Quick reminder that you're allowed to have fun.

Back when I cosplayed, I put a ton of effort into cosplays. I did a ton of research, fabric sourcing, learning new construction techniques, trying to get everything to look good and be the perfect thing that I wanted it to be. I wanted to win awards. I wanted to be the very best, like no one ever was.

I got into cosplay because I was in a Twilight cosplay group. We would get together, to go Ross Dress for Less, buy new outfits, get together, go to the park or to the mall, and pretend to be vampires. One of the people in the group had a camera and took pictures, and that was what we did. We didn't make any really good cosplays or any really good photos, but I had so much fun going into the park in the rain wearing a sleeveless dress and pretending that I wasn't freezing, while our Bella cosplayer got to be the only person in a jacket and had to pretend she was miserable.

We weren't a good cosplay group, objectively speaking. We never won awards. We weren't interviewed by blogs. We weren't ever the group that everyone wanted to take pictures of at the convention. I got into doing more cosplay, but a lot of people in that group didn't cosplay outside of that group. A lot of them never cosplayed again, once we all went to college and stopped going to the mall and taking tons of pictures in the food court.

(For everyone who wants to imagine this, this was 2008 and cell phones didn't have cameras that could be dumped onto your computer, so there was several high schoolers pretending to be vampires and one person with a full DSLR with a 300mm zoom lens following them around like the whole grous wasn't a total ball of chaos).

And, you know what? We had fun. It's okay to do things just because it's fun.

With so many professionals posting information on the internet about how they do their craft, it's an amazing time to get into a lot of hobbies. Instead of hoarding information, a ton of hobbyists and professionals alike share their work and techniques and tools freely online. Anyone who wants to can learn how to use the same tools and do the same techniques. I applaud every professional who is taking the time to make resources so that new people can learn how to do things and join in their profession or hobby. Everyone who makes a roller skate tutorial on instagram, everyone who makes an instructable on using a soldering iron, everyone who posted a tiktok about the best way to melt cheese over rice, all those long and pretentious youtube videos about picking the best whiskey to go with the best cigars, videos explaining the bizarreness of Edwardian table manners, you all are amazing. You're sharing this information and enabling new people to learn about something that's important to you. This is really cool. I love you.

But, to everyone who is consuming this media that has been created, and find it intimidating, you're not alone. Someone with a functioning studio who is doing a makeup tutorial in a 4K camera with a high quality ring light and a $89 foundation brush, even sharing their technique freely, can make you feel like you won't have good makeup skills until you also have a ring light and a nice brush. You wanted to build a model of an airplane and looked up a tutorial, and this guy makes it look really easy but he has a double-action airbrush and a fume hood, so you feel like you're not ready to make this model because you don't have the right gear.

I know that this intimidation factor is not something that content creators making tutorials want to be there. I make tutorials and I don't want to intimidate people with a big list of tools and techniques, but I'm sure there's people who wanted to get into lolita fashion and found that my blog was more intimidating than helpful.

So I'm not here to tell content creators to stop making tutorials. The open sharing of information is one of the coolest things about the internet, and I don't want that to change.

But I do want to say something to the person who has watched 160 cake decorating videos in the past week and wanting to try it themselves. I want to say that to someone who has gone through 18 years of jfashion blog archives and wants to build an EGL coordinate. I want to say something to people who've built up an elaborate fictional world and amazing characters in their heads and who wants to share it with someone.

It's okay to do a thing without getting into the hobby. You're allowed to make one cake and decide that it's not for you. You're allowed to take the face off a Monster High doll and not like the process of putting on a new one. You're allowed to assemble one EGL outfit and not want to make a full closet of pieces. You're allowed to write down your story and give it to a friend without ever submitting it to a publisher. You're allowed to paint your DND minis with Apple Barrel acrylics and toothpicks. You're allowed to put on your eyeshadow with the little sponge stick that comes with the $9 palette you got at CVS.

Getting into wood carving is cool, but carving one spoon and then never picking it back up again isn't a failure at getting into a hobby. You made a spoon! That's so cool! You didn't fail to make a spoon just because you didn't make a second one. Building one coordinate and wearing it over and over for conventions and photoshoots isn't a failure to wear the fashion, even if you don't make a whole wardrobe with multiple looks. You can buy a $12 guitar at a yard sale and just play Wonderwall on it on Omegle and have more fun than someone who is dedicated to learning a full set and play professionally in front of people. You can knit a single scarf, hammer together a single planter box, DM a single session of D&D, and then not do it ever again. That's creation, not failure.

And you don't need to research everything and follow tutorials and get it right. You're allowed to experiment and have fun and do it wrong, and you're allowed to guess about the right way to do something. You're allowed to bring your outside perspective into something and try a technique. You're allowed to take experience you have from something and try to cross-apply it to something else. That's two of the ways that new techniques are made! And you're allowed to do something and not like it! You're allowed to do it wrong! You're allowed to give up halfway through and say you'll finish it later, and then never finish it later! You're allowed to bullshit your way through things.

You're allowed to not be serious about things. Throwing a Bridgerton party is probably really fun, but so it putting on cardboard top hats from the dollar store while holding shot glasses over your eyes like monocles and shouting "GOOOOOOOD HEEAAAAAVENS, LAAAAARYYYY," in an exaggerated tone while everyone drinks Old Crow and vows to never buy Swisher Sweets ever again. You're allowed to do things that objectively aren't good, don't showcase skills, don't create something impressive. You're allowed to do these things because they're fun, or because you think they might be fun.

Maybe you like it. Maybe you don't. But you don't need to commit to doing things like the professionals in order to find legitimacy in a thing you attempt. Your attempt is legitimate. Go try the thing.

And if you don't like it, your attempt was still legitimate. Good job trying the thing.