We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Christy Bennett a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Christy, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Looking back at the decisions you made early in your career, particularly whether to join a firm or start your own, do you feel you made the right choice for that stage of your career?

I am currently working on starting my own brand not just about cosplay, but it involves my weight loss journey too. I titled it Punk It Up because the cyberpunk genre really influenced me, especially when it involves style over substance. I have always been overweight since I was a child, and growing up, I was always bullied for it which developed into eating disorders overtime. For years, I have struggled with those eating disorders until more recent where I have overcame them, especially when in preparation of weight loss surgery which it changed my life. That was the turning point where I decided that I wanted to create my own brand to help those people out there who have been in my shoes, especially in the cosplay community.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

For those who don’t know me, my name is Christy Bennett. I am also known as V the Gonk Merc online. I am a cosplayer, writer, and content creator. I mainly known for cosplaying as V from the video game, Cyberpunk 2077, but since I have been documenting my weight loss on social media, I have been branching out more on my cosplay. My cosplay brand I am working on involves my weight loss journey in cosplay. What separates me from all the other cosplay brands is the fact that most of the other cosplay brands mainly promote their face and body only in cosplay whereas with me, I promote my transformation in cosplay in weight loss. For example, I do side by side photos of what I looked like before in cosplay and then what I look like after losing the weight. I am determined to help those out there physically and mentally, especially mentally because mental health is very important to overall wellbeing.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

One of my instagram videos went viral, and it was when I was starting out on my weight loss journey in the world of cosplay. However, a lot of the comments were full of hate and insults. It was not pretty. A lot of people were mocking me for my weight. However, it didn’t stop me or tear me down where I just soldiered on and continued to prove the haters wrong.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

What helped me was to not give up and continue doing what I love and keep falling forward and not look back. It’s a hard road, but we all got to start somewhere.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://drcdomain.wixsite.com/crazydrproductions
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vthegonkmerc
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/christy.bennett.71404
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-bennett-1714351a4

Image Credits

Photo credits: @the.kith (Instagram)
@fr_socalnerd (instagram)
And Myself