Short: The Americans cosplaying Russian violence

2025 in a nutshell.

After my rant about the “cosplay presidency” the other day, I shouldn’t have been surprised by this NYT story about a particularly disturbing form of cosplay culture: American men dressing up in Russian military uniforms to have pretend wars.

Mason Lowery, 17, plans to join the U.S. Army after graduation, but his uniform and rifle for this military simulation were almost an exact copy of the equipment carried by Russian troops fighting and dying in Ukraine.

“I don’t really know what they’re fighting for, just that they’re fighting,” Mason said of the war. “I watch the drone footage sometimes when it comes up on Instagram.”

Some participants go for extra authenticity:

Many players buy knockoff uniforms from companies like AliExpress. But some players on the Russian team might buy uniforms from military surplus stores that draw their merchandise directly from Ukraine’s battlefields, according to people with knowledge of the supply chain.

An employee at a military surplus store in the United States who sells Russian kit recovered in Ukraine, said his company tries to ethically source their products. That means they avoid selling uniforms covered in blood and other human detritus, he said, but importers sometimes skip tracing the items’ history.

“We don’t think too much of it,” he said. “It’s like if you’re selling hamburgers and you can’t get hamburger meat, and someone gives you a bunch of hamburger meat — you start not really asking questions as much.”

“Hamburger meat” is a particularly evocative metaphor there, isn’t it?

Shawn Prosen, 36, an employee who works in the field during simulations, said he is firmly against wearing “trophy” uniforms because of the ongoing conflict.

“I let the younger dudes know how I feel about that,” Mr. Prosen said, using an expletive. “Because they can get caught up in the internet and not realize how real it is.”

Such a blurring of ugly, literally visceral reality and internet-fueled fantasy is fairly depressing. But it sums up where we’re at pretty well.