Cosplay is huge in China and Taiwan. It’s become an industry in itself, where young men and women get paid to dress up. However, as glorious as it is to get paid to for cosplay, one girl’s tale reveals that cosplayers in China may not be making as much money as one would think.
In a recent forum post, as reported by Tencent, it’s revealed that regular cosplayers who sell their cosplay services make little or no money at all. According to the forum and Tencent, cosplayers make about $40 a day for their work. Work that involves putting on their own makeup, putting together elaborate costumes and of course, posing in front of a camera.
The story and the forum post follows the tale of an unnamed Chinese cosplayer who has yet to make a name for herself. It states that she often has to dress in revealing clothing and pose in the elements for relatively small amounts of money — a situation indicative of how lesser-known cosplayers are generally treated in China.
Of course while she’s not making much money now, there is a bright side. Many of these young people partake in China’s pro cosplay scene both out of the love for cosplay and the potential to gain fame (or notoriety). If she works hard at it, perhaps she will one day become famous.
Comments
6 responses to “You Can Make $40 A Day Cosplaying In China”
I thought the entire point of cosplay was to be a hobby, not trying to make a job out of it.
This is China we are talking about. The country who turned playing a game like World of Warcraft into an enterprise.
Agree.. It’s like me going “Oh i’m going to stand on a jetty looking listful as a job..” then a week later going “Oh this is so terrible, i’m not making any money!”.
Also like, isn’t $40 a day kind of.. a lot.. for china? The highest average wage (Beijing) is about $800 a month, and the lowest average (Gansu) is about $500. At $40 a day 5 days a week – they are on about $800 a month – the very highest end of that spectrum.
While it’s not a lot of money – the same comparisons can be made of nearly any country. Some of the european countries must look at us and laugh and think “wow we need to save these people from these terrible wages”..
I think realistically, they’re doing what they love (either performing or cosplaying), and getting paid as well as nearly any other average industry where they are.. I don’t think it’s in any way reasonable to complain about the conditions – especially when the alternatives are more than likely for them to do even less talented work and make even less..
Exactly what I was thinking, the value of money is different in different countries. A mate of mine showed me a jacket for sale in Indonesia for 250,000 rupiah… that’s like, $25. The same thing in Australia would cost $100+. Of course, the pay in Indonesia is much lower than in Australia, so it equals out.
that jacket is the equivalent of 50 meals in Indonesia (cheap places). More if you wanna go for the really really really cheap meals.
well, playing sport used to be a hobby/exercise thing, but professional athletes do get paid stupid amounts of money to play it.
You could say the same about anyone who started doing something purely out of interest and then built a career from it.
How many hours a day?