YouTuber's 'Pennywise' makeup tutorial defended by cosplay influencer
A fitness and cosplay influencer has struck a nerve with fans after posting a “rant” on Facebook about critics trolling a beloved makeup artist’s take on Pennywise, the creepy clown from It.
“RANT: A popular and talented YouTube makeup artist I adore recently posted that she is getting comments from people calling her a ‘copycat’ for her Pennywise makeup tutorial,” began Alicia Marie in her Monday post, which has inspired more than 150 reactions by fans. “Um…it’s a popular character!!”
Her long and resonating post continued, “By cosplaying — aren’t we all just copying the original anyway??? I see this ‘comparison’ stuff a lot in cosplay and makeup, unfortunately. Art is about inspiring and in being inspired by the world and yes, by other forms of ART itself.”
A post shared by Jordan Hanz (@jordanhanz) on Sep 24, 2017 at 8:43pm PDT
Cosplay, from “costume play,” is defined as dressing up as a character from a movie, book, or anime. Marie, who has more than 125,000 Facebook followers and 192,000 on Instagram. is author of The Booty Bible. She told Yahoo Lifestyle that the series of tweets that set her off came from YouTuber Jordan Hanz, who wrote to her 16,500 Twitter followers on Monday:
*does tutorial of a super popular clown character that everyone has/is doing a version of*
“YOURE COPYING ______!”
♀️— Jordan Hanz (@JordanHanz) September 25, 2017
(1/2)Please, before you try to call someone out for “copying” remember that you’re only making THAT creator you’re fighting for look bad.
— Jordan Hanz (@JordanHanz) September 25, 2017
(2/2)It’s awesome that you want to help your favorite artist, but you’re adding tension where it doesn’t need to be UNLESS warranted.
— Jordan Hanz (@JordanHanz) September 25, 2017
Those tweets were in response to critics (alongside praise from fans) of Hanz’s YouTube 2016 tutorial for Pennywise — which is on target to become “the Halloween costume this year if sales and my timeline are predictive — like Harley last year,” says Marie.
The famous creepy clown tutorials are certainly heating up online, with some other popular examples including…
Which just goes to Marie’s point.
“So, only ONE person is allowed to cosplay or dress up as a popular character who actually has one canon look that is quite hard to deviate from?? This makes zero sense and is kind of the antithesis of what cosplay fun and the fandom is really supposed to be about,” she continued on Facebook. “It’s not a competition. It’s not about who looks exactly like the character so that’s the only person who can do it (if that was the case 99% of characters could not be done at all). It’s not about who does it FIRST. It’s about creative escapism — putting together/crafting/wearing a friggen costume of a character/person/thing that does something for you; touches you; makes you smile; is nostalgic for you. Not about WHO DOES IT ‘BETTER.’ That just about takes all the fun out of this stuff.”
Hanz did not immediately respond to Yahoo Lifestyle’s request for comment.
But, Marie tells Yahoo Lifestyle, “One thing I say a lot to people who ask how I ‘deal with’ negative things said about me, I tell them it’s part of the game. If you want to play it and you want to put yourself out there for the public, then you have to be ready for whatever comes back to you, good or bad. There will always be trolls, naysayers, and idiots who are keyboard warriors.”
She adds, “We cannot control them and they will not go away. But we can control how we allow ourselves to feel — and how we react to it.”
Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle
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