The Cosplay Economy

8 August 2026<br>The Cosplay Economy

I have recently realized that somewhere along there, we entered into a cosplay economy. Once I saw it, it was everywhere. The term is a portmanteau of "costume" and "play"; it is when you are not the thing you look like, even if that thing is "an actor playing a role"; for example you are someone who is trying to look like a well-known character in a TV series, movie, etc. Thus, explaining what it means for a business to be cosplaying takes a little unpacking (although perhaps not much, as many people seem to understand the phrase "that business is cosplaying" as soon as they hear it).

A few decades back, my wife started a small retail shop selling clothes and accessories. This caused her (and to a lesser extent me) to spend more time talking to other small business owners, especially in retail but also restaurants and the like. One of the things that soon became apparent, is that there are broadly speaking two kinds of small retail businesses:

the kind that need to make a profit, in order to pay for things like food to eat and a place to live for its owner

the kind that don't

It may surprise you to hear that group (2) is not small, and might even be more numerous than group (1). There are a lot of small retail businesses where the actual money for living comes from a spouse, or parents, or a previous career, or something else. The person wishes to be a small business owner, but they are under no particular pressure to turn a profit. The business can even fail to cover its own expenses, at least for an extended period.

Now, at first one assumes (and perhaps the business owner also believed) that this is a temporary situation. They got support from someone or somewhere else, and they are investing it into starting up a new business. After a while, though, it turns out that their only profitable business is extracting more money from that source (spouse or parents or whatever, and to be clear my wife's business is not like this). The business itself, is not profitable, and never will be. You might think they would, once they realize this, shut down their business and do something else for a living, or even just stay home and at least not lose money. Very often, you would be wrong.

First of all, there is an economic incentive to keep pretending. They do, after all, have a profitable business, it's just not the one they pretend to have. They can extract money from whoever-it-is, as long as they keep the shop going and make it look like it's a real business. Why close that down, as long as it's "working"? But there is a second reason, which is that they enjoy (or at least gain satisfaction from) cosplaying as a business owner. They aren't, actually, running a real business (at least not the one they pretend to), but they may have employees, and usually at least a few customers, and it makes them feel better to cosplay as a shop owner, than to sit at home.

I don't know why, but it took me a few years to realize that this is not a situation which is unique to small businesses, or even small-to-medium sized ones. There are, it is clear, some quite large businesses today whose supposed line of work will never become profitable. You might suppose that would mean that they shut down. Perhaps eventually they will, but it may take years, and in the meantime they are actually in a different line of work, which is cosplaying. They are pretending (for venture capitalists, or other investors, or shareholders, or governments, or whoever) that they are a real business, which will someday make a profit. Their real line of work, though, is appearing as if they are going to make a profit someday. Their real line of work, is cosplaying.

One of the most important reasons to look out for this, is that if you don't realize it you may think that if other businesses are doing something, it must be working for them, and perhaps you should try it. Well, maybe, but consider whether or not they are cosplaying. That policy or product or advertising method or whatever-it-is might be working for them, but even if it doesn't, if they are cosplaying they may keep doing it. When you see someone actually cosplaying, like at ComicCon or something, you don't assume that the comically oversized sword works as a weapon or the chain mail bikini provides protection as armor, because you know they are cosplaying. But, if you don't realize that a goodly percentage of the businesses you see (small or large) are cosplaying, which is to say "pretending to be a business" is their actual line of work, you may be led astray.

Real knights didn't use swords too big to wield in combat or wear armor which didn't actually protect them. Cosplaying fantasy knights, do. If you're going into combat, you wouldn't want to use a cosplaying knight as a role model.

The second reason to look out for this, is that cosplaying may go on for a while, but it certainly isn't as likely to persist as a real...