The “Is this a pigeon?” meme was experiencing a resurgence on Twitter at the same time I realized I didn’t have the time to make the costume I originally planned to make for Anime North this year. I remember lying in bed one night and thinking, “You know, I could totally make a cosplay of that pigeon meme in the free time I do have.” Then I started laughing and the next thing I knew, I was brainstorming how to put it together.
I got lucky and found the light blue jacket at a thrift store. I had to take it in since it was huge on me, but I left the shoulders and the top of the jacket wide to match the silhouette of Yutaro Katori, the character in the meme.
The “pigeon” is my favorite part though. It’s mostly made out of yellow craft foam, black paint, and bristol board. The antennae are two sewing pins I bent to the right shapes and then painted black. I connected the “pigeon” to the back of the jacket with wire from a coat hanger.
I also love the “subtitle”, which I made by tracing the lettering from the meme on a sheet of white paper with a sharpie and then gluing those letters to a piece of clear plastic a friend of mine cut for me. As for the rest of the costume, I owned the red shirt already, the encyclopedia is a novel I made a new dust cover for, the glasses were a cheap pair of reading glasses I popped the lenses out of, and the wig is from a costume I made a decade ago.
Honestly, I was not expecting the reaction the costume got online. I’m thrilled people have liked it so much! I was surrounded by friends when it went viral and that was great because they made sure the whole experience was fun and hilarious. For example, while some of my friends were reading aloud and giggling at comments people were leaving on my photos (so many people were talking about my arms, LOL), another one of my friends handed me a “viral meme award” she hastily made me out of a napkin.
I’ve been making costumes for almost twenty years and I’m still in love with cosplaying. Honestly, because I’ve been doing this for so long, it’s hard for me to wrap my brain around the extent of the impact cosplay has had on me. Even just considering the many good friends I’ve made and the many skills I’ve learned from cosplay, this hobby has left countless impressions on me, both large and small. It’s to the point where it’s become part of who I am and part of the tapestry of my daily life.
I found other people cosplaying the same meme at the con and we had fun looking at the different ways we made the same costume. That, to me, is part of the joy of cosplay – that different people can look at the same source material and come up with so many varying ways to bring it to life. There’s a creative energy to cosplay that’s absolutely wonderful. I truly believe that cosplay is for everyone and that everyone, just by cosplaying, contributes something unique and amazing to the community.