Wanting attention is the prerequisite to wearing a costume, be ye a male or a female. Interest in nerdy stuff doesn't factor, because the hugest nerds may also come in birkenstocks and docker shorts.

Well of course they're all attention whores, a woman can't have interests, that's basic science.

My friend's wife cosplays at Dragon*Con because she likes science fiction and fantasy. She couldn't go this year due to being ridiculously pregnant. She is totally not an attention whore (but her kid is).

Her husband has no interest in any of this stuff and would rather go out and shoot animals in the face.

Not sure you want to go there with the "fake geek girl" thing; that's territory already covered by lots of creeps. There's a much simpler explanation: people enjoy dressing up as stuff. You did as a kid at Halloween; this is the same thing.

Also, if female cosplayers are faking interest in the subject matter just to attract attention from lonely convention-goers, are male cosplayers as well? If not, how is that not an incredibly insulting double standard?

http://comicsalliance.com/tags/best-cosplay-ever/

Here's a page with some favorites:

http://comicsalliance.com/best-comic-con-cosplay-ever-day-2-sd cc-2013/

And a couple more outstanding entries on this page:

http://comicsalliance.com/best-comic-con-cosplay-ever-day-1-sd cc-2013/

I don't see why you can't like this stuff, like dressing up as it, AND be a giant attention whore. Or any combination thereof.

Also, I can never decide how to rate this guy.

Any given woman in a costume could be an attention whore, but it's a very demeaning default assumption. Besides what you're inferring about them with very little evidence, it reduces them to objects put there for your entertainment.

Hear hear, takewithfood speaks truth! These ladies can be nerds AND attention whores at the same time!

In fact, I'd like to take things a step further and say, shame on you, gentlemen. Shame on you. Your defensive reaction is indicative of your negative opinion of attention whoring. But being an attention whore is a perfectly valid lifestyle choice! Don't judge them!

Or do, just so long as you give them some attention.

I know a couple girls who cosplay, both are huge nerds, both love attention.

Thank you for the links Bort. If I may contribute my own http://www.gothampublicworks.com/ (their Catwoman is my favorite).

I thought a prerequisite for hanging out in the comment sections of POE-Red, POE-News and POETV was to be an attention whore. I'm not sure that we should be throwing stones from our glass house...

Generally, reasonably attractive women are if anything getting more attention than they'd like from the sci-fi con-goers before they ever set foot in a con. But even so, with all the comic book movies, successful sci-fi/fantasy TV shows, books like the Harry Potter series, and the fact that pretty much all video games could be considered nerdy, it would be really hard for anyone nerd or otherwise to avoid becoming a legitimate fan of at least one character they could cosplay at cons.

So, this woman who doesn't watch tv, go to movies, read books or play video games goes to her local public library and picks out a comic book, TV show, movie, or video game character. You can easily spend 200 hours on a costume. Obviously, it's gonna be a lot longer for our fake geek because it's her first time. She's gonna have to redo all sorts of stuff because she did it wrong. She might put a sewing needle through her fingernail. She's gonna have to pour her heart into stuff, then throw it out because a mistake of hers ruined it. She goes through all of the discouragement and triumph and despite dedicating months of her life to this character and having to spend an enormous amount of time researching her character to make sure she's got the details of the costume right. If anything, it would be harder to maintain ignorance of the character than it would be to learn all about it.

Then, after all of that stuff, she goes to a convention and then some asshole and says something like "is that a steampunk genderswapped Joker in a Willy Wonka hat?" And she's all like "I don't know, because I paid the guy at the comic book store to go over all the dialog with a sharpie."

So which one is a bigger nerd? Someone who consumed some media they enjoyed, or someone that spent hundreds of hours making something? "I watched a TV show I'm such a nerd!"

Oh, and then our fake geek girl gets to reap her reward. Getting to talk to nerds about stuff they don't enjoy. I don't like superhero comics. I once had a conversation about pre-crisis and post crisis and all the fucking universes and it was fucking horrible. I would rather have a root canal than have that conversation again.

For Blue

And if words hurt your brain:
http://www.dorktower.com/2012/12/04/fake-geek-girl-dork-tower- 04-12-12/

But that doesn't need to be the case, Blue. It is just as possible that someone bought her a costume and gave her some broad ideas of who she is and then she went to a convention for the joy of feeling like the hottest girl in the room.

You just used "refinement and taste" and "Hannah Minx" in the same sentence.

Just you wait. Miss Minx is the Elvira of our generation; history will vindicate me.

Maybe he's just COSPLAYING as an insufferable, unfunny attention whore who makes cringeworthy "comedy" videos because he doesn't have the integrity to just awkwardly hit on women at conventions, he has to make it a "performance" so that if (when) they say no he can write it off as part of the "act."


What I'm saying is this guy is worse than PUAs.

I get your point, but it's still far far better to assume that they're dressing up because they feel like dressing up, not because they crave the lust of lonely men. Otherwise you start sounding like this guy:

http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=93094

God DAMN I love that video.

If you don't have a valid argument, just say something is sexist or racist and shame the other person into shutting up.

Stars for Bort's video!