/cgl/ - Cosplay & EGL

My best friend has gone from being a chill, down-to-earth cosplayer to being a bandwagon-hopper. Feeling peer pressure to make/buy multiple cosplays a year to continue doing friend/pair cosplays with them has become a big source of emotional and financial stress. I don’t know where this even came from, because they’ don’t even have a Patreon and barely use Instagram. The only thing I can think of is that we have friends who are becoming “popular”, and maybe they feel like they need to try to keep up.
I feel bad venting about this because “boohoo your friend wants to include you in a shared hobby.” But, fuck. I miss the days of cosplaying things we’re genuinely passionate about, no matter how unpopular or obscure, instead of cosplaying what’s popular and trendy. I miss the days of just being able to watch a new show without hearing “you should cosplay X and I’ll be Y”. I miss making 1-3 new cosplays a year instead of feeling like I have to shit out 6-12.