Top Cosplayers

There may be a lot of discussion as to who the top cosplayers are. Opinions can vary greatly depending on what you think makes a Top Cosplayer; contests won, number of different costumes, conventions attended, but the easier factors to track are Facebook Likes and Twitter Followers. While these numbers may not be most reliable or scientific, they are socially telling. How many people think you are worth following and reading posts from?

Using a spreadsheet and a few tools it is possible to track and list the Top Cosplayers in North America by their fanbase. I have to say I was a little surprised by some of the results, and happy to find people that I hadn't heard of before while researching this. Here is a look at this list as of May 1, 2014.

Name	Where	Facebook Rank
Jessica Nigri	Phoenix	1
Yaya Han	Georgia	2
Liz Kats	L.A.	3
Nicole Marie Jean	Boston	4
Kristen Hughey	South Carolina	5
Ani-Mia	Washington	6
Abby Dark Star	Oakland, CA	7
Heather	Florida	8
Amie Lynn	Arizona	9
Stella Chuu	New York	10

Facebook seems to have a good spread of the country covered with representation. Once we look at Twitter though the demographics shift to Georgia and Los Angeles, and we see a few different names

Name	Where	Twitter Rank
Jessica Nigri	Phoenix	1
Yaya Han	Georgia	2
Vampy Bitme	San Jose	3
Monica Lee	Georgia	4
Melonie Mac	Georgia	5
Riddle	Georgia	6
Liz Kats	Los Angeles	7
Lindsay Elyse	Arizona	8
Raychul Moore	Los Angeles	9
Ivy Doomkitty	Los Angeles	10

Once you put it all together things shift, but the same people are involved.

Name	Where	Combined Score
Jessica Nigri	Phoenix	1
Yaya Han	Georgia	2
Liz Kats	Los Angeles	5
Riddle	Georgia	8.5
Nicole Marie Jean	Boston	9
Amie Lynn	Arizona	10
Vampy Bitme	San Jose, CA	11.5
Ani-Mia	Washington	11.5
Ivy Doomkitty	Los Angeles	12
Kristen Hughey	South Carolina	12

What other traceable factors could be included in such a ranking? All of these cosplayers travel and do a great job of promoting our medium, and they do lots of conventions. That's why I started the list in the first place, to help decide who our local convention should invite.

Between May 1 and June 21, I found 3 people that should have been in the top ten in these lists.

Meg Turney should be # 4 on Facebook and #2 on the Twitter list.
Holly Conrad was missing and should be #8 on Facebook.
Chloe Dyksrta should be # 4 on Twitter, her dad worked on Star Wars (Episode IV)

I have to wonder who else I'm missing. If you know someone comment below or e-mail me. Before I get to flooded with emails, let me quantify the list, must live in Canada or the USA, must have more than a 5,000 Facebook followers or 2,000 on Twitter.