Dotte Com Discusses Mental Health as a Black Performer

If you don’t know her yet, Dotte Com is a local queen who has performed all over the city since 2017. For years she has dazzled crowds with her performances, which showcase a fusion of her drag and cosplay influences. She is also the organizer behind NeonBlk, a monthly all-Black drag show at Mary’s. Initially, Dotte found her start in cosplay scenes where, due to the fear of backlash, she would perform only as characters with a similar complexion to hers. Her worry was not an unfounded one. While the cosplay scene has worked to become more inclusive over time, there still exists a vocal minority of people who maintain hostility toward POC performers ‘dressing outside of their race’. Dotte thought it best to restrict her pool of potential cosplays to characters with the same complexion. “A lot of cosplayers, when I first started, really decreed accuracy, so you want to look like the character, and I included the skin tone,” Dotte told Georgia Voice. “So, I kind of boxed myself in with a list of characters I wanted to do. Like, okay, this character’s Black, so I’ll do this character, and this character’s Black, and this character’s Black, but...