Bronies

[Her]

I'm definitely opening Pandora's Box here, but I think there is a valid discussion that can be had on the subject.
That being said, I'm going to impose a few limits:

• I'm not sure if there are any self-described bronies on this site, but just in case, no references to those members are allowed. However, references to the brony community outside of PC are valid.
• Although I have some harsh opinions of my own, posts that are just blatant insults with no contributing content are invalid and will be deleted.
• I would appreciate a higher level of discourse than what normally comes up when this is a topic.

Anyway, let's smash open Pandora's Box, shall we?
The brony community is one that is subjected to much parody and criticism due to the, well, odd nature of it. There's no getting around that, regardless of what type of brony the individual may be, it is odd. As such, it's become particularly notorious on the internet, and attention to it is growing in 'the real world'. I don't think I really need to go into what being a brony details, given the aforementioned level of notoriety this particular community has on the internet, lol. So, onto the questions.

To what extent is the brony community alright? At what point does it cross over from an odd fascination to something darker?
How do you feel about the often-quoted rationalisation for grown men watching a show meant for little girls: that it teaches them morality, friendship, etc?
Is it hypocritical for someone to judge bronies if they enjoy another animated kids show?

You're welcome to bring up your own subjects within the topic, but nothing too overt/graphic. Be sure to pay close attention to the limits I set.

 

[Flushed]

flight used the word I was thinking of in regards to this topic: "healthy". I guess I'm not too familiar with the community and how "dark" it supposedly gets, but with any hobby, or fascination, there's a fine line between rational interest and unhealthy obsession. Sort of a textbook answer, but if it's not hurting anyone, who cares? As far as I know, again, I'm not an expert on bronies, but they seem to keep their supposed "antics" to themselves. I was always under the impression that it was sort of a bandwagon thing, but I guess not.

Hopefully this isn't an inappropriate comparison, but bronies seem comparable to hardcore anime fans. They sorta have the same stigma associated with them. But it seems like a harmless interest, that a majority of the time doesn't manifest into something darker, unless it hits obsession, but that goes for anything, not just MLP.

 

[Bounsweet]

This is one of those cases where I stand by the whole "you do you and I'll do me" viewpoint. My boyfriend's best friend is a brony, and one of my friends from college is a brony, and they're two of the chillest people I've met. I didn't even know my friend from college was a brony until I brought up MLP in passing (this was back in like 2011 when it started becoming known) and he mentioned being a fan. We even watched a couple eps on my laptop since I was somewhat into it during the first season, it was totally whatever lol.

I really like Flushed's comparison to otaku. It's like literally any other interest - as long as its a healthy interest then it doesn't mean jack. There's always "those fans" that ruin it for everyone. That's a given with anything that has a fanbase.

 

[Nolafus]

If people like a show, that's completely fine, I'm not going to judge them for it. To me, it's just another fanbase, albeit, one that seems to be a little more outspoken than others.

It seems that if you insult MLP on any site, you'll receive TONS of hate mail back at you, although I don't think they're to blame for that. Since the show is aimed at kids, and uses bright colors and quirky dialogue, most people would just write it off as a show meant for little girls, and call it good. I watched an episode, didn't get it, and moved on. However, given the internet's toxicity at times, people started to call the bronies out, and made fun of them. This has been going on for years, and after all that time under the spotlight, I think any fandom would turn toxic to outsiders like that. They're so used to defending their show, that any little comment against it can be taken as an all out attack. So, I don't think it's their fault why their fandom can seem so volatile towards others.

There's only two things I have against bronies in general, and even these are just against the hardcore fans. One trend that I see is that some of the older men in the fandom seem to like wearing trench coats, trilbies, and suits, as well as refer to themselves as gentlemen. I've only seen a few people like this outside of the internet (although pictures are everywhere), and it seems like they have a bit of arrogance (is that the right word?). It's kind of hard to describe, but by chatting with a couple of them while making their coffee, one of the first things they asked me was if I watched the show, and then they seemed to talk down to me after I told them I didn't. As if they were the only ones that are "mature" enough to realize that it's a show that can be enjoyed by everyone. Of course, that's only a minority, and I couldn't care less if you do watch the show.

The only other qualm I have is the small section of the fandom that makes it unsafe for little girls to search fanart of their favorite show, but those people are a part of every fandom. *shudders*

 

[gimmepie]

Just echoing the other people really. I don't care what you enjoy watching and I don't think other people should either so long as you aren't hurting yourself or anybody else. Do I have any interest in MLP? I think some of the art is cute I guess but I have no interest in the series and I do not think I ever will. It just doesn't appeal to me.

I also second Nolafus' second point. If you must contribute to Rule 34, make sure the little kiddies can't get at it easily.

 

[Spinor]

Though I wouldn't call myself a Brony nowadays, I just like watching the show because it can be engaging or interesting.

And frankly, now that I've started watching anime, My Little Freaking Pony just isn't up there with the list of odd series a Grown Old Man can watch. I'd rather admit to that than watch an episode of, say, Kill la Kill with a girl I just met. Also, I bet you that the very first creators and game designers were not expecting a complex fanbase around their collecting-battle game aimed at young boys, a fanbase might I point out, that's also guilty of streams, fanfiction, and r34.

I'd argue that the Pokemon and Brony fanbase are in fact more isomorphic than most people realize, but it's Bronies that get the publicity because, well anyone can like "boy" things but hell just screw me if I like a "girl" thing, right?

 

[Centipede Chan]

With anything, just don't take it too far like with porn and all that nasty crap. Same goes with fandoms like Homestuck and Hetalia, and Sonic, and so on.

 

[starseed galaxy auticorn]

Mind you, not ALL Bronies are bad. I do agree some go over the edge with their obsession towards the show. I mean I'll admit, I adore it... but I don't consider myself as a brony or pegasister because I'm not really that into the series. I think in every fandom, you're always going to find the ones that get too carried away with the fact they are way too deep in the show.

Just look at the visual kei fandom. It's rare to find people who see the j-rockers of this fandom as humans and not gods or idols. I've met a few on a forum I go on, but other than that... they aren't very easy to come by. Every fandom I can think of always has the nutcases in my opinion.

The brony fandom is a perfect example of this. I'm a forum for MLP, and there are very many of them who are actually very cool people. Not all of them are the extreme type of bronies who are like "omigawd i want to marry rainbow dash she's so hot". I do admit to find it rather disturbing to hear them say such things. I mean, I guess it's no different than furry fandom either. This can also be a perfect example of the really 'fucked up' fans as well.

*sigh* I'll be glad when this day is fucking over and PC gets back to normal. This prank is stupid, and it's making it so hard to take shit seriously right now. (Just so you know this text is supposed to be crossed out. >____>)

 

[Megan]

A couple years ago, when the whole MLP thing started, there were a couple people who where trying to talk me into it. As a result, I've watched like the whole first season and I think a little bit of the second as well, but ultimately, even though, I kinda enjoyed watching it, I never got hooked on the series. It's not really my cup of tea, but I can clearly see why people would be into it.

With MLP it's pretty much like every other series: there's normal people and there's not so normal people. I've yet to find someone who belongs to the not so normal group, though. Actually all I've heard about them was just some articles about them or that one pictures that randomly pops up on DA every now and then, so I kinda feel like people like to exaggerate a little bit. In the end, the Internet is all about absurdity; as soon as something is deemed absurd by a small group, the whole internet knows about it.

*sigh* I'll be glad when this day is fucking over and PC gets back to normal. This prank is stupid, and it's making it so hard to take shit seriously right now. (Just so you know this text is supposed to be crossed out. >____>)

You can turn it off in your options menu.

 

[Melody]

As a brony myself I can only say that yes; the fandom itself does indeed have it's darker parts. But I don't feel any shame for things that I don't generally partake of, whether that's mature content, extreme acts of fandom or general obsession over the show. I just love the show which is something I find; cute, witty, clever, fun, innocent and generally very entertaining; on the par with the old classics like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, or even the earliest of Disney animations penned by Walt Disney himself.

I do however freely admit that during hiatus seasons, these are the long times between season releases, the fandom gets a little strange...during these times I step back from the fandom normally.

 

[Stroker Ace]

[Ramble Warning]

I used to be in the brony fandom, but I wound up leaving it due to many reasons on which I will elaborate on in a bit.

However, to answer questions about why so many people enjoy the show is because plainly and simply- the first season was really freaking good. Under the supervision of Lauren Faust, widely regarded as one of the best animators of the century, she aimed to make the show watchable by everybody. However, she wound up drawing a bigger crowd than expected- me included (up to a point), many including fans of Japanese anime (specified Japanese since there is such thing as non-Japanese anime, such as RWBY). In short, it basically went viral like how that video of some red haired British dude dancing with the current President to a catchy pop song.

With so many fans of the show obviously resulted in tumblr blogs and Deviantart pages dedicated to the show. People posted drawings, 3D animations, a pretty bizarre yet impressive full-length fan episode, and music. However, right around here is where I began to see just why Bronies get so much hate. Much like the furry fandom, there is a sizable portion of people interested in... indecency with animals. Critics tend to focus on this point, a point I figured was just a "vocal minority" rather than a representation of the fandom as a whole. So-called "cloppers" (the implications can speak for themselves) began raving madly over the dreaded Rule 34 that inevitably rose from the depths of imageboards.

Now, I know that people sometimes have crushes on fictional characters (I'm man enough to admit I do at times, too!), but remember- this is a kid's show. There's the obvious case of crap getting past the Google search radar, but here's an issue that made me re-evaluate my stance in the fandom, the case of underage rule 34. I had a friend who was also interested in the show just like me. However, he was MUCH more interested than I, and became increasingly explicit about his feelings about the Cutie Mark Crusaders, a couple of fillies who were close friends. It got to the point where he sent me images of CMC rule 34, to which I was horrified to find out even existed in the first place. For a long time, I always thought the CMC were the "untouchable" characters in which nobody would care to make pornography out of. Ohhhh boy was I wrong. Before, I just went along with it, slowly nodding and saying "uh huh," but now that he sent porn of underage characters, I go "yeah, what the fuck?" I've since made it clear that I no longer wish to be associated with him, but it still bothers the hell out of me. I mean, it's borderline pedophilia, which to me, is a gigantic no-no for reasons which are not relevant to the conversation at hand. He was basically the spark in the decline in my interest in the show.

He was not the only problem I had with the fandom- it was many of the people involved that began to piss me off. For example, I'll start with some of the members on a forum I was once on for the fandom. A few of them I met were pretty snotty, typical elitists, constantly belittling other members about their OCs, art, fanfic, etc, as well as refusing to communicate with anyone that wasn't a douchey, elite member or an admins It became pretty blatant that there was favoritism going on. In other words, you had to be an utter asshole, artist, or writer to even be treated properly by the mods. The closed-minded, bigoted (non-Christians can be bigots too, you know) members of the fandom definitely did not help me stay interested in the show.

I woulda just ignored the quite large idiotic part of the fandom if the show didn't jump the shark. The original episodes under discretion from Lauren Faust had a completely different feel that was lost after Season 2. Season 3 in my opinion was pure crap, and felt completely rushed so they could start selling Princess Twilight and Equestria Girls toys as soon as possible. Season 4 was a slight improvement, but the episodes were not nearly as memorable as Faust's (Season 3, I think, was when Faust stepped down). Needless to say, to me, the show jumped (or slowly rode up and over the back and fin of) the (metaphorical) shark, and no longer was interesting to me.

I will say that I am very glad that I stopped caring about ponies, and do not intend to watch Season 5, for I think it's best that I stay the position I'm in right now. Of course, being that I work at a Toys R Us, I have to see ponies every frickin' day. It's still not enough to bring me back, considering all the stuff the fandom is up to nowadays (going apeshit over a design change of a boring background character, for example).

To wrap up all my rambling, I'll paraphrase one of my co-workers: "never trust a magical horse with a tattoo on its ass". The brony fandom just wasn't for me, and it unfortunately took me 2 years to figure that out.

 

[JJ Styles]

Though I wouldn't call myself a Brony nowadays, I just like watching the show because it can be engaging or interesting.

+1.

When i read about MLP Gen 4, Lauren Faust was on the label. Knowing that Lauren Faust was responsible for a lot of great cartoons that I still connect with, I knew that even with or without references from others that I should took a peak at MLP. I really enjoyed it to the point where i even had a couple of friends got hooked into it because at that time, I was masquerading about the power of Friendship when we were playing our usual League of Legends games as a 5man Team. Hell, our battlecry was "FRIENDSHIP!" and "CELESTIAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!"

So about the brony fandom and the brony-ness thing. I think most of the stuff to say have been said. There are some fans that were just not right. CMC getting their own R34 fixes? Really now? Then there's the Clopfics. I seriously thought that ill of such. I didn't think that people would try tapping dat Pony ass but no, of course, this is the 20th something century, no one's untouchable these days. Not even Applebloom... :( (Thus I've cursed myself to see more Pokephilia reaching into the likes of Dedenne. That's as sick as I could imagine happening)

Regarding the quality of the show for the past few seasons, I would agree. The show has lost a lot of the Magic that made it magical when Lauren spearheaded it. I think enough is enough to say that well, the show was great, then it slowly became less interesting. Season 2 was alright though. But S3 was just pure rubbish with no excuse whatsoever to just have 13 episodes. I thought that S4 was a little overdone with the finale. I mean really, PONYBALL Z!? then again, everyone can always put DRAGONBALL Z into anything and try making sense out of it.

Someone accused me of being a brony because i watched the show and enjoyed it to the point where I was spreading it like wildfire. Well, the thing is that I only spread it to my friends and I wasn't really preaching on how MLP is Love, MLP is Life. I just clearly enjoyed the show as an experience i wouldn't forget and I would even let my future children watch this along with me as well. I'm sure that I'll be raising friendly and productive children in the future.

I dont like the Brony label on me, thank you. All i can say is that while I enjoyed the show, I won't go as far as dressing up as them or their human counterparts. Oh dear god. Equestria Girls.

 

[Melody]

I keep seeing mentions of R34/"Clop" of innocent characters like the CMC; and I find that there's a problem with holding that up as an issue with the brony fandom. First and foremost is the lack of understanding of RULE 34. Second is the fact that RULE 34 is actually a phenomenon external to the brony fandom; as are the furry aspects of the fandom.

It's myopic and oversimplification to an insulting level to imply that because that strange people exist within the fandom that something is inherently wrong with it. For the most part; the fandom has a healthy taboo about the fillies, and 99.99% of bronies are not furries. We just so happen to have a healthier portion or two more of strange people; and because the fandom is very much driven by love and acceptance; we don't judge or spurn people for being odd. Neither should you.

There will always be divas and toxic communities online; one should not let those experiences color their perceptions either.

 

[JJ Styles]

We got pokeporn on the poke-fandom and I'm not cringing at it. I even enjoy it

Okay i think i misposted my last statment. The brony fandom and the MLP Fans in general are basically one of the better online communities that I would do my best to interact with because of the whole thing about love, acceptance, and FRIENDSHIP, FRIENDSHIP, AGAIN? (Shao Kahn) which is an ongoing mindset to the fanbase. What i do want to understand is why would people want to hate on such a fanbase that would emphasize what i've mentioned? Oh because Love, acceptance, and friendship is so shit and unrealistic? What kind of reality did those kinds of people grew up from? Gansta life? Mafia Lyfe? Swaglife? THUGLIFE? Or because people love bashing people who genuinely love the show?

The best thing i could say to the anti brony community is to just well, accept the fact that they are here to stay whether you hate or not. Besides, the show has lost a lot of its luster anyway so you can't say shit about it anymore, but as MLP fans would still stand by, no matter how shitty the show is becoming, there's always hope.

 

[Universe]

It's myopic and oversimplification to an insulting level to imply that because that strange people exist within the fandom that something is inherently wrong with it. For the most part; the fandom has a healthy taboo about the fillies, and 99.99% of bronies are not furries. We just so happen to have a healthier portion or two more of strange people; and because the fandom is very much driven by love and acceptance; we don't judge or spurn people for being odd. Neither should you.

There will always be divas and toxic communities online; one should not let those experiences color their perceptions either.

I agree with most of your points, but I wish to present another one in argument if that's okay.

You said that 99.99% of bronies are not furries, but I want to bring to question something I've noticed in particular about the MLP fandom: The copious amounts of explicit art, in all of it's forms. It got to the point once that children (and parents) ended up running into MLP porn even with the filter on Google turned on.

Then there was the case of "Molestia" on Tumblr-- it's insane popularity, how it became known to children (as well as parents), and the outburst that occurred in the brony community after it was deleted. I saw posts about that incident for months...

I want to ask if you're sure 99.99% of bronies are not furries, that's all. It seems like it might be an exaggerated percentage, all things considered... what do you think?

 

[Psychic]

To what extent is the brony community alright? At what point does it cross over from an odd fascination to something darker?
The same point as in any other fandom.

I don't think all MLP fans are inherently bad/crazy/whatever. To me, MLP is like any other fandom, and as with every fandom, you always get people who take it to extremes. It so happens that the intense MLP fans tend to be a lot more visible than intense fans of other fandoms, but are there necessarily more of them? That's hard to say exactly.

As others have pointed out, there are certainly plenty of intense Pokemon fans, be they metagame players, genwunners, merch collectors, shippers, furries or fans/creators of Poke-porn. But despite them, the Pokemon fan community is considered fairly tame.

Bronies don't have a great reputation, but maybe we should ask why. That they feel they need a special name to differentiate themselves from other fans likely has some affect (I as a female Pokemon fan in my 20's don't identify differently from a fan who falls under Pokemon's target audience), plus the amount of press attention hasn't helped, but it's hard to say what exactly it is about that part of the fandom that stands out from others. Either way, it doesn't really bother me - so long as you don't bother other fans, do you.

~Psychic

 

[Melody]

I agree with most of your points, but I wish to present another one in argument if that's okay.

You said that 99.99% of bronies are not furries, but I want to bring to question something I've noticed in particular about the MLP fandom: The copious amounts of explicit art, in all of it's forms. It got to the point once that children (and parents) ended up running into MLP porn even with the filter on Google turned on.

Then there was the case of "Molestia" on Tumblr-- it's insane popularity, how it became known to children (as well as parents), and the outburst that occurred in the brony community after it was deleted. I saw posts about that incident for months...

I want to ask if you're sure 99.99% of bronies are not furries, that's all. It seems like it might be an exaggerated percentage, all things considered... what do you think?

Percentage is not exact; those strange phenomena are a function of R34 gone wild. The fact is that a large percentage of such art is satirical in nature; a satire of not only the show, but the fandom as well...it's a function of the 4chan community as well.

All of that said; I don't think you can hold any one incident up and call that an indicator. There have been controversies within the fandom; but they as a rule do not define it.

 

[Twilight-kun]

What makes you think I'm a brony?

...

Oh, right...

-

Honestly, I don't care what people think of me for liking the show

I'm not trying to force my ideas on everyone else

No matter the fandom, there's always going to be people who hate it

I have a blazing hatred for the Homestuck series, but I don't go around lashing out at people that enjoy it
If I don't like something, I ignore it


Shocking, I know~

-

As for Bronies/Furries, I know people who had realistic horse fursonas and most are not amused when Bronies come around and think that just because they have a horse character means they're a brony

There's long debates over the differences between horses and ponies

 

[Gardevoir the Dragon Slayer]

There's long debates over the differences between horses and ponies

A Pony is horse under 14.2 hands =p

Ive kinda started watching My Little Pony Friendship is magic and I love it, its an amazing fun show, don't know if I would call myself a bronie though as am not into fanart, fanfics etc.

 

[SiriusAlpha]

I checked and I technically can count as a brony and a furry but I'm not going with either of those judging from the amount of crap they have to tolerate. I'm more obsessive over other stuff, like shipping or animes or series that I like. And there's a bunch of similarity between the two fanbases (if the latter counts as a fanbase, I don't even know what it's specifically about) but because the internet labeled them both together they hate each other.