Cosplay of the Unremarkable: The Small but Devout Group of Covidians that Remain

I first have to give credit to @Saikmedi for coming up with the phrase “cosplay of the unremarkable” as it perfectly encapsulates the individual who asserts the continuous “pandemic persona” that has been present for the past two years. After all the lockdowns, all of the vaccines, all of the tests, and all of the mask-wearing – from the glass dividers to the two feet prints on the floor dutifully telling you where to stand, we can conclusively say; most, if not many, are officially done with covid. Considering only a smattering of areas still are implementing mask mandates, I can for sure say that we are done after largely 2 years. But for some, they are not done – for some, covid has not become a battle to overcome anymore, it has become a way of life for them.

Let’s break down the phrase “cosplay of the unremarkable.” First, unremarkable is very familiar with our lexicon meaning not particularly interesting or surprising – but it is cosplay that is the interesting word here. Cosplay represents someone who dresses up as a character – particularly someone from a book, television, movie, and commonly, a comic strip – or general media displaying their character in real life. It is considered a performance art where individuals not only dress up in costumes, but also walk and talk like the characters they’re portraying. Altogether, the cosplay of the unremarkable simply means individuals who are not particularly interesting – playing dress-up of a character from general media such as a book/comic book, television, or movies.

“People have made their whole identity around pandemic compliance.”

I wrote about the ‘pandemic persona’ in a Substack publication called The Social Mask: Far from a Measure for a Healthy Public. In that publication, I discussed the narrative around covid, and the tactics of shaming, degrading, and at times violence used by the masked people who were petrified. I concluded with a quote from Krystal Ball who stated: “people have made their whole identity around pandemic compliance.” Ultimately, the ethos around my piece was that covidians never want the virus narrative to go away, they benefit from it.

People like Eric Feigl-Ding increased followers on his Twitter profile by over 88,000 in March 2020, after remaining relatively stagnant at 2100 since January 2020 – who notably put his kids in a private school in Austria after calling for schools to be closed in America. What about Diana Berrent who wills so-called “long covid” into existence because she runs an operation related to it and gains financial benefit. Not to mention marrying a man 18 months after his wife died of supposed “long covid”, good enough to get a human interest story in People Magazine. What about Denise DeWald who was one of the most stringent covidians who also recommended flushing bleach down your toilet to stop Monkeypox. The sad thing is people online listened to these individuals who pushed this compliance narrative and acted it out in the real world.

It wasn’t just individuals on Twitter – a technical director with CNN confirmed that they used the covid chiron with the case and death counts solely for increased viewership. The director further explains that the scroll of numbers getting higher and higher was a positive because it meant more viewers, stating “COVID? Gangbusters with ratings.” How does this explain the cosplayers with covid? Well, they see the images on screens and tend to act out their persona in the real world. If CNN is instilling fear into them, so too will the cosplayers instill fear into society – a clear sign of propaganda tradecraft.

What is propaganda tradecraft? Many are familiar with propaganda as the flow of biased information toward a political goal – but tradecraft may be a new concept. Tradecraft is a word commonly used inside intelligence communities describing the techniques, methods, and technology in spying. So, propaganda tradecraft are the techniques, methods, and technologies used in the flow of biased information toward a political goal. The wearing of the mask during your walk through a forest trail was not because of viral mitigation, it was a signal to people that you are one of the virtuous ones, that you support a cause, or representing a team. Where did these covid rules about virtue, cause, and signals come from? The media narrative of course.

Knowing of propaganda tradecraft almost takes you to the point of feeling sorry for these people because they are being taken advantage of. Similarly, I feel bad for the people who line up to see terrible comic book movies, solely for the fact they’re spending money to see the movie where studios take that money to make more bad movies. So too, the covidian acts out the propaganda tradecraft and the news continues its production of it.

If we wanted to be scathing about their rationality, we could’ve said they are doing cosplay of the unintelligible, but we use unremarkable because we are not vitriolic at this point, we pity the covidians. Surely, we will not let them forget what happened and call them out on their ideas vociferously – but deeper, and more deliberately, we look at them as lost, burdened, and shameful. Covidians do not have power anymore, just like a cosplayer who dislikes the direction a movie franchise is going; no one cares about their proclivities, not us, not the movie executive, no one. Deep down, covidians do not care about the health and safety of society, if they did, they wouldn’t be exemplifying the hypocrisy they have been throughout the pandemic. They are merely manifesting their own anxieties on everyone else, making everyone try and see their persona as something important and cool – like a superhero. Unfortunately, this superhero cosplay they are doing is wholly unremarkable to normal people.

“If we wanted to be scathing about their rationality, we could’ve said they are doing cosplay of the unintelligible, but we use unremarkable because we are not vitriolic at this point, we pity the covidians“

I know many see this and think, “yes but they are still acting like this, seriously what is wrong with them?” One can chalk this up to trauma, and trauma that leads to mental health anguish. They are mentally anguished because they’re lost without reason, as not being “seen” in society lest they follow an ideology. They are burdened with guilt, perhaps they never made the effort to see their elderly parent in the nursing home, their elderly parent passed and they blame the society that caused it; even though, it was probably due to the lack of engagement seniors had which caused more depression lowering the immune system. Ultimately, they are not ashamed of you, they are ashamed of themselves that they cannot change their ways, even though the world has moved on. They may see that they have been duped, and they are too prideful to admit they were wrong – which is another cause for shame. The large Twitter accounts that post covid information are getting less and less engagement and starting to lose more and more followers. Who knows, maybe they have zero responsibility in their real life with no fulfillment that they must take it out on social media to have some sort of life worth meaning.

Even as a covidian who may be reading this, you may slam your computer shut or exit out of your phone, call me any harsh name in the book, maybe even storm out of the room. What I want to know is, what happens next? What happens when it’s quiet, and you are alone with your thoughts? Do you feel a swell in your stomach about what I said – regarding feeling lost, burdened, and shameful? Here’s the good news, you can stop your act and move on with your life – to which we will not care. Or you can continue with your charade – to which we will not care. After all, we do not care because we know this is a feeling based on fear manifestation, false engagement, and roleplaying a do-gooder. We see it and it is unremarkable.