A Picture Speaks 1,000 Words–or Receives Infinite Views

My cousin/roommate badgered me to drink a Jack & Coke during his college graduation party at a restaurant, which I declined because I had spent the entire night playing “Red Dead Redemption” on my Xbox 360.  Drowsiness is no chaser for whiskey. My eyes kept fluttering as I ate my buffalo wings.

Eventually, I took the drink to placate my cousin.  After sipping a fifth of the cocktail, I passed out.  I heard the murmur of my cousin’s mom, saying, “What’d you do to Vincent?”

Later that night, after logging onto my Facebook account, I discovered my cousin had posted on my wall a photo he had taken with his phone of me passed out, a close-up of my left cheek and mouth agape.

I worried that my Facebook friends would see this, as well as the world.  (This was before I found out you could change the privacy setting from “Public” to “Friends.”)

I felt as exposed as a “Girls Gone Wild” partyer, but at least those women get to sign a release form (and receive a free T-shirt).

I have always wondered about people taking pictures of other people at public gatherings or places, where the people who pose don’t ask to sign a release form–like at anime conventions.

How would a guy feel if his pretty girlfriend costumed (or “cosplayed”) as Sailor Moon at an anime convention without asking what will become of those photos?

He would be pissed–or rather should be pissed.

From my observations from attending anime conventions, cosplayers never ask what will become of the pictures taken of them by both professional photographers and fans.  They seem secure with posing for large crowds or a few individuals.

A pervy otaku could easily post onto his public Facebook wall a photo of a pretty Faye cosplayer from “Cowboy Bebop” he had taken and type the caption “My Girlfriend.”

Back in 2006 at Fanime, I have seen men in their thirties take photos of cosplaying thirteen-year-olds. I started thinking like a parent: “Aren’t these girls worried about being uploaded onto some dubious website for dirty old men?” Didn’t matter who they costumed as.

This is why I don’t cosplay (that and I can’t sew).