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One of the coolest aspects of attending a fan convention is the chance to make an unexpected connection while you’re there. Sometimes, the experience could even lead to love — or at least a whirlwind two-day approximation of love, as seen in geek comedian Chris Bramante’s adorable music video "Cosplay Girl."
Directed by Evan Koehne and filmed by a group of self-proclaimed geeks at Wonder Con earlier this year, this hilarious five-minute parody is a wonderful ode to geek culture and to love itself — and the often short-lived romance you can find on a con floor.
"Cosplay Girl" is a musical number, a parody, a fan film, and a mini-drama all rolled into one. The story is set at a West Coast fan convention, where we meet an unnamed but badass female cosplayer and the Jayne-hat-wearing Browncoat (that’s a Firefly reference for any n00bs out there) who instantly falls in love with her. But alas, external forces quickly threaten their potential future together — and not just because he fails to join her in cosplaying.
Perhaps our fave thing about this video is the sheer number of geek references crammed into it. Everything from furries to Fray, Joss Whedon’s comic book expansion of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer universe, is on display, along with an obvious love of sci-fi and comics. Basically, it’s exactly the kind of celebration of geek culture that makes us glad fan conventions exist.
Bramante — who developed the idea for "Cosplay Girl," co-wrote the music and lyrics, and starred as its fated Romeo — told Vox via Twitter that he’s a huge nerd and that he’s made a career of creating geek-centered content. His musical improv troupe, Robot Teammate & the Accidental Party, is a regular feature on the geek media brand Geek & Sundry's Twitch livestream, and he’s also written numerous geek parody songs for YouTube channel Animfantastic.
He confirmed that he really is as big a Deep Space Nine fan as the verse of "Cosplay Girl" devoted to Ferengis — a money-grubbing Star Trek race prominently featured in the series — would indicate.
"The song speaks true. I am a huge DS9 fan. Much of my high school life was spent wandering the finely carpeted hallways of Terok Nor [the original Cardassian name for the space station dubbed Deep Space Nine in the Star Trek universe] and I make regular visits as much as I can."
Bramante also told us he had a great San Diego Comic-Con, which ended on Sunday and which Bramante spent sharing "Cosplay Girl" with con attendees. No word on whether he found and/or lost a real-life Cosplay Girl of his own there — but then, that’s what projects like this are for: to let us all be geeks in love for a day.
