This distinctive job has taken off in China, with many younger girls utilizing their buying energy to remodel digital fantasies into real-world experiences.
The development has sparked large curiosity on-line, the place social media platforms are buzzing with posts about cos commissioning.
The idea? Followers of romance video games rent feminine cosplayers to turn out to be their favourite male characters and accompany them on dates, making a fusion of digital fantasy and actuality.
Bringing dream man to actuality
Xu Yunting has perfected the artwork of embodying male characters from fashionable romance video games. One in every of her most-requested roles is “Jesse,” a delicate musician from ‘Mild and Night time,’ a cell recreation produced by tech big Tencent that enables gamers to fall in love with varied fictional males.
Feng Xinyu, a vigorous 19-year-old, is considered one of Xu’s common shoppers. For Feng, real-life males—whom she refers to as “3D males”—don’t maintain the identical enchantment as the proper, fictional characters she encounters in video games.
“I’m simply not thinking about relationship actual guys,” Feng explains. “Sport characters are extra idealised and fulfilling to me.”
‘Mild and Night time’ has turn out to be a favourite for younger girls like Feng. It guarantees a deeply immersive love expertise, permitting gamers to develop emotional connections with their digital suitors. Gamers like Feng, who establish as “dream women,” usually type intense emotional attachments to the sport’s characters. Cos commissioning takes this to a different degree, bringing these 2D beaus into the true world.
Feng has employed Xu 3 times now to play Jesse, every time paying roughly $70. Nevertheless, Feng not too long ago splurged on a way more costly journey with one other Jesse cosplayer, spending $2,800 for a multi-day expertise. Ultimately, although, she determined that Xu captured the essence of Jesse higher and returned to her for one more date.
“She’s similar to the character,” Feng mentioned to the AFP group. “It appears like we have been meant to be collectively.”
Time out within the metropolis
Feng greeted Xu with delight once they met on the metro station. The 2 held arms and chatted fortunately as they launched into their date, which Feng had meticulously deliberate and paid for.
Beginning with a calming tea break to an indulging hotpot dinner. Their date additionally included a doll-painting workshop and a cake-decorating class—actions the place they have been simply considered one of many cos fee pairs.
Companies have taken discover of the development. Staff on the cake-decorating class shared that they now often see cos fee {couples}. What started as a distinct segment phenomenon is quickly changing into mainstream.
A brand new form of relationship
Specialists recommend that cos commissioning isn’t nearly fantasy—it’s about management and empowerment. The ladies paying for these experiences get to design their ultimate relationship, free from the uncertainties and frustrations of relationship actual males. Additionally they really feel safer and extra understood in these interactions, particularly since most of the cosplayers, like Xu, are girls themselves.
“In these interactions, it doesn’t matter what gender the cosplayer is,” says Tian Qian, a professor at Fudan College. “What issues is that the cosplayer turns into a vessel for the consumer’s feelings, bringing their fantasy to life.”
For a lot of younger girls, the enchantment of those interactions lies of their means to assemble an idealized, heteronormative relationship. Conservative social norms round gender roles nonetheless dominate Chinese language society, usually strengthened by state media and fashionable tradition.
Zhou Zixing, one other educational, has noticed that cos commissioning offers girls a possibility to expertise relationships on their very own phrases, the place their needs are prioritized.
Elevating the bar
Xu, who enjoys bringing fictional characters to life, believes the expertise of relationship recreation characters can positively affect her shoppers’ expectations of real-life companions.
“The boys in these video games are high-quality,” Xu defined. “By experiencing this type of relationship, I feel girls can increase their requirements in actual life and keep away from settling for much less.”
Xu’s mom, Fang Xiuqing, initially struggled to know her daughter’s work. “At first, I couldn’t imagine this was one thing my daughter would do,” Fang admitted. However over time, she has come to see cos commissioning as a innocent and satisfying exercise that brings pleasure to others.
“It’s a pastime greater than a job,” Fang mentioned. “She’s glad doing it, and he or she makes different individuals glad too.”
Emotional satisfaction in a brand new period
Because the cos commissioning development grows, it provides greater than only a paid service—it supplies emotional satisfaction for individuals who interact in it. Fudan College’s Tian Qian describes it as “emotional sustenance,” saying that regardless that the interplay is transactional, it nonetheless offers shoppers a way of being cared for and seen.
In a society the place conventional relationship norms can really feel limiting, cos commissioning provides a artistic and managed manner for girls to have interaction in romance. For a lot of, it’s not nearly assembly their dream recreation character—it’s about developing a relationship that caters to their wants, needs, and fantasies in methods real-world relationships usually can’t.
As this phenomenon continues to broaden, it challenges typical concepts of affection and companionship, providing a glimpse into the evolving methods through which individuals type connections within the digital age.