallacy: they won’t openly disclose any of the club’s internal problems.
📝 Always remember that a costume club’s public social media posts are almost always intended to assist it in its efforts to recruit new members.
So let’s focus on what you truly need to understand before you make any life-changing decisions to join a costume club.
1st: What’s Required to Join the Costume Club?
Most costume clubs share two main requirements for an applicant’s eligibility to join. (But, you’ll want to visit the costume club’s website to learn what the actual application requirements are.)
Is the applicant a legal adult? (Over the age of 18.)
Does the applicant own a costume that meets the costume club’s requirements of accuracy?
So as long as you’re at least 18 years of age, your focus will be on obtaining a costume that meets the costume club’s requirements of accuracy. Each costume club typically publicly shares it’s requirements for how accurate a particular costume must be in order for an applicant to be considered for membership. The requirements should list each of the components required and provide visual descriptions (especially images) of each of the required components. The requirements should also explain and visually show how the costume should appear when viewed from multiple angles, which are typically from the front, the rear, and both sides. To know these requirements, you will need to visit a costume club’s website and locate the information on what’s required for each of the costumes that can be submitted to join.
⚠️Here’s something very important that costume club websites don’t typically include in their descriptions of of what constitutes accurate costumes: estimates of how much the various components cost, as well as estimates of overall costs.
As someone considering joining, you should make a list or use a spreadsheet to document all of the required components. A spreadsheet is more beneficial for tracking the costs for each component, as well as possible sources.
📝 Using a spreadsheet to track the costs of each costume component will enable you to calculate how much the costume is going to cost you.
2nd: How Much Will an “Approvable” Costume Cost?
There are multiple costs (financial, time and spatial) that are involved in joining a costume club. The initial cost is the financial cost of obtaining the costume itself. Knowing how much a costume is going to cost is often where many would-be costume club applicants decide not to proceed.
When most people think of costumes, they often think of the typical costumes that children and adults wear for special occasions, such as for Halloween and costume parties. Costumes of this sort usually cost between $50 and $150 and can easily be purchased as a complete package from many retail stores.
The type of costume that is typically required to join a costume won’t be anything like a Halloween costume:
It’s highly unlikely that a costume that meets a costume club’s requirements for accuracy (a.k.a., an “approvable costume”) will be available from a retail store.
It’s also very unlikely that you will be able to obtain an approvable costume as a single, complete purchase; unless you find a costume club member that’s selling a used, complete costume.
What is very likely is that you will need to purchase the various components that comprises the costume from a number of different sources, including independent prop and costume makers. Then you will need to assemble the components to build the costume yourself. Many independent prop and costume makers take weeks, months or even a year a more in some cases to deliver the item(s) that you purchase from them. It can be a very exasperating experience.
It’s also very likely that at least some of the components won’t be available in a wearable form; they’ll probably only be available in a raw form that you will have to finish yourself. In some cases, wearable components may be available, but only at drastically higher costs than the raw equivalents.
So, once you have sourced where you can obtain the various components that are needed to construct the approvable costume, you’ll know how much each of the components will cost. You’ll then be able to have a realistic estimate for the cost of obtaining an approvable costume and chances are, when you’ve calculated the estimated total cost, you’ll be staring at a 4-digit figure.
⛔️ The cost of obtaining a costume that a costume club can approve for membership (an “approvable costume”) will typically range between $1000 and $3000, but can be even higher in some cases. The cost depends on the costume and what it includes.
Now, if you have to finish the work on any of the components to make a costume wearable, do you have the necessary tools needed to work on the components and do you know how to use those tools?
⛔️ The total cost of obtaining an approvable costume isn’t necessarily just the sum of the costs of the individual components; it will likley include the costs of any tools and other supplies that you will need in order to finish and build the costume.
This is why we suggested that you list everything in a spreadsheet because the costs for the individual components and tools can grow very rapidly.
⛔️Don’t start buying things blindly before you have estimated the total cost.
3rd: But Guess What, there are More Costs!
If you thought that the cost of obtaining an approvable costume was the only cost you’ll incur for joining a costume club, you’d be sadly mistaken. No, after you join the costume club, there will be many participatory costs!
⛔️Every time you participate in a costume club event, you will incur participatory costs.
Costume Transportability & Storage
If the approvable costume that you want to own is mostly composed of compressible fabrics and footwear that can easily be transported and stored inside of a backpack or small suitcase (preferably with wheels), then the issues of transportability and storage won’t really apply.
📝 If, however, the approvable costume you intend to obtain includes non-compressible parts (such as a helmet, inflexible armor, boots, etc.), then you will likely need to obtain a bulky plastic bin (preferably with wheels for ease of movement) to both transport and store your costume when it’s not in use. This raises two important issues:
Do you own a vehicle that can accommodate a large plastic bin as well as yourself?
Do you have adequate space in your home to indefinitely store a large plastic bin?
How large of a plastic bin are we referring to? Something along the size of 40 to 45 gallons of storage space and ranging in size from 36 to 45 inches long, around 2 feet wide, and up to 2 feet tall.
Various 40-45 gallon bulky plastic storage bins with wheels and handles for ease of movement.
While the potential issue of storage may seem like an inconvenience, over time, it can become a larger issue if it becomes a cumbersome nuisance; and this often happens with the large, bulky plastic storage bins.
The issues regarding transportation will become serious if you don’t already own a vehicle that can accommodate a bulky plastic bin. While you may be able to find other costume club members willing to pick you and your bulky plastic bin up to travel to and from events, you could eventually be perceived as an annoyance or a free loader if you don’t help with shared transportation costs with the vehicle owners.
⚠️ If you decide that you need to purchase a vehicle that can accommodate your bulky plastic bin to transport your approvable costume to and from events, then you’ve added a very large additional cost to the ownership of the costume, which could be something that you’ll want to seriously consider before making the plunge in the first place. Alternatively, maybe a different costume that doesn’t need a bulky plastic bin would be a better option, or not joining the costume club to begin with.
To transport a one or possibly more bulky storage bins between your home and costume club events, you’re either going to need a station wagon or some type of an SUV.
⛔️Pickup trucks are NOT recommended as it’s not possible to safely secure things (like bulky plastic bins) in pickup truck beds. There have been cases in which costume club members have left their bins (and costumes) unattended in the back of pickup trucks only to return and find the bins (and their costumes inside) stolen.
Participatory Costs
Let’s say that you’ve spent a few thousand dollars and a lot of personal time on obtaining an approvable costume and your application to join a costume club was accepted. Now, you have the privilege of participating in your costume at events that the costume club members are invited to attend. But guess what: attending those events isn’t free.
⛔️ For every costume club event that you attend, there will be participatory costs; and the more events that you attend, the more participatory costs you will cumulatively incur over time.
Let’s examine what the typical participatory costs are:
Transportation costs.
Meal costs.
Lodging costs (if used).
Entrance passes (if required).
Let’s say that you attend a nearby event (up to 30 miles from your residence). Your transportation costs may be roughly $5 to $10, and you’ll likely get a meal before you return home, which will probably cost you around $15 to $25. So participating in a single event will probably cost you around $20 to $35. But, since you obtained a very expensive approved costume, you’re going to want to wear it often. Let’s say that you attend one event per month, or 12 in a year. Attending 12 nearby events will cost you roughly $240 to $420.
But, chances are you will probably attend at least one event a year in which you pay for a hotel stay, possibly at a 3-day convention. Since hotels can cost around $175 per night, a two night stay could cost you around $350. Convention entrance passes can run between $90 and $120 for 3 days and the likelihood that you can obtain a discounted one is rare. Since you’d also be paying for a lot more meals while you’re away form home, the total number of meals that you’ll probably purchase while attending the convention is two each for the first and last day plus 3 for the 2nd day, for a total of 7 meals. Thus, your meal cost would be roughly $105 to $175. And, if you drove further to attend, let’s double the typical transportation cost to $10 to $20. So the total cost for attending a single 3-day convention with lodging and entrance fees will cost you roughly $555 to $665. So, attending 11 regular nearby events plus one 3-day convention raises your participatory costs to roughly $775 to $1,050.
Below is a spreadsheet illustrating the cost of attending 12, 24 and 36 events, as well as the cases in which at least 1 or 2 events out of the 12 are a 3-day convention. When combined with the cost of the costume itself, you can quickly see how fast your participatory costs can double the cost of your costume, depending upon its cost. Red spreadsheet cells indicate where the participatory costs have exceeded the original cost of the costume resulting in doubled costs. Gold cells indicate where the participatory cost is coming close to the original costume cost with costs nearly doubling.
Costume & Participatory Cost Breakdown
Since many costume club members have attended at least 100 events, how much would that cost? Using the same base cost values as in the spreadsheet above, here’s a similar chart featuring the cost of 100 events in which the total number of 3-day conventions attended varies from 0, 1 or 2 for every 20 events. The results are the spreadsheet below.
Cost of costume and Participating in 100 Events
If you don’t attend any events involving paid admission and lodging, the cost of attending 100 events combined with your costume will be roughly $5,000. Add 1 or 2 conventions per every 20 events, and you can effectively double the cost to around $10,000 for attending 100 events.
⚠️After attending 100 events, your total costume club costs could be as much as 4 to 10 times more than the original cost of your approved costume.
Several Questions that Should Ask Yourself
How much are you willing to spend on obtaining a costume?
How much can you afford to spend on obtaining a costume?
How many events can you attend each year?
How many events can you afford to attend?
Should you place an absolute limit on how much you are willing to spend overall for the cost of the costume and the number of events that you attend?
Can You Ever Recoup Any of the Costs?
If for any reason you need or decide to sell your approved costume, the more complete it is, usually the more valuable it will be; but there’s no guarantee that a used costume will retain its value over time. Like anything else, its sellable price will depend upon market demand, as well as the costume’s overall condition.
📝 You can assume that you can recoup at least part (or most) of the cost of the approvable costume, but you won’t be able to recoup the total costs for purchasing tools or other participatory costs, unless you participated in only a handful of nearby events and spent little on tools.
4th: How Much Will the Costume Actually Be Used?
If you attend 12 nearby events over the course of a year and you wear the costume for 2-3 hours at each event, that’s a total of 24 to 36 hours. Since there are 8,760 hours in a year (365 days), the total amount of time that you’ll be wearing the costume for 12 nearby events amounts to 0.3% to 0.4% of the total time in a non-leap year. That means that the costume will be in storage (and be a large paper weight) for 99.6% to 99.7% of any given year.
You could do some of your own photoshoots and wear the costume at home by yourself, but that isn’t going to have much of an impact on how much you can actually wear it.
⚠️Movie studios may spend thousands of dollars on a single costume, but an actor won’t pay to wear it, the actor will be paid to wear it. You will not only pay for the cost of the costume, you will pay every time you wear it. The other 99% of the time when you’re not wearing it, your expensive approved costume will sit in storage. If you decide to own multiple approved costumes, all of them will spend 99% of the time in storage and take up even more space in your home.
Obtaining an approvable costume may seem like a huge accomplishment within itself, and it very likely is; but it comes at an enormous cost and will be rarely used. Once you obtain it, you’ll quickly realize this yourself; but by reading this post, you have an opportunity to understand it before you spend any money. If you genuinely want to own an expensive costume and you understand that you can only wear it infrequently, then the cost of owning it may be entirely acceptable to you, but that decision should be entirely up to you. And, you don’t have to join a costume club to enjoy and appreciate it, though their members would prefer that you think otherwise. In their minds, if you’re going to own an approvable costume, then you must surely want to join their cotume club.
⛔️ Do you want to spend thousands of dollars on a costume that will ultimately be in storage for more than 99% per year? Only you can answer that.
The 501st Legion, for example, has over 14,000 members. That means that there are at least 14,000 approved costumes sitting in storage bins 99% of the time. This equates to a combined estimated dollar amount spent on them of roughly $21,000,000 to $35,000,000 (using a low average estimated average value of $1,500 per costume to an upper average value of $2,500 per costume). This, of course, doesn’t take into account those members owning more than 1 costume or members who are no longer active, but may still own their costumes. Taking those additional costumes into account will only increase the combined estimates by several more million dollars.
And just imagine: the more approved costumes that someone owns, the more time each of those costumes spends in storage bins since its unlikely that the owner can spend as much time wearing each of them as compared when he/she did when owning only one.
5th: The Temptation to Own Multiple Approved Costumes
So you get yourself one approved costume that cost you a few thousand dollars so that you can join and participate in a costume club, but after you wear it for a while to multiple events, you may feel tempted to get another costume so that you can have variety and choice of what you want to wear.
Most costumers & cosplayers like to wear different costumes. If they don’t spend too much money on any of one of them, then having more than one costume is usually affordable. It’s a little different for costume club members because obtaining more than one approvable costume becomes very expensive, but many still do it. If you’re going to make the effort to join a costume club, you must be aware of this temptation to own more than one, which adds significant cost. Naturally, owing multiple approved costumes doesn’t affect a member’s costume club membership, but it does significantly impact the bank account and your living space.
6th: The Costume Club Microcosm
While every costume club is unique in terms of membership and the types of costumes that they feature, when you get down to the nitty-gritty, their similarities usually outweigh their differences, especially for the large organized costume clubs.
Their similarities can be summarized as follows:
Large organized costume clubs typically have a written charter that defines its purpose, it’s membership requirements, it’s leadership structure, it’s local chapter structure, and rules of conduct often referred to as a “Code of Conduct”, along with a judicial process. Other ancillary documents, such as a set of bylaws, may also be used.
Maintaining membership typically requires participating in at least one club event while in costume annually.
Members found guilty of violating the club’s rules of conduct via a judicial process may be placed on probation for a period of time, suspended for a period of time, or permanently banned from the club depending upon the severity of the violation.
Costume clubs rarely enforce their rules of conduct, and the rules are typically so limited in scope and poorly written as to be essentially unenforceable. This enables troublemakers to harass other members with little to no fear of any punitive repercussions.
Since there may only be a handful of events available for members to participate in any given month, 99% of a member’s actual membership time spent in the club is in online communications (sometimes arguments) with other members, usually via social media.
Their differences can be summarized as follows:
Differences in procedures for elections, who can be elected, their judicial processes, rules of conduct, procedures for amending their charters, and jargon used for the names of leadership positions, local chapters and other possible subunits as defined by the individual charters.
The Broad Personality Spectrum
There are only 2 things that can be assumed that every costume club member has in common:
A love of the franchise(s) that the costume club represents.
A love of costuming & cosplay.
⚠️Beyond those two things in common, costume club members can have very different personalities, cultural differences, sociopolitical differences, socioeconomic differences, socioreligious differences, etc. All of these differences can become contributing factors and sometimes the spark that ignites much of the conflict and drama that often occurs beneath the smiling public veneer of a costume club.
We wrote about the broad personality spectrum in costume clubs in 2020. In it, we discussed what’s referred to as the “Big Five” personality model, which, unlike the popular Myers-Briggs personality model, has actual corroborating scientifically collected data that backs up much of the model. Below is a video that explains the “Big Five” model:
We also discussed what’s called the HEXACO personality model, which, as its name suggests, contains a sixth trait in addition to the ones presented in the “Big Five” personality model. That sixth trait is called Honesty-Humility and is described by the http://hexaco.org website as follows:
Persons with very high scores on the Honesty-Humility scale avoid manipulating others for personal gain, feel little temptation to break rules, are uninterested in lavish wealth and luxuries, and feel no special entitlement to elevated social status. Conversely, persons with very low scores on this scale will flatter others to get what they want, are inclined to break rules for personal profit, are motivated by material gain, and feel a strong sense of self-importance.
In our experiences, a number of costume club members who want to become decision-making officers within the clubs aren’t necessarily the most honest or humble individuals. Many of these individuals are sly, deceitful, greedy, pretentious, hypocritical, boastful and pompous as described by this sixth trait. And, these negative personality aspects are in stark contrast to the duties that costumes club officers are supposed to be responsible for, which is especially true when it comes to conflict avoidance and resolution. When a costume club officer becomes an active participant within a conflict, that officer isn’t working to resolve it. And, when a low Honest-Humble score is combined with low agreeableness and high emotionality, it only makes any situations involving conflict and drama that much worse.
A Missing Applicant Requirement: Background Checks
To our knowledge, no costume club requires a background check to be performed as a prerequisite for being able to join. This failure means that every costume club may have members who were convicted of committing violent crimes and were possibly incarcerated as punishment. We are aware of at least one such individual in one costume club (which we won’t name here) who has also served as an officer within that club. Is that appropriate? Should individuals who were convicted of any violent felony be permitted to join?
Costume clubs typically state in their charters that individuals who have undisclosed convictions for the most violent of crimes will be banned from the club. But there’s a problem with that: how long could it take for an undisclosed conviction to become known? Someone who joined a club that committed an undisclosed violent crime could be member of that club for years without being detected. And in some cases, members who have become friends with that individual may conceal that knowledge if they themselves are aware of it. This does happen.
The other problem with how costume clubs handle members who have past felonious violent crime convictions after the fact is that many violent crimes are left out from being considered, such as assault and battery. If someone was convicted of a violent assault or battery felony, would you really want to be around children around that individual? Should that individual be allowed around children at an costume club event in the first place? Costume clubs ignore this until something bad happens.
Members with Mental Disorders
While costume clubs do not deny entry to anyone with pre-existing medical conditions, some mental disorders can prove to be problematic when members who have them adversely affect the club and its other members. Unfortunately, nothing is ever done to rectify these situations. Three mental disorders stand out as contributing factors that have been witnessed by many costume club members in multiple costume clubs:
Bipolar Disorder (BD) is a mental illness that causes dramatic shifts in a person’s mood, energy and ability to think clearly. People with BD experience high and low moods—known as mania and depression—which differ from the typical ups-and-downs most people experience. The average age-of-onset is around 25, but it can occur in the teens, or (more uncommonly) in childhood. The condition affects men and women equally, with about 2.8% of U.S. adults experiencing BD each year. Approximately 83% of cases of BD are classified as “severe”.
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a condition characterized by difficulties regulating emotion. People who experience BPD feel emotions intensely and for extended periods of time, and it is harder for them to return to a stable baseline after an emotionally triggering event. This difficulty can lead to impulsivity, poor self-image, stormy relationships and intense emotional responses to stressors. Struggling with self-regulation can also result in dangerous behaviors such as self-harm. It’s estimated that 1.4% of the adult U.S. population experiences BPD. Nearly 75% of people diagnosed with BPD are women; however, recent research suggests that men may be equally affected by BPD but are commonly misdiagnosed with PTSD or depression.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)is a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others. But behind this mask of extreme confidence lies a fragile self-esteem that’s vulnerable to the slightest criticism. NPD causes problems in many areas of life, such as relationships, work, school or financial affairs. People with NPD may be generally unhappy and disappointed when they’re not given the special favors or admiration they believe they deserve, and may find their relationships unfulfilling while others may not enjoy being around them. Roughly between 0.5 and 1% of the general population (50 to 75% of whom are men) is diagnosed with NPD.
How many costume clubs members may have these disorders? Using the estimates for the overall U.S. population, we can estimate how many costume club members have one of these disorders based on membership size.
Estimated numbers of costume club members with specific mental disorders.
The larger the costume club is, the more likely there will be members that have a particular mental disorder. For very large costume clubs (such as the 501st Legion), there could be multiple individuals in each local chapter that have a mental disorder.
📝Just because someone has a mental disorder doesn’t mean that they will initiate or be involved in a conflict, but one that has one or more of the three listed above may be more prone to initiate or become involved in a conflict.
A Culture of Elitism, Snobbery & Bullying
Each costume club has it’s own internal culture. While there are differences in how those cultures operate due to differences in club organization, the similarities, again, usually outweigh the differences.
The main aspect of any costume club culture is the members’ perception of an imaginary wall that separates and distinguishes them from everyone else in the world who aren’t members, which includes the members of other costume clubs. Inside this imaginary wall, members often view themselves with a sense of superiority and elitism because they belong to that exclusive club. This, of course, often leads to snobbery, as well as disdain for other costume clubs and their members, especially in situations where members have had negative experiences with other costume clubs.
So, from the onset, costume clubs by their very nature of only allowing entrance to those who own costumes that pass the club’s standards of accuracy have not only created atmospheres in which a sense of superiority is encouraged, a number of members caught up in the snobbery often lure new members into sharing those feelings. Do leaderships attempt to dissuade such behavior? If they did, there would be evidence in the costume club’s rules of conduct, which is part of their charters. Instead, all you need do is chat with non-members who have witnessed the behavior first hand and the impressions that the members left behind. A great example are the experiences of “Star Wars” actors Ray Park and Daniel Logan, who, in 2018, both quit being honorary members of the 501st Legion due to ongoing bullying from club members.
📝 So a costume club, is, in effect, a place where a few privileged superfans who can afford to own one (or more in some cases) approved costumes can gather to feel better about themselves and superior over others while their beloved costumes that they spent thousands of dollars to own sit in storage bins 99% of the time. Granted, while not all costume club members exhibit this behavior, enough of them do for it to be a broad problem. When conflict and drama begins (and they always do), the leadership is often powerless (or unwilling) to do anything to stop them as they draw more and more members into them over time. Those who don’t want to become engulfed in the drama and conflict withdraw from participating in events or online discussions: so their costumes end up spending even more time in storage, unused.
The Fertile Ground for Conflict & Drama
In a 2014 article published on “Chicago Now”, NaShantá Fletcher wrote a very good statement about groups of costumers, which we have paraphrased here: “The more cosplayers that get involved in a group, the more likely something will go wrong.” Large costume clubs are the epitome of this statement. The more people there are in a costume club, the higher the rate of conflict and drama; and the reasons aren’t hard to understand as we have listed above, and a couple more:
When conflict and drama takes root within a large group, coalitions will form that take sides within the conflict. These coalitions, which typically develop after a conflict is triggered, can perpetuate the conflict and its associated drama for months and sometimes years.
⛔️ Do you want to spend thousands of dollars of your own money to join a costume club, then avoid its members as much as possible to avoid their conflict and drama? Is this actually worth it?
Negative Impacts on Work and Home
There’s one final thing that needs to be said about costume clubs. Members can become obsessed with a costume club’s inner private world of drama and conflict to the point there it adversely affects their real world jobs and families. This is a constant danger for anyone once they join a club and are unable to avoid becoming sucked in to its inner chaotic world. Costume club members’ obsession with the club itself is a common occurrence in multiple clubs: no one club has a monopoly on this issue.
It’s often only after a member has left a costume club that he/she is able to see the full extent of the damage that the membership has caused in their life.
⛔️Costume clubs can have fleeting moments of fun, but they can also lead to a lifetime of regrets.
Costume Club Charitable Aspects
📝 While costume club members in costume visiting sick children in hospitals or helping to raise money for charities sounds all well and good, there’s an overriding reality that needs to be stated: no one needs to wear a costume to volunteer their time or donate money to assist any charity. The entire concept of helping charities to raise money while in costume is simply an excuse to help justify a costume’s club reason for existing in the first place. Don’t fall for that excuse as a reason for you spending thousands of your own dollars on a approvable costume to join a costume club to assist charities when you absolutely don’t need to.
The argument that costume clubs use regarding their ability to assist charities may have some truth in it, but it’s entirely unnecessary and is nothing more than an appeal to emotion logical fallacy.
Why Members Stay Even When They’re Miserable by Doing So: the Sunk Cost Fallacy
The joy of joining a costume club and participating in its costumed events is as fleeting as the emotional highs that members experience at the events themselves when in costume. Over time, as members either observe repeated or longterm conflict and drama or get caught up in it themselves, they can become miserable and withdrawn as they desperately wish that the lost feelings of joy and the emotional highs that they used to experience would return. If they do, they’ll be even more fleeting than before.
Members who have become miserable due to ongoing conflict and drama within the club often choose to stay in the club because of how much they have invested in terms of money, time and effort to be part of the club and participate in it. (This can be compounded when the member has acted on the temptation to own multiple approved costumes.) They’ll maintain the belief that they can still attend events while avoiding the conflict and drama by attempting to not become embroiled in it themselves. Yet, it’s that same conflict and drama that has made them miserable, and their efforts to withdraw from most events and club chats is simply a coping mechanism. Their inability to quit the club due to their intense sense of commitment to it is another logical fallacy known as the sunk cost fallacy, and overcoming it can be difficult.
Conclusion
Joining a costume club isn’t all fun and games as smiling costume club members and the clubs’ social media accounts want you to believe. Whether you choose to spend thousands of your own dollars to join and participate in a costume club is entirely up to you. It may seem fun for a few months or even for a year or two, but you’ll eventually be exposed to the club’s internal conflict and drama, at which point, you may be inclined to avoid the club and its members. In terms of cost, the more you participate in a costume club’s events, the more money you’ll be spending even though your approved costume will sit unused and unworn in storage for more than 99% of a year. What can you do during that 99% of the year? You can chat & argue with other costume club members online while appreciating the expensive paperweight that the costume exists as most of the time in storage.
No costume club members will explain this reality. No costume clubs will explain this on their websites or social media accounts. All they want you to see is their fleeting fun and infrequent charitable events, but not the actual costs or the potential adverse impacts that being part of the club can have on its members when they’re stuck in the club’s drama and conflict that no costume club is immune from. They also ignore the simple truth that you can own such a costume, but not join their club. Not joining is always an option.
⛔️ Joining a costume club means that you accept the costs & risks involved.
In light of the coup d’état that occurred last year in a secret hearing, we wholeheartedly advise any and all members of the #501stLegion who are eligible to run for the position of LCO to not do so. The position of “Legion Commanding Officer” (the president of the #CostumeClub) has effectively been made redundant through a combination of Charter & Bylaw amendments, as well as the ease at which a sitting LCO can be secretly removed from office if, for any reason, one or a few influential members on the Legion Council decide that they want the current LCO removed.
In all the years that we have operated both our Facebook page and our WordPress blog, we have never encouraged the membership of any costume club to not participate in the club’s electoral process in the selection of new leadership. But the events of last year that were made public undeniably demonstrate a costume club whose leadership is utterly corrupt thanks to a weak Charter and Bylaws that have been amended so many times that the presidential position of LCO has effectively been made redundant. In other words, why would you want to put yourselves through the lengthy Q&A session that precedes the election for a near-powerless position where you stand a good chance of being tossed out before your elected year has an opportunity to finish?
Anyone who agrees to run for the position and has the misfortune of being elected into it will likely be placing themselves into a year (or less) of utter misery for a thankless membership and a power-hungry Legion Council, whose members are probably more interested in maintaining their own little fiefdoms than in actually leading the club in an ethical manner. And after last year’s coup d’état, it’s safe to say that ethics and the 501st Legion’s leadership have little to do with each other.
If you decide to run for LCO and you get ousted before your term of office is complete, you’ll only have yourself to blame. Don’t put yourself through it. Have more respect for yourself and your loved ones, who would have to endure it with you.
Quote by Albin Johnson, founder of the 501st Legion, made on June 15, 2020, on the current state of the club.
While nearly every single comic, anime and furry convention has been indefinitely postponed or canceled due to the spread of the deadly #coronavirus, one very irresponsible convention’s management decided to hold theirs anyway: #AnimeDallas. We were, to say the least, utterly shocked that anyone would proceed with a crowded convention in an indoor-space in the midst of a pandemic responsible for (at the time that this blog post was written) the deaths of just under 284,000 Americans and nearly 15-million infections in the U.S. alone. Dallas County (where “Anime Dallas” is held) is under a red level warning risk: restaurants have been required to reduce capacity and bars were closed after more than 15% of local hospital beds were filled with COVID-19 patients for more than seven straight days. However, none of that stopped “Anime Dallas” from holding its annual convention last weekend under mandatory safety requirements.
Despite being a community based local convention, the people who organized “Anime Dallas” didn’t care much about the health and well-being of their local community. Both statistically and because several staff member’s recent exposure to positive cases means that “Anime Dallas” attendees were likely exposed over the weekend. As for the “Anime Dallas” management, they are dug their heels in and defended their choice to go ahead with the con.
In total disregard to established CDC COVID-19 recommendations to minimize the size of social gatherings, the convention states that they had approximately 700-800 attendees this last weekend; and in according to some statistical models, a gathering of that size has more than a 99% chance of having at least one person in attendance with COVID-19. Texas has seen more than 23,000 COVID-19 related deaths since the pandemic began, with over 1600 of them within Dallas County alone. Approximately 1 in 30 Texans have tested positive for the virus since it began in March, and hospitals are near capacity.
A gathering refers to a planned or spontaneous event, indoors or outdoors, with a small number of people participating or a large number of people in attendance such as a community event or gathering, concert, festival, conference, parade, wedding, or sporting event.
The more people an individual interacts with at a gathering and the longer that interaction lasts, the higher the potential risk of becoming infected with COVID-19 and COVID-19 spreading.
The higher the level of community transmission in the area that the gathering is being held, the higher the risk of COVID-19 spreading during a gathering.
The risk of COVID-19 spreading at events and gatherings increases as follows:
Lowest risk: Virtual-only activities, events, and gatherings.
More risk: Smaller outdoor and in-person gatherings in which individuals from different households remain spaced at least 6 feet apart, wear masks, do not share objects, and come from the same local area (e.g., community, town, city, or county).
Higher risk: Medium-sized in-person gatherings that are adapted to allow individuals to remain spaced at least 6 feet apart and with attendees coming from outside the local area.
Highest risk: Large in-person gatherings where it is difficult for individuals to remain spaced at least 6 feet apart and attendees travel from outside the local area.
The Anime News Network also reported that the president of the “Anime Dallas” convention, John Swasey (who is the man responsible for proceeding with the convention) had been exposed to COVID-19 on Nov. 26, 2020; but claimed that he’d tested negative for the disease 3 days later on Nov. 29, 2020. The test that he used, however, has a 67% false-negative detection rate at 3 days after exposure; and in total disregard to all medical and CDC quarantine guidelines, attended the convention (along with his daughter who was also exposed).
Individuals have criticized the decision to hold the “Anime Dallas” event over the weekend in the midst of the ongoing pandemic and the spike in cases in Texas and throughout the United States. According to The New York Times, Texas had a 22% rise in reported COVID-19 cases in the last two weeks. There were an estimated 221 new coronavirus deaths and 11,098 new cases reported in Texas on December 5, with an average of 14,162 cases per day. Dallas is currently classified as a trauma service area by the state. For the last week, COVID-19 patients account for 15 percent or more of Dallas area hospital capacity.
“As of Sunday morning, there have been at least 1,333,809 cases and 23,111 deaths in Texas since the beginning of the pandemic,” according to a New York Times database. Dallas County is currently third highest in total cases within Texas.
Multiple planned guests pulled out of the convention leading up to Dec. 4, 2020. Brittany Karbowski, Ry McKeand, Austin Tindle, and Freddie Heinz cancelled appearances for the event. Voice actress Luci Christian was listed as a board member for the con but wrote on Twitter that she advised staff to postpone the event. Following the decision to go forward with Anime Dallas, Christian and voice actor David Wald pulled out of the event and asked to be removed from the convention’s board.
Our only advice to anyone who attended “Anime Dallas” or who has been in close contact with someone who did needs to be tested and be in self-quarantine.
Understanding what’s happening in the club begins with its local chapters that its members across the world are predominantly part of and are based upon geographic location. Provided we counted correctly, the Legion is currently subdivided into 99 garrisons on 5 continents and 39 countries. (There are also 29 outposts mainly located in non-U.S. countries that haven’t yet become garrisons in their own right, but are growing and will likely be the next garrisons to be formed.)
Why are garrisons more important than outposts? Simple: it has to do with voting power within the 501st Legion’s main leadership body known as the Legion Council. The 99 garrisons that we mentioned are located in the following countries:
1 in Argentina
5 in Australia
1 in Austria
2 in Belgium
3 in Brazil
6 in Canada
1 in China
1 in Costa Rica
1 in Czech Republic
1 in Denmark
1 in Ecuador
1 in France
1 in Germany
1 in Hong Kong
1 in Hungary
1 in Indonesia
1 in Ireland
1 in Isle of Wight
1 in Italy
1 in Japan
1 in Malaysia
5 in Mexico
1 in Netherlands
1 in New Zealand
1 in Norway / Sweden / Finland (3 countries together)
1 in Peru
2 in Philippines
1 in Poland
1 in Portugal
1 in Singapore
1 in Spain
1 in Switzerland
1 in Taiwan
1 in Thailand
1 in U.A.E.
2 in U.K.
45 in the U.S. (Including Puerto Rico)
This list reveals a very important cultural shift that has been occurring within the Legion for several years: the total number of garrisons located outside of the U.S. now outnumber the total number of garrisons that are in the U.S. (including Puerto Rico): 54 vs. 45 garrisons. Who gets to vote in the Legion Council is based, more or less, on the following criteria as outlined in Section 6 of the Legion’s bylaws:
LCO (1 vote)
LXO (1 vote)
Each garrison: 2 votes
Outposts with at least 12 members: 1 vote.
When the Legion was founded over 20 years ago, it was founded in the U.S.; and for most of its existence, both its membership and its leadership were mostly U.S. based. But in the past few years, an ever-rising number of new members joining the club outside of the U.S. in a large number of countries that previously only had outposts are becoming garrisons (meaning that they have at least 25 members or more). This has resulted in the Legion Council becoming dominated by non-U.S. based garrisons around the world by a 54 to 45 margin.
But, where is most of the membership based? A quick sum of all members within the 45 U.S. based garrisons reveals that there are (as of today) 7,125 members in the U.S. and 6,999 members outside the U.S. combined. Thus, the 501st Legion U.S. membership is actually still the majority, but only by 50.45%, and it’s not clear how long that small majority will last. But, what it does say is that at the present time, the U.S.-majority-members are under the authority of a non-U.S.-dominated leadership. It’s also an indication that the predominant U.S. culture that has existed within the Legion since its inception is increasingly being replaced with a non-U.S., international culture that isn’t likely going to share all of the same values as the U.S. members.
Could this U.S. versus non-U.S. split in the 501st Legion have anything to do with the recent ouster of its LCO on June 14, 2020 in a secret hearing? Let’s take a look at the players in the coup d’état:
The ousted membership elected LCO is from the U.S.
The head LCOG (Legion Captain of the Guard, or judicial officer) is a non-U.S. member and he did not permit a witness to appear on behalf of the questionably charged LCO during the secret hearing.
It would not be surprising if the 501st Legion members who voted the LCO guilty and suspended her to effectively remove her from office during the secret hearing on June 14, 2020 were also probably predominantly non-U.S. club members.
These cultural and power-struggle problems aren’t going away any time soon in the 501st Legion.
News of the recent #501stLegion coup d’état in which their LCO (the club president, known as the Legion commanding Officer) is now being discussed on YouTube. We highly recommend these videos to anyone wanting additional insight into what is going on in the Legion.
Over the past week, an unfortunate chain of events in the world’s largest #CostumeClub (the #501stLegion) saw the ouster of its LCO (club president) in what can be best described as an apparent coup d’état. To achieve this ouster, there is an additional possibility that 501st Legion rules were intentionally violated to achieve the desired end.
But, that’s not all: within the information that was made public surrounding this chain of events, there are references to an elusive, “secret group” presumably comprised of current costume club members. While the existence of this secret group was initially unverified, the existence of swag produced by the secret group, along with more online information being made available regarding its membership and activities, lends credence to the view that it does exist. The name of the “secret group” within the 501st Legion Costume Club is “Project Mayhem”, spelled as “Pяojekt Mayhem”, as shown on this apparent swag that was produced by the secret group:
Attempting to understand a “secret group” isn’t an easy task since its membership, agenda(s) and activities are deliberately kept hidden from public view.
Bear in mind that a “secret group” typically doesn’t want its existence known to outsiders so that its membership, agenda(s) and activities can go unnoticed or more easily deniable and difficult to prove if and when those activities become increasingly apparent to outsiders.
So what’s a good starting point for understanding what a “secret group” might be and what its agenda and activities may consist of? How about we start with the name given to the “secret group” by its members. In this case, the name “Project Mayhem”.
First, let’s take a look at the definitions of the word “mayhem”:
Needless or willful damage or violence;
Willful and permanent deprivation of a bodily member resulting in the impairment of a person’s fighting ability;
Willful and permanent crippling, mutilation, or disfigurement of any part of the body.
As all of these definitions show, the word “mayhem” involves willful (or deliberate) violence and damage, both of which are lawless actions. Thus, “mayhem” can be synonymous with a deliberate state of lawlessness.
Next, let’s look at definitions for the word “project”:
A specific plan or design;
A planned undertaking;
To plan, figure, or estimate for the future;
To put or set forth : present for consideration;
To display outwardly especially to an audience.
The key elements from these definitions are as follows: specific planning, implying group goals, and how to achieve those group goals both in terms of achieving them and outwardly demonstrating the power of the group.
Here’s something else that is very important to bear in mind: neither the written charter nor the bylaws of the 501st Legion prohibit the creation of “secret groups” by members and whose purpose is the manipulation of the costume club as a whole.
In other words, the 501st Legion currently has no means of applying any type of disciplinary actions against the members of a disruptive, internal “secret group”.
There’s yet one more item regarding the name “Project Mayhem”, and it has to do with the deliberate misspelled word “project” as “pяojekt”.
To deliberately misspell a word is known as satiric misspelling, which is an intentional misspelling of a word, phrase or name for a rhetorical or political purpose.
The Cyrillic letter “Я” represents the sound “Ya” in Russian and is used in other Slavic languages and is not simply a backwards form of the Latin alphabet letter “R”. Thus, its use in the satirically misspelled “pяojekt” is suggestive of Russia or the Soviet Union, which has a long history of totalitarian dictatorships.
The satirical misspelling of replacing “C” with “K” was first done by the well-known racist and white supremacist group known as the “Ku Klux Klan”. It’s use today in other satirically misspelled words is suggestive of fascism and authoritarianism, which matches and reinforces the suggestive use of the Cyrillic letter “Я”.
So, based upon the meaning of the terms “project, “mayhem and the suggestive meanings of the word “project” with the satirically misspelled “pяojekt”, we can derive a possible mission statement for the secret group “Pяojekt Mayhem”:
The mission “Pяojekt Mayhem” and its members is the deliberate disruption of the 501st Legion leadership and membership elections to achieve the private goals of “Pяojekt Mayhem” using any means necessary, including manipulation, intimidation, the filing of false charges, etc. When club leadership decisions don’t correspond to the private goals of “Pяojekt Mayhem” or it goes against members of “Pяojekt Mayhem”, every means necessary, including violations of the club’s charter, will be used.
Now let’s compare “Pяojekt Mayhem” with the original mission statement that’s written in the 501st Legion charter:
The 501st Legion is an international STAR WARS™ costuming organization dedicated to celebrating the STAR WARS universe through the creation, display, and wearing of quality character costumes that represent the villainous characters from the STAR WARS sagas.
The Legion promotes interest in STAR WARS and facilitates the use of these costumes for STAR WARS-related events as well as contributes to the local community through costumed charity and volunteer work.
Is there any relationship between the goals of “Pяojekt Mayhem” with the 501st Legion’s mission statement? None at all.
Our understanding is that this is the official logo of “Pяojekt Mayhem” the its members created for themselves. The satirical misspelling is slightly different, but still has the Cyrillic “Я”.
There’s a very specific term that applies to “Pяojekt Mayhem”: Machiavellianism. In psychology, Machiavellianism refers to a personality trait in which a person is so focused on their own interests that they will manipulate, deceive, and exploit others to achieve their goals. The term was derived from the name of the infamous philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli, whose most well-known work became ‘The Prince” (Il Principe). This notorious book espoused his views that strong rulers should be harsh with their subjects and enemies, and that glory and survival justified any means, even ones that were considered immoral and brutal.
Here are some tendencies that Machiavellian individuals often have:
Only focused on their own ambition and interests.
Prioritize money and power over relationships.
Come across as charming and confident.
Exploit and manipulate others to get ahead.
Lie and deceive when required.
Use flattery often.
Lacking in principles and values.
Can come across as aloof or hard to really get to know.
Cynical of goodness and morality.
Capable of causing others harm to achieve their means.
Low levels of empathy.
Often avoid commitment and emotional attachments.
Can be very patient due to calculating nature.
Rarely reveal their true intentions.
Prone to casual sex encounters.
Can be good at reading social situations and others.
Lack of warmth in social interactions.
Not always aware of the consequences of their actions.
Might struggle to identify their own emotions.
The following is a description of Project Mayhem that was posted on Reddit on June 21, 2020. It’s rather long.
A bit on who or what Projekt Mayhem is, how they formed, their goals, tactics, and suggestions on how to stamp them out.
Projekt Mayhem is an unofficial group within the 501st formed by disaffected legion officers, upset at loss of power after the 2019 Feb election. PM was primarily made up of the leadership of three garrisons (UKGarrison, Golden Gate Garrison in California, and Redback Garrison in Australia) with supporters in other garrisons. “Founding members” are very proud of such a title. Since formation the objective has been to discredit, remove and replace LCS, take control wherever possible and failing this, remove ability for the 501st to step in regarding any of their garrison affairs or individual crusades. They make their own merchandise using LFL Star Wars IP, operate in their garrisons with impunity and purge anyone they consider a threat to their control. The 501st was and is unprepared to deal with the tactics and methods of Projekt Mayhem. The legion naively assumed that leadership of a garrison would never act this way, let alone coordinate with others to subvert the mission and ideas of the group.
Brigading is an online harassment tactic rallying a group against an individual or smaller group, in a sustained and organized way. Reddit and other online communities have rules against it, the legion has no such rules and it’s Projekt Mayhem’s main weapon. It’s why the 501st boards are a festering wasteland, dominated by their voices. Anyone arrives to say anything off script? They coordinate off-forum to bring as many of their number as possible to tell this individual and anyone else watching that they’re wrong. They change the subject, talk around the argument, play things off as jokes, discredit and counter question the OP, any number of diversionary tactics. The purpose is to bog relevant conversation and questions down in posts so that it is impossible to respond or resolve within a bog of endless aggressive posting. So many threads on the 501st boards die a death from being overly bloated with eager Projekt Mayhem acolytes. The LCOGs (either members of Projekt Mayhem themselves or sympathetic to PM) are either not prepared to handle this or do not want to handle this, and do not stop them. Wondering if someone is a PM member? Check their post history. Do they look like a brigadier? They’re probably PM.
Another tactic is broad surveillance and cyberstalking across all available social media. Their network spreads information to PM members, and collects information on PM targets to be used in action taken against them. They don’t care where the information comes from, public or private social media, closed groups for women or other minorities to speak freely, they take everything. It is insidious, prolific, and has caused multiple members of the 501st from historically vulnerable or protected characteristic groups to withdraw and leave the legion altogether. Nowhere is safe, you’re unable to talk freely of your experiences, ask for help or be critical. Projekt Mayhem have made the legion unsafe for these members or any individual who draws their eye. The 501st legion has no social media policy, yet they have historically punished PM-targeted members for social media activity and have let plenty of other social media based cases slide. They aren’t subtle, making it clear that Big Brother is watching. But they’ll cry about doxxing and play the victim as loudly as they can should anyone share any of their own incriminating words back at them, or reveal them for who they are.
Another key tactic is infiltration into vital areas of the legion, removing checks and balances to protect its members. As has already been discussed elsewhere on this thread, PM put forward jury members for 501st trials and try to sway or even recruit other jurors from those same trials. The turnout for voluntary jury duty is low, so the odds of PM getting in on a jury are high, and they know this. When it was mentioned that this throws speculation of jury rigging and trial tampering onto all 501st trials in at least the last year? That’s very likely what’s happened. The same names showing up to jury lists over and over again cannot be a coincidence. What chance of a fair trial does a PM target have if they are brought up on a PM member’s charges, with a PM jury, and PM-friendly LCOGs? And PM members who get brought up on charges getting away not guilty? Extremely convenient. So this puts the entire justice system of the 501st into question. Who can you complain to? How is this fair? Who watches the Watchmen? Hearings are sealed up and you find yourself targeted if you speak of the details outside, with brigading demanding proof, knowing that sharing of details is cause for punishment which they will gladly serve you. As per tactic above, this is all recorded, passed along to the PM network for dissemination. As we’ve seen with the treatment of the LCO, whether you agree with her line of questioning or not, there is no member of the 501st too big that they would not go after. They will use all means, official and unofficial, to remove them, deny their appeals, and set about smear campaigns asap to stifle their calls for justice.
This is coordinated and brutal. Layers of followers doing whatever is needed to support and protect leaders. In return, followers are given PM protection, a free hand to do whatever they choose to whoever they want. They are not the smartest, the most creative or the most knowledgeable. The sole qualification is their loyalty and how brutally they can shut down anyone the PM kingpins consider a problem. Admittedly, watching lower-tier PM members squeal and roll on one another following the recent leak of a PM membership list has been something to see. Not quite as loyal when their safety net is revoked. “I am Jack’s complete lack of surprise.”
Projekt Mayhem have driven off entire departments of legion command staff. They orchestrated a VONC (vote of no confidence) for 2019’s LCO, but did not expect him to resign before a membership vote could be triggered. This foiled an attempt to put forward a candidate of their own and seize control of the legion in a coup. The PM candidates were roundly thrashed in the 2020 elections this February by the LCO they recently managed to slyly remove. Prior to this, in 2019, practically the entire LMBO (Legion Merchandise and Branding Officers) staff walked after PM worked overtime to discredit their adherence to new LFL merch rules. The brigading was intense, prolonged and constant. Some even walked away from the legion. LMOs (Legion Membership Officers) and a few “good cop” LCOGs were pushed to resign at the hands of PM’s constant attacks. In the instance of the resigning LCOGs, they were ashamed at the state of what the office had become through PM’s influence. The others received their treatment for the simple crime of stopping PM members from doing whatever they wanted within their respective departments, because what they want regularly goes against legion rules.
Driving staff from positions and membership from legion discussion benefits them in the form of pushing through 501st charter changes while most members are not engaged due to the forums being a cesspit. Highlighting new proposals to raise membership engagement earns you a PM target painted on your back. They don’t want membership to be engaged. They want you to close your eyes and plummet with them into the ground, “calm as hindu cows”, as Tyler Durden would say.
If you’re a 501st member and actually want to try and fix the legion, talk about this in your garrisons, on the legion forums, with your friends. Have courage and do not allow yourself or important conversations to be shut down by these guys. Stop letting them run off members critical of them, because they do not have the best interests of the legion at heart and eventually you will run out of people trying to stand up to these guys. Eventually PM will be your legion. Pull your heads out of the sand, stop trying to heal the legion with hand holding and “we can do it” plucky attitudes. Their skill is looking bigger than they are. Hold your leadership accountable if they are PM or sympathetic. You voted them in, they should represent YOU and NOT Projekt Mayhem’s bullshit selfish ideals. Hold your LCOGs accountable, they are voted in now, you can vote them back out. Talk to your 501st legion council seat holders and have them push for charter changes to enable the 501st (with fresh and uncorrupt LCOGs) to fix this problem themselves before someone fixes it for them. Question new LCOG candidates to ensure things don’t get worse with a freshly hatched batch of PM-brand “justice”. Don’t let them be squad leaders. Don’t let them be detachment leaders. Don’t let them be garrison staff. Maybe not every PM member knows the full extent of the machine they’re part of, but they are part of it. Stop Projekt Mayhem. If you’re sad at the state of the legion right now? Do something.
Remove founding PM members from the Legion, cut the head off the snake. The charter protects them, and is not fit for purpose. Fix it so that the above can happen. Talk to your councillors, show them that you have a voice and you DO give a shit.
VONC the LCOGs, get a team in who give a fuck and want to fix this, and aren’t bought by PM.
Stop tolerating intolerance, bullying and harassment within the group, or very soon you won’t have a group left at all.
An unnamed member of the #501stLegion in the #UKG (U.K. Garrison, the club’s local chapter in the U.K.) who was possibly a member of its leadership staff, has been accused of #SexualHarassment by a woman who was only 17 when it began and it continued and got worse when she turned 18. According to her account, the accused man is 10 years older than herself.
Here is a quote from the woman, who explained her experiences in great detail on reddit:
you wanna talk 501st? Let’s talk 501st. Specifically, in my experience UKG. I was 16 when I first met a lot of them, I was GalacticAcademy (our club for under18 Star Wars costumers) who have a separate changing room from the 501st/RL for obvious safeguarding reasons. I was 16 when one of them in particular added me on Facebook, and we would chat occasionally. I turned 17, and he started making sexual comments towards me, sending photos. He kept asking me to go out with him, I made verbal responses and told him no, loud and clear in front of others. I even told him in texts several times I didn’t see him that way and it made me uncomfortable. He kept asking. I was ‘playing hard to get’. Let me reiterate, I was 17, he was 27. And an authority figure. He kept pushing me to go out with him, kept making comments towards me online and in person that I was uncomfortable with. ‘Let me take you out for a proper drink when you turn 18, maybe a bit more than that ;)’. I was 17 when he opened the door to our changing room at an event. That was separate from theirs, because we were minors. I was with my best friend, she was 16. He opened the door when I could have been undressed. He asked my best friend to talk to me. I said she should stay. He was blocking the door. He gives me things he bought for me, that I should reconsider, I felt pressured. I felt uncomfortable, this was a group of people I wanted to be accepted into, I wanted to be liked. I didn’t want to end up being the bitch or the trouble causer because he knew them longer than I did. So I didn’t cause a fuss. He started nudging me to come to his house sometime, telling me going to bed ‘is so much better with good company’. I finally turned 18, I joined RL. I was so glad. He would touch me and hold me in photos, I didn’t want to cause a fuss. Again. We went to dinner as a group, and he would sit right next to me. I felt vulnerable and like I would be ‘othered’ for being honest. I didn’t see a way to say no. I just kept trying to brush everything that happened off as ‘no biggie’.
While there is no independent verification for these allegations, there have been other similar allegations made against many other 501st Legion members for many years. In most cases, the 501st has done nothing to address the reported problems, or to find ways to discourage it from happening to others.
As the anonymous accuser on the reddit wrote, the UKG was apparently well aware of what this man was doing, but did nothing about; but after she joined the Rebel Legion (RL), its members did their best to protect her:
All of this to say, all the other members of the garrison saw this. And my experience is just one example of the systematic problems, so many people within the groups have faced this. They saw a grown man arguably grooming and being inappropriate a teenager. And they did nothing, the 501st did nothing. I and many other people wouldn’t have been in harms way if they moderated who they let into the clubs, and if they monitored behaviour within their club. But they didn’t, they let him do that. over two years. They saw it, and after I felt I had a voice to say all this to Garrison members and officers, they said, yea, they knew; they just felt too awkward to do anythin about it really. And that’s why I’ll never join. RL members protected me. they kept him away from me, they tried to push to get him gone. They had my back. And the UKG felt too ‘awkward’ to handle one of their own.
‘Awkward’ is the reason I’m scared of a lot of things, ‘awkward’ is the reason I felt unsafe doing something I loved. Their excuse was ‘we join the clubs to costume and escape real life, it didn’t feel like a club matter’. It was a club matter and it is, his harassment and his wearing down of me, happened in a club environment. They knew, they saw. He wouldn’t have had the chance to behave the way he did with me, he wouldn’t have known me, if it wasn’t for the 501st. This is real life. It was real life when he kept pushing for where I lived, it was real life when he harassed me after I continually told him no. After he kept trying to be involved with a 17 year old. It was real life when I didn’t feel like I had another option but to say ‘okay’. It was real life when he said if I didn’t tell him certain things, he had ‘ways to find out anyway’. And all of that wouldn’t have happened, if in the first few days, when I said I didn’t like being around him, when they saw him come into our changing room, they stopped him. They talked to him and made him understand it’s not okay or acceptable, they took responsibility for the fact that if it wasn’t for their club, he’d not have had that access. And you wanna know the worst part? I got stronger, I told people this, and he’s still a reserve member. They don’t care. He broke the clubs confidence, he was the reason I felt unsafe. But it’s too much effort, too uncomfortable for them, to challenge how they do things. They protect their own, they won’t protect you.
As part of the commitment that “Costuming, Cosplay & Costume Club 101” has to provide practical advice and accurate news coverage regarding topics related to #costuming, #cosplay, #fursuiting & #CostumeClubs, we take very seriously the writing of any blog posts addressing the complex social dynamics that exist within these communities. We do this so that members of these communities can make the best decisions they can pertaining to their involvement within these communities. Thus, when the social dynamics that we are reporting on involves drama and conflict within a costume club, including our earlier blog post about an apparent coup d’état to remove the LCO (or club president) from the world’s largest costume club (the 501st Legion), we want to ensure our readers that (1) all of the information that we used to write the blog post is publicly available, (2) we are not members of the 501st Legion (so we have no vested interest in the events occurring within the costume club itself), and (3) we are aware of the sensitive nature that this topic represents for the club’s 14,000+ membership. It is therefore our hope that our blog posts will assist our readers in making appropriate decisions pertaining to their future involvement with this particular costume club.
Now, on with the topic at hand. If you have not read our first blog post on this subject, you may want to read that first before proceeding with this one. We are blogging this update because additional information has been made public in the reddit article that we referenced in the first blog post on this subject.
The update to the reddit article was made today, June 17, 2020. In the update, the reddit article author has shared additional information regarding the secret hearing in which the 501st Legion LCO was ousted and comes from several emails whose content has been made public.
The update begins with an email sent to the LCO from the 501st Legion LCOG (or Legion Captain of the Guard, who is a club-level judicial officer) on May 5, 2020. In the email, an offer is being made to the LCO on a different, unrevealed charge that was made against her by 2 UKG members. The offer is essentially a plea deal for her to accept a 3-month suspension and 3-month probation without having a hearing and that the 2 UKG members would accept this. This apparent offer was made based upon a procedure called the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) process as outlined in the 501st bylaws.
The reddit author then explains that the ADR process that the LCOG was supposed to follow as defined in the 501st bylaws did not do so. While the wording in this section is somewhat confusing and not completely verified by the author, the key points appear to be that
The LXO (the Legion’s vice president) was not informed about the ADR by the LCOG as the ADR process requires.
The LCOG’s only ADR proposal was a plea-deal.
There is an appearance that the LCOG was biased and favored the 2 UKG accusers during this process.
So roughly a month after this incomplete ADR process is when the additional charges were filed against the LCO by the 2 UKG members as covered in our first post. These charges then lead to the secret hearing that the vast majority of the 14,000+ membership knew nothing of until it was over. But, during the hearing, there was another questionable action taken by the LCOG: specifically, the LCOG denied the LCO the right to have a witness appear on her behalf during the hearing based upon their “opinion” even though the 501st bylaws do not grant that power to an LCOG. The LCOG’s denial is contained in a 2nd publicly shared email that was sent to the LCO from the LCOG. The reddit author wrote the following:
“As was reported in the original leaks, the questioning of the UKG financial and handling of charity funds was brought up to Dawn by a concerned member (the central part of the attack on Dawn was that she had gone out of her way to smear the UKG and specific members, Dawn claimed that she was provided the information by a member).
So as the hearing moved forward, Dawn requested that a witness be allowed in the hearing (that witness being the concerned member). The [2nd] email is the response to her request for a witness. To quote the email by the LCOG team ‘it is the LCOG’s opinion that a witness will add little value’. “
“Now where in the Disciplinary Hearing Procedure does it state that the LCOG can “in their opinion” deny a witness. Once again we have a situation where the LCOG have bent the 501st rules to suit them.”
Now, during a hearing (which is essentially a trial), why would someone deny the appearance of a witness? Such a denial definitely has the appearance of manipulation.
It is up to the readers of this information to decide for themselves whether the ADR and disciplinary hearing procedure that the 501st LCOG applied to the LCO was manipulated in favor of the UKG or not.
Below is a screen capture of the 501st Legion’s disciplinary hearing procedure as taken from their “Operations Protocols” (or bylaws).
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