Meet 'bronies' -- grown men who are fans of My Little Pony

they're just dudes who like a cartoon, pretty wide spectrum of dudes who fit that criteria

^

weirdos/assholes of any variety are always more fun to talk about

lol @ 4 ass

To be a pro knee has many meanings I'm glad you asked a question. Have you ever kissed to do for the sunset on early morning I felt a beautiful rapture sweet pony kiss and nuzzle? You may be a bro nie if you can appreciate a warm caring eyes the gentlemen a swish swish tale of my little pony

Why would someone announce they are a brony? Whatever happened to dignity?

Grown male friend of mine who likes Friendship Is Magic will only look at Equestria Daily on his ipad on 3G, because he doesn't want it to show up on logs at work

― Devendra Bumhat (sic), Tuesday, 26 March 2013 00:46 (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

pat0?

Also re: the Bronycon rules; are there actually any weapons in the MLP cartoons? Or are these just C&P'd from standard cosplay meeting things.

Security guard photo is amazing.

http://www.xojane.com/entertainment/it-happened-to-me-im-more-into-my-little-pony-than-my-kids-are

Adult tabletop gamers/adults who watch MLP or Adventure Time or any other cartoon actually = literal worst people on earth

as far as i can work out (i took part in a skype interview with some bronies, but they were none of them male) the ones who get erotic/romantic feelings about the ponies are sort of like dudes who are into moé? this mix of identification/protectiveness/desire/etc/etc/etc.

"the ones" = the males you weren't talking to or the fems you were?

(did any identify as pegasister not brony?)

Also re: the Bronycon rules; are there actually any weapons in the MLP cartoons? Or are these just C&P'd from standard cosplay meeting things.

Uh, I don't think so? Not that I can remember, anyway. Any villains on the show usually get defeated by magic.

the men i wasn't talking to, as described by other bronies, seemed to be like dudes who like moé. None of the bronies I talked to were into sexy ponies, or at least didn't admit to it. irc a couple of them did the prim "well, i would call myself a my little pony fan" thing, but 'pegasister' was not a word that was used.

will I ruin my day if I google moé?

ehhh, it's a reasonably SFW g-image search

ah okay so the girls weren't self-id'ing w/ "brony" (?)

oh, no, sorry, they mostly self-ID'd as "brony" but the fact that it's got "bro" in the name meant caveats from all? So one said something almost exactly like "obviously i'm not what you think of when you say "brony" - i'm not a cis white straight dude who etc", but was still ok with "brony" as the fan term. And then there were one or two who said something along the lines of "well, i would call myself a my little pony fan, rather than 'brony', but i don't mind".

anybody more familiar with the phenomenon than i am wanna explain this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9l-jW0d_H8

He's really sweet and goofy, very earnest. We were talking about gender roles and what "girls/boys should like/wear/do" and he made his announcement. That was it. I didn't find it undignified at all tbh. I only wished anyone aside from me knew what he had said. He has a tshirt and everything. It hasn't come up again, though.

Okay, that makes sense. I thought it was some sort of obnoxious announcement like "OH HAI EVERYONE I AM A BRONY" but in context it doesn't sound bad.

http://i.imgur.com/7fOvxaJ.jpg

aaaaand

http://i.imgur.com/Gdc9rhS.jpg

O_o

happy Easter, everyone

http://i.imgur.com/WXbOMna.jpg

what i have to live with

High pringles quotient

once upon a time i thought i could just lol away at bronies, but these things that i can't comprehend make me feel bad.

yeah. adults I can lol at but i feel weird loling at teenagers. they're ~going through~ things

but also O_*

http://i.imgur.com/5SFds9A.jpg

oh man. theres a strange schadenfreude you get from most of this stuff but disappointed parent stories just make me sad

how the fuck did this happen

;_;

as far as the direct influence, it's totally a product of 'moe'-ism - a component - and really the idealized object - of the hikkikimori/NEET thing, catching on more and more with gamer-y types in America

brony culture came directly out of 4chan's basement-dweller scene, which was built on anime-fandom, and is still informed by a lot of its slang and themes. that post-anime worship of cute/comforting escapist objects

larger problem?... I guess, like with the Japanese origins of NEET-ism, it's obv about men who feel they can't compete, the loss of a sense of purpose/roles (which is probably why a lot of these guys are into the fedora look too, they're reaching for this lost sense of manhood even as they're departing from/avoiding it)

i'm sure we've discussed this before on ilx but i've always been confused by the 4chan tension between a) MLP, anime/manga, other sincere idealized worship of sundry pop culture and b) trolling, gore threads, unwelcoming subculture, anonymous-type shit. i guess they both come together in misogyny.

and in misdirected young male energy in general. get a bunch of young men who need to get out of the house together for an extended period of time, and there's going to be this spectrum of an idealized 'cute' idealism/escapism (of the love object unconsummated, or relationships at all for that matter) on one end, and total rage/oblivion on the other (no purpose, no career).

I just hope most of them grow out of it. I like to think that they just need to get out and socialize more, but that's where the consumerism/gaming/anime/Internet-addiction comes in, which I think is probably the real problem here

http://okcgoldmine.com/image/49040364353

they make these guys in factories

http://okcgoldmine.com/image/49040364353

that post-anime worship of cute/comforting escapist objects

i love adventure time (which makes me one of the worst people in the world, apparently), and this is undeniably a big part of the appeal: the retreat to something safe, comforting and arguably infantile. but that's not the whole of it. i mean, i don't watch bubble guppies or my little pony. i like cartoons, like drawing & design in general, but what i like most about adventure time is the freedom the show's producers clearly extend to the artists and writers who create it. it can go anywhere, do anything, and almost always looks great in the process. the individual sensibilities and styles of its various creators are clearly visible in the episodes they produce. it's subversive and wildly psychedelic without being jarringly cruel or cynical. i wish i were involved somehow. it's the only thing currently on television that strikes me as "real art", something in which i can discern vision, personality and focused craft.

this is tangential to the thread topic, but i hate to see my favorite show lumped in with all the gross, fedora-wearing brony crap.

I'll back you up on this one contendo.

adventure time isn't remotely MLP-ish tho, it is definitely actively pursuing an audience of both children and adults. it gets reviewed by the avclub every week. i don't think there's any inherent "shame" expected by watching it, as bronies seem to think of their obsession

yeah you know it's 2013 why would anybody hassle a grown man who likes my little pony unless they were drawing attention to themselves and defending themselves in advance?

i don't think bronies are real, i think they are just trolling. why would someone be obsessed with my little pony? it doesn't even make sense.

blah blah sports analogy

i can kind of see being into a nostalgic cartoon but these people seem to make it a central part of their identity in a way that is ridiculous/insane. like, i am a fan of bob dylan: own all the albums, see him live, have scores of song lyrics memorized, but if someone called me a bob-ie or dylanbro i would tell them to not call me that... this thing about identifying with cultural products you like is sort of weird to me.

probably the urge to define oneself via cultural consumption is the real issue here, and it is the main problem these bronies are suffering from. they need to know where they "fit in"; it's not enough to just be a person in the world. as far as those guys overlap with the fedora/PUA/MRA community, the pigeonholing thinking relates to the gross, darwinian language they use when describing status: alpha, beta, etc. if they just cut that shit out of their thinking, and considered their identity fundamentally in terms of themselves as individuals, they would be better off i think.

i think kurt vonnegut discussed this fallacy in cat's cradle; he called these false identites/communities "granfalloons."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granfalloon

The more pertinent question would be what conditions creates "bronies" in the first place.

Society fails young men by indoctrinating them into a patriarchal thought process that defines masculinity by sexual prowess and social facility. With the increasing atomization of human interaction under late capitalism (and especially the niche consumer culture of the internet), more and more young males are failing to live up to these patriarchal ideals. But instead of this creating an opportunity for young men to redefine gender roles for themselves, it leads them to embrace reactionary impulses born from self-hatred and sexual frustration, which is projected outward as misogyny and homophobia.

The solution is to seize the internet and put it under the control of those who understand how to properly utilize it.

Also Christmas should be banned.

banaka otm

yeah more or less what I was getting at, latebloomer, excluding of course that obligatory post-human totalitarian thing at the end