If the Academy Awards add a category for ‘Best Cosplay’, there’s a certain Aussie who will be in the running.
Rhylee Passfield, also known to her 1.8 million TikTok followers as @rhyleep95, has become all kinds of infamous on the internet.
James Gunn, the occasionally esteemed American director and screenwriter behind Guardians of the Galaxy and scooby doo 2, has officially cast his vote for Rhylee.
Rhylee says she was notified of James Gunn’s ‘incredible’ scream at 2am
and he was literally “hyperventilating and shaking… That was crazy.”
“It makes me so [screams] — OH! — when I think about it. Oh Lord!”
Of course, there are millions of cosplayers, but only one, Rhylee Passfield. You can clearly see the quality of her outfits (just like her Wonder Woman, see below), but she also has the variety! There’s a mix of ready for Supanova and the surreal craziness of a DIY CatDog or squeaky Lemongrab. Then you throw a pole and !!!! Take a look at the core strength of this Voldemort or:
But really, it’s the backstory of her loss that has made her so popular. In addition to her very obvious skill, most comments will mention her laughter and how much she enjoys TikToks ^ __ ^ of hers to watch. You can see very, very clearly how much fun she is having as a free elf:
So how did you get to the point where the suicide squad Was the director getting lyrical about her cursed #Weasel?
Before cosplay, damn or not, Rhylee has been working as a makeup artist since she dropped out of school.
“I’ve always made art my whole life,” he tells triple j. “I’ve always painted and drawn and it was kind of a natural progression from that. I once did my cousin’s makeup and I was like, ‘Hey, this is fun. It’s like art but on one side. The face is the canvas.’”
It wasn’t just expensive canvases he was working with; she is a big fan of not needing excuses to get dressed. “I can’t watch a movie and alone enjoy it. I have to go home and say, ‘I need to go make that costume now.’ She started with proper, serious cosplays, like Wonder Woman and Jack Sparrow.”
At the time, it also helped that Queensland had gone into lockdown, so Rhylee had time and TikTok on her side.
“I was super bored and posted on my Instagram story when I had like 1000 followers asking me for ideas of what I could cosplay just using stuff from my closet. So I started from there and got a pretty big response.”
The first ones he made, with craft materials and things he had at home, were the Thumb Thumbs from spy kids and Marge Simpson.
“[My followers] they were like, ‘You should post this on TikTok!’ So I was like, okay, I bet. And then I posted and *BOOM*.”
“Requests started off pretty slow and now all my DMs all the time are like, ‘Can you do this? You can do this?’ Even if I am away from home and someone recognizes me, they will come and ask me.”
Having such a large audience is “crazy,” she says. “I keep going through cycles where I look at it and I don’t think it’s me. It’s very rare, like impostor syndrome. I just look at my videos and my comments and follow them and say: That’s not me.”
She says that at some point it just looks like a bunch of random numbers and it doesn’t connect at all that each one represents a real person. But clearly there is something in what he is creating that is impacting people.
Image:
It seems that anyone with a large following on Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok will tell you that fan posts can be both charming and… very overwhelming.
Rhylee says that people will call her to let her know that her videos have helped them through difficult times.
“I just got a message before with someone saying ‘You changed my life for the better.’ A lot of people have told me that I stopped them so they wouldn’t kill themselves and stuff.”
“On the other extreme there are some haters, which you will find everywhere. People will say: ‘Your laugh is fake!’ and i’m like, Okay… People who know me know that I’ve been laughing like a hyena since I was a fucking kid.”
“Otherwise, there are people who want me to do a YouTube channel or a podcast. I’m like, the podcast would be literally just an hour of me laughing.”
She and her boyfriend are also planning an expansion of the platform to Twitch “in a couple of weeks,” she says. “And then make YouTube videos from that.” She can look forward to some light gaming, for example. Shrek, The Simpsons: Hit & Run.
“So it’s going to be fun. My followers are so fucking funny and so awesome so any way I can interact with them would be like [chef’s kiss]. I love them.”
Much has been said about the “influencer” business model, but does Rhylee see a point where TikTok could be a full-time job?
“Well, I’m currently working on making it a full-time thing because it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I’m not cut out for life from nine to five. Physically, mentally I can’t do it. So, I’m autistic and I just get burnt out and burnt out at normal retail jobs and stuff like that. So I always wanted to be able to make a living off of my weirdness, sort of.” Your own personal brand of excellence.
“I feel so blessed to have increased this number of followers and to be able to have the opportunity to do so. I am very, very grateful.”