Cosplayers are not booth babes, so stop worrying

Today on one of my favorite Facebook groups, a private group for cosplayers from Hawaii, I saw a link posted to a blog post about booth babes being banned from conventions and how this would inevitably lead to the banning of sexy cosplays.

After reading through it, all I can really think to say is, "No. That's silly."

The argument being made in the blog post can be summed up as, "If they ban sexy booth babes because they're 'distracting,' what's to stop them from banning sexy cosplayers?"

Honestly, after reading through several other blog posts on the site I found I didn't agree with most of what author Reggie Watts had to say.

Specifically on the subject of the Banned Booth Babes = Banned Sexy Cosplayers post, I think the argument is just plain silly and I'm not sure why it's being taken so seriously.

Booth babes serve no purpose at gaming conventions except to be part of the decoration of a booth. It's an odd practice that could easily be replaced with big screen TVs and flashing lights. They (usually) don't offer any information on the game or organization they're advertising for and sometimes they're sexy costumes aren't even related to what they're advertising.

Cosplay is a completely different beast. Just. Entirely. Booth babes, whether male or female (but, come on, real talk, how many sexy male booth babes are out there?), are hired models using titillation to garner attention for completely unrelated products. Take the pictures used in Watts' blog post- they're for G4 TV, the now shuttered television channel (mostly) based on video games. How do attractive women in shiny gold leotards factor into G4 TV? They're not wearing dresses made out of game controllers or even dressed like video game characters.

Booth babes aren't just incredibly out of place, they're also lazy. Instead of developers attempting to market their games by being interesting, they're just catering to the lowest common denominator- the human brain's drive for sex. Attempting to compare them to cosplayers is an apples and oranges situation. Sure, they're both fruit, round, sweet- there are in fact, lots of similarities, but at their core they're very different.

Cosplayers are fans who enjoy dressing up as characters from video games, whether or not those characters look sexy. Booth babes are models hired to dress sexily and use their sex appeal to catch the attention of convention attendees. Sure, many cosplayers catch the attention of convention attendees and they enjoy doing so (again, this is the case whether or not they're dressing sexily), but they're not selling a product. They're having fun. So I'm wondering how Watts is really comparing the two and coming to the unlikely assumption that banning booth babes (advertisements) will inevitably lead to the banning of cosplayers (fans)? His argument is honestly just very unfounded, not to mention unresearched.

At one point Watts asserts that Penny Arcade Expo (PAX), the main convention whose booth babe ban he talks about, never asked it's fans if they were okay with the ban But they did. They posted a poll on their forums asking how people felt about the ban and whether or not they had any alternative ideas. And the voters didn't want booth babes. According to Ars Technica, "6,313 people took the poll, with 60 percent of respondents either liking or loving the ban on booth babes. Only 12 percent of respondents hated th

e ban, putting public opinion firmly in the anti-babe area." That's not everyone who likes games or goes to PAX, but that is a helluva lot of people! With only 12 percent outright disliking the ban, it's fairly clear to say fans of Penny Arcade don't like booth babes.

[The photo to the left's description actually reads "I have no idea what these girls are promoting..."]

The policy on booth babes even states that skimpy outfits worn by booth babes who are modeling in-game characters are allowable. So why would it be different for cosplayers? I honestly don't see this as something to be worried about in the future. If conventions are going to put bans on certain amounts of exposed skin because of their beliefs or demographics, then they'll do that. It won't be related to booth babes, it'll just be. Bans on booth babes aren't the first step down a slippery slope to cleavage being covered everywhere, so calm down.