Jinkies! Velma is at the top of the list of film and television cosplay characters on Instagram, according to research from Hearts Land. And you don’t need to be a regular rider in the Mystery Machine to find clues about why.
A quick scroll (or a slow one, depending on your interests) shows that those outfitted in her trademark turtleneck and sensible socks are up to a lot more "M for mature" activities than Scooby and the gang’s G-rated gal pal ever was before.
Hearts Land (an online gaming platform) had more on its mind, though, when it combined 150 pop culture character names with “cosplay” to come up with categories including film and television, heroes and villains, anime, and gaming.
After Velma, who has garnered 60,993 hashtags, the film-and-television characters are fairly scary. Pennywise is second, luring people in an entirely different way, with 60,884 hashtags. The character appears on a horror-filled lineup alongside Beetlejuice (fourth, with 49,455), Halloween’s Michael Myers (number five with 41,010), Scream’s Ghostface (seventh, with 34,776), Chucky (eighth with 34,325), Friday the 13th’s Jason Voorhees (number nine with 34,136), and The Walking Dead’s Negan (10th, with 32,780). The list makes Mother of Dragons Daenerys Targaryen (number three with 58,411) look almost tame. And it leaves Kim Possible (sixth, with 36,283) in a familiar situation—among bad guys.
DC and Marvel battle it out on the superheroes-and-villains list, with Harley Quinn cosplay in the top spot before we've even seen Lady Gaga portray her onscreen in Joker: Folie à Deux. The character doesn’t just lead the list: She presages DC’s dominance, with Batman in third place, the Joker fourth, Wonder Woman fifth, Poison Ivy seventh, and Catwoman eighth. Marvel is only one character behind, though, with Spider-Man in second place, Deadpool sixth, Captain America ninth, and Loki tenth.
