I've seen someone display as a cardboard box. You should know what that's a reference of.

It's far from dead, maybe anime will finally be accepted in the west...who am I kidding? That's a bad thing.

No cosplay is not dead. It is something that absolutely anybody can do if they please. Everyone likes to play dress up now and then and sometimes dressing up as a favorite character is a form of empowerment.
You speak of perfect airbrushed women in costumes. That just means they are good at what they do. I don't deny that there could possibly exist women who pretend to be "nerds" and dress up all slutty to gain attention; but who cares if they do, really? It doesn't bother me. If it's something you like doing then go for it.
However, sometimes I feel bad for the people who like to send Jessica Nigri gifts. Have you ever seen one of her Mail Monday videos? Hundreds of people sending stuff they spent their own money on to somebody whom they don't even know in real life, based most likely on the fact that they are physically attracted to her.
Well long story short, cosplay is not dead. If anything I think it is growing. I won't get mad at "perfect air brushed women" cosplaying, just like I don't think professional baseball players killed baseball. I can't hold being good-looking against them.

Judgein from my friends post on Facebook no. They're really hilarious they cosplay as the Teletubbies.

inb4 furries are cosplayers too.

No, sadly. My girlfriend is a cosplayer and loooves it. One of these days she's going to drag me to one of those damn cosplay conventions

It exists on more levels than it ever has in the past. I'm actually entertained by the way the trend has developed, having experienced it firsthand from the 90s in the US when it was almost exclusively an anime convention thing that people did for contests and masquerades. It wasn't even called cosplay at the time.

With the more or less mainstream adoption of geek culture, there's currently a large enough audience that there is money involved as an industry, and because of this, there are professional cosplayers as well as would be models who use this audience to build their following. This is just an inevitability of anything that becomes popular enough to capitalize upon.

But, this in no way detracts from the kids and overgrown fans who do it as a labor of love for their pop culture passions.

Cosplays are never going to die and that's a great thing!

God, I wish.

As great as that would be... no. Not at all. It's getting even bigger

Only in my dreams.