Cosplay QR started with the purpose of making it easier for cosplayers to be tagged by fans because of all the various spellings of names misspellings, etc.
As more cosplayers also opened Onlyfans and algorithms tended to punish people for all sorts of reasons as well it was quite possible to become search banned as well where a name even spelled correctly would not show up on the search as with happens with many sex workers or social media platforms being broken for whatever reason, updates, being mismanaged, etc.
Why QR Codes?
QR Codes are ubiquitous. They are used in variety of applications and all modern phones support scanning them either with multiple built-in scanners into the camera app or a more dedicated app. You can find QR codes at most pop culture events as well multiple games to connect to things in app such as the Genshin events that you can scan to play on phone with. QR codes are also being used in more products such as Tile, Popl, and many others.
Separate Badge and Restickable Labels
Originally I had developed these as re-stickable labels that could be worn and moved around for cosplay through as things evolved it was easier to use these as a separate badge that could be attached to a main convention badge or worn as another lanyard. The badges and lanyards are easy enough to remove for any photoshoot, meeting and connecting with new people at events, etc.
I had first developed these pre-pandemic as a way to do the above, then of course they became unnecessary during the majority of the pandemic as there were no in-person events.
When events returned it was proven to be quite useful. Especially the above as the differences in usernames that would have sorts of characters, numbers, and symbols that could be used for social platforms such as underscores. Things that are hard to type even on a mobile keyboard.
Cosplay QR also saves money and allows for direct connection and interaction because business cards are not required to be carried. It saves space as well for the cosplayer and/or any handler, scan to like, follow, subscribe, etc.
This was found to be super useful for the cosplayer https://www.instagram.com/madalynnthorne/ who at the time was going by __maddikarp_ which is also what their linktree used until recently when they updated to https://linktr.ee/madalynnthorne. As you can see this would allow for easy misspellings as even on phones underscores are not common text entry points. Because of this fans had a hard time finding and connecting to Maddie and subscribing to their OnlyFans.
One Cosplay QR made for Maddie changed that and they made a significant amount to their OnlyFans in one weekend.
I designed and created the QR they wanted it had instant returns in awareness, follows, and subscriptions.
