A handful of photographers scurry around the halls of conventions, sent by their media outlets. They quickly ask for permission to take photos of the most gorgeous cosplayers, snap the shutter button, check the viewfinder to make sure everything is okay, give a quick “thank you,” and go on their way to the next cosplayer. At the end of the day, the photos get compiled into galleries, get titled "Best Cosplay of (event name here)," and give the subject little thought otherwise.

Coverage of cosplay has stagnated over the past couple of years as galleries of unattributed cosplayers have become popular. There are a few reasons for this: online journalism’s fight for clicks for ad revenue has made click-through galleries overused, and it’s relatively easy to take a bunch of hall photos and put them together. It leads to a fairly good payoff without too much effort. These kinds of articles often pay for the more in-depth articles; unfortunately, cosplay rarely gets more than a surface-level glance.