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

Bronies are associated with libertarianism?

i'm all for ppl letting their freak flag fly but gleeful co-opting of something meant for girls is tired patriarchal bullshit

i need to think this thru but i feel like my contempt for bronies is indistinguishable from my feminism

there is so much about the flavor of bronyism I like to mock that reminds me of the "gutterpunk" kids in Harvard Square who would lounge around in nearly-identical ripped denim/leather and clothespin earrings and nearly-identical mowhawks in similar shades of blue, green and pink who would beg for change during the day and sneer at all of the conformists around them, completely oblivious to the fact that they were creating their own conformity

i don't think that says very much about yr feminism xp

it's not my experience that entertainment for females, esp for young girls, is regularly 'co-opted' by men - but rather stigmatized + discounted

ok then its fresh and new patriarchal bullshit

I pretty much agree with gr8080 with an important caveat:

i'm all for ppl letting their freak flag fly but gleeful co-opting of something meant for girls so that you can fuck it is tired patriarchal bullshit

the world needs fewer self-disappearing unproductive men. escape into a subculture built around a hasbro product doesn't read to me as difference or multiplicity of desire or subversion of established roles, it reads like plain cowardice.

i did read a defense of the show once (linked here maybe?) along the line that the show is an extended demonstration of/meditation on the value of friendship, which is always an undervalued and under-explained quality. and just as hard as romance, in a way, and just as important to life, especially to kids obviously

but discussion tends to devolve down to guys who what to fuck something so

"who what to fuck something so" = the hot new deathgrips LP

brave productive men spending their time on ilx

feel like there could be some productive bronies out there. Some of these dudes might just be Drew Struzan types.

we're all bringing content here soref, no need to feel implicated

sorry, that was obnoxious of me, I am by pretty much any metric a self-disappearing unproductive man, and my ego was a little wounded.

I don't want to have sex with cartoon ponies though, so I guess it could be worse.

i need to think this thru but i feel like my contempt for bronies is indistinguishable from my feminism

― goole, Thursday, February 13, 2014 2:06 PM (42 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

so do all bronies want to fuck the ponies? or is that just a small contingent of mostly older dudes who are giving the rest of them a bad name? does *anyone* want to fuck the ponies or is this just a meme? what information is there on the politics of bronies as a group? is it fair to lump them in with the reddit atheist/libertarian/fedora/mountain dew contingent? are questions of fairness beside the point because the idea of bronies is mostly just a joke and they don't really exist as a meaningful category?

leave no stone unturned, treeship

i think we need to establish who and what we are in fact talking about and what the stakes are before we start calling antipathy toward bronies a feminist stance. as far as i can tell they exist mostly as an amalgamation of a bunch of things people don't like about people who are perceived to spend time in certain corners of the internet. so yeah, like contenderizer said, as a site of projection for all the things we want to distance ourselves from. in this sense -- insofar as these people exist, for ilx, as grotesque -- i feel bad for them. i don't know any of these people individually though; probably most of them have rich, fulfilling lives and this is a just a stupid, fleeting hobby for them.

remove bookmark from thread

my impression is that most bronies are adolescent boys?

'mountain dew contingent'?

The resulting show, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, was well received by parents, but found another unexpected target audience through the Internet photo-board, 4chan in adult males from 13 to 35 years old. Quickly expanding through the Internet, the fandom came to use the term "brony" (a portmanteau of "bro" and "pony") to describe themselves.

adult males from 13

http://hollowverse.zippykid.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/jerry-sandusky-640x360.jpg

mountain dew the drink of choice at the best lan parties iirc

4chan...adult -the bigger oxymoron there

treesh i know you have an hour of free time, please watch this and post your thoughts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fvPfU5DqZc

feel like you should at least read the wikipedia entry before posting your ~brony analysis~ itt

one can still be down w/ people flying their freak flag and STILL make fun of them for doing so.

i'm not one for tough guy/drill sergeant rhetoric, but this is an exception -- some people just need to grow a pair.

I'd guess that a smaller percentage of bronies needs to "grow a pair" than many other subcultures

just because "growing a pair" may not really be necessary for their chosen occupation and lifestyle

Treeship are you putting together a proposal for a postgrad thesis?

i was gonna say, is this a seminar about bronies? as i have mentioned, there was a guy in my class who declared that he was a brony -- no one knew what he was talking about except for me, so the topic was kinda DOA but clearly it's not hard for me to imagine that there are real people who identify in this way.

it's pretty condescending to feel "sorry" or embarrassed for them imo.

^^^ it's essentially being the asshole dads from the documentary

just all chin-strokingly

i did read a defense of the show once (linked here maybe?) along the line that the show is an extended demonstration of/meditation on the value of friendship, which is always an undervalued and under-explained quality. and just as hard as romance, in a way, and just as important to life, especially to kids obviously

this is the actual text, and does not require any deep-thinkpiece internet analysis to reveal it. it's in the TITLE OF THE SHOW ffs, if ppl can't be bothered watching a whole, single episode.

Duke/Bronies easy enough since they're about the same thing.

fp'd u

xp loooool "This show called 'Friendship is Magic,' what secrets does it hold under the surface?'"

if ppl can't be bothered watching a whole, single episode.

i really can't!

the thing i'm dimly thinking of wasn't a "defense of the show" as i said but a defense of non-child fandom of it.

Most bronies are bronies because they enjoy the show and find it funny. And enjoy interacting with other bronies and making fanvids and being part of the fandom and stuff. There has been a backlash against them on various internet hangouts recently - not because they want to fuck ponies (that's definitely a tiny minority), but mostly because they never seem to shut up about MLP. The show still seems to generate an awful lot of discussion with each new episode on general geek/sci-fi/TV forums and message boards that I'm part of (or just read sometimes), and I'm, like, "guys, there are other shows".

On the other hand, some MLP fans now no longer identify as bronies due to bad association, especially since all that Derpy business...

if ppl can't be bothered watching a whole, single episode.

i really can't!

― goole, Thursday, February 13, 2014 4:31 PM (15 minutes ago)

this is some weak poseur bullshit. you can certainly watch a single episode. it's 22 minutes long + far from unbearable.

it's not weak poseur bullshit if i only get local channels and am away from home during daytime hours

here ya go, took about 30 seconds of googling:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xmzo82_my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic-episode-1-friendship-is-magic-part-1_shortfilms

oh thanks. i might check that out when i'm away from the office.

you can certainly watch a single episode. it's 22 minutes long + far from unbearable.

the five minutes I watched way back when were unbearable

tbh you don't really need to watch even 30 sec of the show to afford other people the right to enjoy it

please show me where I am abridging anyone's right to enjoy the show

you're not! i'm just saying that it's not a requirement. geez!