[POLL BROKEN] Regarding the concept of "Cosplay" in General

I remember the first time I had ever heard of cosplayers. I was playing POKéMON Red late at night and I was in the Rock Tunnel without Flash (so the screen was as black as pitch. Suddenly, I hear creepy music, and this line of dialogue comes up on the screen:

"Do you know about
costume players?"

I was then challenged by a POKéManiac. After beating him, he said this:

"Costume players
dress up as
POKéMON for fun."

Now, at the time, POKéManiacs were just adolescent males in lab coats who had a distant look on their faces. But, when POKéMON Ruby and Sapphire came out, they suddenly were depicted by this:

http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/6/61/Spr_RS_Pok%C3%A9Maniac.png

And then...:

http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/0/0e/Spr_FRLG_Pok%C3%A9Maniac.png

And, most recently:

http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/4/48/Spr_HGSS_Pok%C3%A9_Maniac.png

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Ever since then, I've always regarded cosplay and cosplayers as oddballish. Even now, when attractive women are cosplaying, I still regard the whole thing as strange.

Am I alone in feeling this way?

EDIT: What's wrong with the poll function? It automatically submitted the thread when I just wanted to add additional options to the poll.

What exactly about it do you find odd?

I don't find cosplaying at all odd as I myself am a cosplayer but I suppose it relies also on context. If the cosplay is being done at an event of sorts and is relevant, it fits in almost perfectly. However, if this is a cosplay being done within the general public and for no apparent reason, you would almost definitely consider it odd.

Cosplay's main purpose is to allow the cosplayer to act out and become the character they're dressing as. The motives may vary but in general, cosplaying is or should at least be about enjoying yourself. In that way, cosplaying is no different to an RPG where you act out as a fictional character in your game for entertainment.

See, that would be groovy. If someone could put up a façade strong enough to make themselves seem like the character they are pretending to be, THAT would be cool.

Considering you're reaction to that. I guess the cosplayers you encounter don't actually "play" the role of their character, embracing only the costume part of cosplay, or at least are not acting out their character well enough.

I guess it would be hard to find a cosplayer who dedicatedly play their character all event long for various reasons but generally the cosplayers where I am give decent effort in acting out their characters. I once witnessed two cosplayers(Hetalia France and Britain), who were complete strangers irl, interact with each other as their respective characters would in the anime(of course, they broke out of character afterwards to compliment each other and so forth).

With that said, I think the best place you'll find a cosplayer acting out as their character indefinitely is staff from a cosplay cafe or generally anyone whose job is to act out their character cosplay.

I love making the costumes more than I enjoy wearing them.

I think cosplaying is great. Its simply a way to express your love of a character much like people will dress up as the mascot for their favorite sports team. At the next convention in my area I am actually crossplaying and going as a girl and is that weird? Yes, but only because you dont see it very often even among cosplayers (and don't worry i have a very feminine body so its not difficult to pull off)