By David Futrelle
Prepare to have your whole world rocked by this video.
For some reason the video won’t embed, but here’s a screenshot that I hope — I pray! — will inspire you to click.
Ok, it’s possible I might have oversold that a little bit.
Let’s see if this video by the same dude about Juggalos and why they’re not as cool as bronies is any better.
Hmm, not really.
Sorry for wasting your time.
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I am not going to click on the videos and screw up my YouTube algorithms… Does he at least appear to be the right age to be dating teenagers?
It’s all text so you can’t really tell his age, but man does he sounds like a teenager.
David…have you seen this little black-pilled fascist?
“Women Are Cool And Should Vote”
Didn’t watch the video but this why even though I enjoy watching the show and reading the comics I don’t call myself a Brony
This might be off-topic, but does anyone else remember seeing this one old episode of My Little Ponies from the 80’s where they fought a bunch of gargoyles and monsters that looked like something straight of a heavy metal album cover and wondering if it was all a feverdream by your childhood imagination due to how jarring the combo was until finding it again on the internet years later?
Was anyone else weirded out at seeing this?
My boyfriend is an ex brony but I was an MLP fan too so I don’t judge. Based on his friends from the community I believe there are only 3 paths for bronies post MLP.
1. Animator/illustrator. My boyfriend and several other dude friends started drawing because of MLP when they were in highschool which is like Cool! Finding the arts! Positive!
2. Trans. Several of my boyfriend’s online pony friends have since transitioned into women which is great for them and I think for a large portion of the fan base it was something that brought them closer to this realization.
3. Far-Right. I think the show also attracted contrarian dudes who just like to argue with people (ItS nOT jUSt for GiRLs iT HaZ GoOOD Pl0Tz) and then got sucked into the far right. My boyfriend has had to distance himself from some old friends and it really blows.
Dear Princess Celestia,
Today I learned that some men will seize on any flimsy excuse to explain to themselves why it’s women’s fault. Okay, I didn’t just learn that today, but it’s a lesson I wish could stop being reinforced. If there is a spell for that, I wish you’d teach it to me, because the power of friendship is so much better than the power of making other people afraid of you. The power of friendship should always be used for good and not evil.
Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle
@hewwo
4. Move on to She-Ra
(which is what I did because I don’t have the talent to draw, the urge to transition or the idiocy to become alt-right ;P )
Someone needs to summon old commentator Social Justice Brony (not his full name, I believe) and have him comment on the only three paths for male fans thing. Unless he did go down path #3 there in the end…. D:
For those who don’t wanna click the link, here’s some added context
https://imgur.com/YvCbeHL
@Redsilkphoenix
As you wish.
@Scanisaurus
That was the very first animated My Little Pony and it was my introduction to the toy as a whole as a child and why I took interest in Friendship is Magic the moment I heard of it. “There’s a new MLP animation? I’ve got to see this!”
@hewwo
I wonder about that too since I have guy friends who are very into it, one even finding fame on YouTube for reacting to episodes. None of them show any desire to transition (which showed me the clear difference between dysphoria and the occasional fantasy of becoming a woman), but they both used to write a lot and I’ve been encouraging them to become professional writers, so hopefully they’ll take the arts path. I worry the YouTube reactor has alt-right fans but he doesn’t show signs of it (he once made a triggered joke but I talked to him and he promised never to make another).
Hey. Anything that says MRA guys should AVOID underage girls is okay by me. We should start teaching our daughters to deride cronies just so pedophiles are “turned off” by them. Wait. Are we relieved there’s a glitch in a sick system and ready to teach our girls how not to be raped in yet ANOTHER category? What year even IS this? Gross.
@hewwo, TheKND
Re: #1 I’m a former research scientist current janitor, #2 I’m cis, #3 I actively socially strategize against the alt-right and I’m training myself to confront them more effectively on the internet. #4 my first fandom has been my only fandom. My experience of the Brony fandom leaves me disappointed despite a lot of good memories.
Redsilkphoenix
I’m hunting #3 in the wild. It’s like exposure therapy right now.
Leave it to the Manosphere to take a feminist show and somehow spin it to promote their narrative. It never fucking stops. Personally, the vast majority of fans I’ve encountered identify as progressive, but the conservative and libertarian section is extremely vocal.
I’ve always thought the Brony stereotype was a result of toxic masculinity and over-compensation.
So, you have this show for little girls. It’s got lots of traditionally feminine elements to it (though it’s also got a strong feminist message at its core). It’s fairly well-written for a kids’ show.
Dudes go to watch it, maybe ironically at first, and they find they like it. “Holy shit, I’m enjoying myself.” For well-adjusted dudes, that’s not a problem, anymore than enjoying Adventure Time is a problem. It’s a fun cartoon you can get into.
But for dudes more immersed in toxic masculine culture, there’s a problem. It’s feminine, and guys aren’t supposed to like feminine things. They become worried that it makes them seem like less of a man.
They’re also steeped in nerd culture, which encourages people to identify themselves strongly with the media they consume. Whovians, Trekkies, etc. When it comes to nerd media, you are what you eat.
So they want to define themselves as MLP fans, but they don’t want to be girly. Insert Brony. This starts as an identifier just saying “Hey, I’m a dude, but I like MLP too.” Fairly harmless. But the longer it goes on, and the deeper the dudebros get into it, the more they feel the need to assert their masculinity.
It’s like that old idea that homophobes are secretly gay? Not really true, but I think that most of them are afraid that they might be gay, or might be seen as gay. Similarly, these dudes got so het up about being masculine because they were afraid they might not be.
One of the easiest ways to assert themselves as he-men was to push down women. This led them to (or reaffirmed their commitment to) anti-feminism. Another was to try to re-contextualize MLP as for them, for dudes, and not for the intended audience, little girls. Indeed, you saw a lot of griping from bronies that the show as catering way too much to girls, and not enough to them, the “real” fans.
I think the porn was part of it, honestly. I mean, some of them would probably have ended up furries no matter what, but some of them I think just couldn’t stand relating to female characters unless they were sexualized in some way. Like, if you identify with Rainbow Dash, and you don’t wanna fuck her, what it that makes you girly? What if you’re somehow not a real man?
And again, if you weren’t super insecure and a shithead, none of this was necessary. If you don’t hate women and are secure in your masculinity, then there’s no problem with watching a girls’ cartoon. No need to compensate for it, no need to push someone else down to make yourself feel strong. No need to sexualize cartoon horses in order to avoid dealing with your gender issues.
But it was the toxic ones who became the core of the brony communities, and that was what most people ended up seeing.
I’m a big MLP fan, have been since the gap between season 1 and 2, but… Yeah, a certain portion of this fandom is very toxic.
I do hate the way it reflects on the majority but that goes for pretty much any fandom, people remember the bad ones.
@Fujimoto
I’m glad I’m not the only one remembering that episode!
@Jack
Exactly, more often than not, much of the porn and attempts to sexualize female characters aren’t actually about making them titillating, it’s just their way of saying “Back off girls, this isn’t for you!” without having to actually say it out loud and openly reveal their sexism.
It’s similar to how way too many fantasy stories either include bikini armor or tons of sexual violence against female characters that servers zero purpouse to the plot and makes no sense in the world-building, it’s just there to make a point that it’s something made by and for dudes, and when MLP doesn’t include those things that drive girls away, creeps do their best to spam a bunch of creepy fanart of it hoping to drive the girls away.
@ Scanisaurus:
If this is true, the implications are really sick.
Remember some of David’s articles from a few years back, when manospherians were complaining that “How dare they put female heroes into Star Wars/Mad Max/Ghostbusters/Doctor Who?” This sounds like the same thing, only worse. Bad enough that the dudebros whined about much-needed improvements to franchises that were traditionally male-oriented. Now they want to take over a franchise that has always been for girls and kick the original fans out. Like their hero Trump, they want to turn both reality and pop culture into giant playgrounds for fascist white guys at everyone else’s expense. Also like Trump, they’re destined to fail in the end, but they’ll do a lot of damage along the way.
To be fair, this is always what men have done. See beer brewing, programming, obstetrics, etc.
@Jack, Scanisaurus; about the porn:
I’ll readily admit that your hypotheses are probably true for part of it, but it doesn’t explain, for example, the gay porn. I’ve seen a bunch of gay/bi artists in the fandom, and they largely just seem to be having fun drawing their stuff, rather than having any kind of reactionary motivation.
I guess it’s a complicated, mixed bag. Some of it really could be an attempt at forcing out “undesirables”, while some of it is probably just plain old xenophilia. I mean, humans can get attracted to some unexpected stuff in general.
@Brony, Social Justice Cenobite,
It is good to see you around again, even if for one post. I’ve missed reading your comments here, and don’t go on the Discord anywhere as near as often as I should/could due to work. Glad to see you haven’t quit this blog, even though we’ve had a few trolls recently that you could’ve sharpened your claws on.
@the current ‘creeps appropriating girl media’ discussion:
an article I read some years ago made the point that this kind of invasion is so common in the magical girl genre of anime/manga stories that the creators of such works include things like upskirt shots and boobshots to appeal to those guys. Said article was also implying (at least to me) that the creators of MLP not only should have known that there’d be guy fans watching, but should have included similar material for them to fap to. Though how exactly the creators (IF they were so minded) were supposed to get that kind of stuff past the notoriously strict American censors I have no idea.
And as to the toxic effects of the brony brats on the fandom, remember that one background pony, the gray one with the yellow mane and the googly eyes? The one who was originally named Ditzy Doo until the creators decided to give her the fandom-created name Derpy Hooves instead? Part of the fallout from that toxic firestorm was Corporate deciding that any and all merchandise/tie-ins she appeared in, she would always go unnamed. A MLP comic she cameoed in, she was ‘the pony whose name I don’t know who is now a prisoner of the Big Bad!’. A vinyl figurine of her that came out a couple of years ago only had her headshot, a heart, and a muffin where her name should have been (“Pony Loves Muffins! ?” as a name?!? >.< )
And all because the brony brats pitched a massive hissy fit over another fan objecting to the word ‘derpy’, the gray pony is now officially the pony that can never be named ever, lest she call down another shitstorm down onto corporate’s head.
Poor pony deserved a better ooc fate than that.
In light of this episode, it’s interesting that the current MLP episode “Sweet and Smoky” is about a character who has been depicted as an obnoxious juvenile delinquent basically overcoming his toxic masculinity.
@Redsilkphoenix: According to this TV Tropes page, Derpy Hooves has officially been renamed Muffins. She’ll always be “Derpy” to the fans, though.
You’ve just described one of the main reasons I don’t watch anime, because I just can’t stand that sort of stuff and I find it absolutely disgusting that people force it into what’s supposed to be kid’s shows. I’m just sick of straight-dude porn being forced into stuff that aren’t supposed to be porn, and we all know that if the same dudes advocating for that kind of stuff were subjected to the same ubiquitous sexualization of male characters, there’d be riots in the streets.
I came to think about the controversy on the She-Ra reboot, and how it in many ways are similar to the more toxic elements of brony culture in how a group of men demand that a show meant for young girls should cater to them and their fantasies. I think this video made a pretty good analysis on that, but the video also presents a very good reason for why we can’t just dismiss this kind of stuff as “it’s just a kid’s show” or “It’s just fiction, why do you care?“. Because fiction shapes our world-view and the thought of a franchise with female characters that doesn’t cater to them or teach young girls to cater to them scares these types.
@Personalpest,
I’m glad that they’re doing something to get her a proper name. Though as an official companion to Doctor Whooves, she might need a bit fancier name than Muffins to fit in with the other companions (Muffin Song? Muffin Top?) Then again, the name still fits the show naming conventions, so….
@Scanisaurus,
I’ll have to look at that video when I’m not sitting in a noisy place and can watch it properly. But yeah, if some of these guys want wank material in shows aimed at little girls, they can write their own fanfics and use that instead. Leave those who don’t want that stuff in their official media alone.