B is for Bronies
There is nothing inherently wrong with boys and men enjoying a cartoon directed at young girls. In fact, it could be seen as a very positive thing because men are willing to embrace something that is viewed as feminine in a society that mocks anything considered “girlish.”
Bronies (bro + ponies) are a growing portion of the My Little Pony fan base. They consist of men, usually high school and college students, who love the show.
A sharp turn from normal fandoms, Bronies took a children’s cartoon and twisted it. One individual decided to create an original character named Princess Molestia, based off the character Princess Celestia. This tumblr took the form of an ask blog where fans would submit questions or story requests and their requests would be answered in a comic book style drawing.
The horse was then shown graphically raping and molesting other ponies from the show, including her own sister, along with original characters from submitters.
A woman began speak up against the blog, and suddenly she started to receive large amounts of Brony hate for helping to delete “Ask Princess Molestia”. She now has multiple hate blogs dedicated to her. Luckily, this blog has been removed from tumblr, with rumors saying that Hasbro shut it down. Someone else has taken the torch however, and created the blog once again.
The problem with blogs like Princess Molestia, and other fan art that shows graphic sex, is that it is not an uncommon occurrence. Even with safe-search on, it is easy to come across porn while looking in the “My Little Pony” image section. A children’s show is no longer safe for its audience.
It has been taken over by adults, many with extreme rape fantasies, who make sexist, misogynistic comments when anyone tries to confront the behavior.
A livejournal has documented one case of sexual assault by a Brony. It states,
“Bronies have a troubled history, and one (Max Veers, age 21) has been caught assaulting an underage teenager (age 16; in their home state of California, that is a misdemeanor). He then went around and badmouthed her on his Tumblr, and made it out to be that it was her fault for the rape. His brother and friends joined him in this, telling her that she was worthless, and a whore/slut, and clearly deserved what she got.”
The author then goes on to link eighteen different posts where other Bronies tried to defend Max Veers’ (not his real name) actions, and more can be found in the over two hundred comments on this entry alone. But this is something you would never know if you watched the Brony documentary,“Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony,” that was just released on Netflix.
While it does contain stories of Bronies who love the show and use it to escape difficulties in their lives, it was created by a Brony who left most of the negative side of their fandom out of the film.
Comments on the Netflix page range from people supporting those displayed in the film to people complaining that there was no mention of the harmful aspects that have developed from this subculture.
What the documentary does very briefly mention is clopping. Clopping is the term coined by Bronies who masturbate to My Little Pony and its characters. This is the main reason that blogs like “Ask Princess Molestia” exist, along with the graphic fan art found under the tumblr tag of the same name.
Along with clopping, the phrase “coming out of the stable” is used by members when they tell their friends and family about their love for the show. They are taking a serious event for the LGBT* community and turning it into a joke. Coming out for an LGBT* youth is a serious event that, if not received positively, can end up with them on the streets or even killed. “Brony Pride” is also taken from the LGBT* community, and can symbolize acceptance for an aspect of life that individuals cannot change to suit others needs.
The documentary features many interviews with creators of the show, psychologists, and Bronies. Some of the thoughts expressed by these individuals create the idea that Bronies are a severely oppressed group of social outcasts.
The film barely speaks about the numerous contributions to the fandom by women, along with ignoring the naming of a minor character “Derpy Hooves,” which does not go with any of the whimsical names given to other characters and ignoring the negative, ableist connotation of the word “derpy.” The documentary is an example of male privilege. When was the last time a documentary was made detailing the involvement of women in a show that was deemed “masculine”?
The film also shows an act of violence between a large male horse who is creating content for Bronies and a smaller female horse who shakes her head in disapprovement. The male pony hits her sharply across the face for questioning his work.
There are some great things that come from Bronies. Creator of “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” Lauren Faust agrees, stating,
“In general, I am still inspired by Bronies. As a group, they have not succumbed to society’s pressure that young men must hold contempt for anything feminine no matter what. They’ve been able to see beyond the preconceived notions that they were most likely raised with to judge something for it’s merit. And on top of that, they’re brave enough to embrace it openly despite the ridicule that they are undoubtedly subject to. ”
To make Bronies truly acceptable, the positive side of the fandom needs to regain control and put pressure on the horrifically negative and hurtful side.
When those that corrupt the show for its real target audience, young children, are held accountable for the graphic sexual abuse they fetishize, Bronies will actually gain respect from the rest of the world.
I’m stupefied.
You’re just writing this to get views, right?
Nobody can take this collection of words (can’t even call it an article) seriously.
Way to contribute to the cycle of hate!
This overgeneralization, this dualistic thinking, this narrowmindedness, it’s an insult to feminism.
Please explain how this contributes to the cycle of hate. I wrote this to help expose people who are taking something that started out positively, for both children and adults, and twisting it. People deserve to know that if their children like this show that they have to place extreme caution when doing simple google searches because they should not have to worry about exposing their child to X-rated porn.
I repeatedly say that the show and fans display positive aspects, a lot of them shown in the documentary, and that these should be the ones that are raised up. But the ones that completely tarnish the name of Brony and My Little Pony are holding back the show from its potential.
Feminism should not be limited. This should be a feminist issue. Young girls have one of the few shows that focus on them snatched away by adult males. A simple search on youtube can bring up videos where teenage and adult males complain about the show not being catered to them. There a literally HUNDREDS of shows marketed to them, but because the show refuses to introduce a slew of new male characters and focus on them or create more products for adults to wear and buy, Bronies get angry and aggressive. That is a feminist issue and if you cannot see that I am sorry but you should not call yourself a feminist.
Seriously, it’s articles like this that make me pissed. This is a prime example of how biased and inconsiderate people can be when they’re given a digital microphone. Bronies have not corrupted a show with perverted images. Every show ever has porn based off of it. Hell I remember when my friend sent me a link to a hilarious Seinfeld porn parody. Or the various things one encounters on rule 34.paheal. Porn based off of previous material is not a corruption. This isn’t a bunch of males trying to turn a show into their perverted fantasies. Everyone likes material for a different reason and who the hell are you to judge them?
This article is horrendous.
It kind of assumes that other fandoms are more “normal”. Have you even tried to google for Rule 34 of Harry Potter, Doctor Who, Big Bang Theory, HIMYM, Game of Thrones or whatever else? Other fandoms are no better, all of them have a portion of members who masturbate to it, men and women alike.
Ask Princess Molestia blog was very mild compared to number of other content, and its author specifically noted that it was in no sense supporting sexual molestation (it was a joke). If i were a clopper (i am not in any way sexually attracted to ponies), i would search for more explicit content instead. APM was rather PG 13+.
BronyDoc was admittedly a little biased, for more factual view please watch Brony Chronicles documentary. (it’s free on YouTube)
The difference is that Seinfeld is an ADULT show with ADULT content. My Little Pony is aimed at CHILDREN. And if you don’t think that children trying to google pictures of their favorite show end up finding ridiculous amounts of inappropriate images even with safe search on or try to produce art and get attacked by grown men because they do not like it or think it is bad is OKAY, you need to look at your own life choices.
Do you understand how safe search works? Almost if not all MLP sites with NSFW material have several warnings before hand. They have to legally warn people and ask them if they are 18 first! Second, The Brony community is one of the few communities that provides nothing but positive reinforcement. I’m not the best artist but all of the MLP pictures I have drawn have all received nothing but positivity and one comment that the perspective could use some work. You seem to have entirely missed the point in which people like things for various reasons. The reason why I like MLP is the various references to popular films and novels. While someone else might like it for the characterization, or the art style, or even nostalgia. This show has in no way been corrupted by adults. Finally, my life choices have nothing to do with this. We are debating the biased nature of your article, not my past.
Googling Rule 34 versus normal image search is quite different. If you just google the name of ALL of the shows there you do not find porn for quite a long time, and the small amount that shows up usually disappears under safe search.
Just because something is a “joke”, does not mean it is not harmful. Seeing people ask for rape-like incest scenes to be drawn out is not safe. It is promoting rape culture and can really harm people. If the blog was just “pg-13” it would not have been shut down by either Tumblr or Hasbro.
I will watch the other documentary you recommended. I enjoy being able to find documentaries that show all sides of a fandom or issue, not just one side. I hope this one is much better than the one on Netflix. Thank you.
I hesitate to claim that this article is extremely sensationalist, lest any reasonable criticism simply get deflected as proving “See? Bronies defend this kind of crap!”
I’m baffled by how this article starts out describing this bad thing, and then in the next section it questions why said bad thing wasn’t brought up in a documentary. Well maybe it’s because it’s a bad thing that no one on that project approved of? Heck, it’s not approved of most anywhere. That kind of stuff (that blog being just one specific) isn’t allowed on the MLP subreddit, isn’t allowed on the Round Stable forums, and only the most squeaky clean images from that blog ever got linked at Equestria Daily. That’s right, Equestria Daily, which has one of the co-authors of the PM blog as a moderator, never allowed it to be posted.
Clearly the more public MLP sites have proven they don’t approve of this, and actively take steps to keep that kind of stuff away. You have to actively search for this kind of content in order to find it, and if you didn’t want to see it then why would you look for it?
Everything else mentioned (hate mail to some person, an assault, etc) is anecdotal incidents painted with a broad brush across everyone. That stuff isn’t condoned by the majority, and public convention events and the bigger websites will deplore, remove, call authorities, etc, if it happens within their domain.
Women may not have been mentioned in the documentary because a) women liking MLP aren’t nearly the surprising social oddity that men liking MLP are, and b) website analytics, censuses, and polls routinely show that among the “fandom”, only about 15% are women. They just aren’t that common. As for why no one has heard of a documentary about a “masculine” show with a fandom of mostly women, I think the right question to ask is IF there is a “masculine” show fandom of mostly women. I can’t think of one that is as weighted toward the opposite intended demographic as MLP. I can sure think of a lot of documentaries of women in stereotypically masculine jobs, however, and you could make the same “why aren’t there men being interviewed?!” accusation, which completely misses the whole point of those documentaries.
‘Derpy’ was a bad overreaction by nearly all involved that had nothing to do with the documentary’s point, so again, why would they feature it? “Ableist”? Since the popular usage of the world means “klutzy, awkward, and/or accident-prone” and is just as descriptive of the character as any of the other MLP names, I assume you are saying this is a slight against klutzy people? Anything more is reading way more into it than there really is, especially given the women that wrote and voice acted for it.
I hope my reply didn’t contain too much, uh, what was it again? “sexist, misogynistic comments when anyone tries to confront the behavior”. Go ahead, confront sexism and misogynism where you find it. But you paint with a much too large brush when you are saying everyone is guilty by (very loose) association. While the fandom does have it’s bad apples, it isn’t “taken over by a majority with extreme rape fantasies”.
Interesting read, really opened my eyes.
First off, this is the author’s perspective of this community…hence it being on this page. So before bad-mouthing her for stating her opinion, read it with an open-mind and respect the views that she is bringing up rather than bashing her for just speaking up. There’s a difference between true critique of one’s work and negatively shutting down one’s outlook. She did state that this is not the entirety of this obscure community but rather how the negative has taken over this once ‘innocent’ interest group and how it is affecting the positive side. The origins of this show are young children (I’m 28 years old and I watched this show when I was a little girl!) so those involved that would like to have this community remain in a bright light, should do their best to boost the positive aspects and work on ways to shut down those that are ruining it.
Why does feminism have to come at the exclusion of guys? I thought it was about equality with the end goal of gender just not being a big deal in either direction, rather than taping off a subject and hanging a sign saying “NO BOYS ALLOWED”. That’s just more of the same 19th century attitude, but in the opposite direction.
I would hope that any women who call themselves “Bronies” feel welcome and not out of place. If that could happen despite the makeup of the fandom being an 85/15 split in favor of dudes, then I think that’s a success for post-genderism (if in fact feminism isn’t the same as that).
Also, the show production staff has been very good about keeping the show kid-oriented; there may be more hidden gags that only adults would completely understand, but it’s both women and men adults alike and it doesn’t take away from the rest of the episode. Nothing’s being snatched away. Fans don’t have an impact on the direction of the show, no matter how much they protest (exception: people who accused Derpy of being ableist, ironically enough).
Thank you for this response. There is a lot of things I could not cover, obviously, unless you wanted to read a 20 page academic essay (which would be completely possible to achieve).
Most of the posts I see on tags throughout tumblr and subreditts are sexist and Ive encountered a lot of images, posts, and personal narratives where people are getting harassed by teenagers and adults through personal attacks and end up having to delete blogs because they try to clean up the fandom or bring attention to horrible blogs and people. i know a lot of the bigger websites try to keep this stuff out, but for me personally completely ignoring it will not make it go away. If these people do not get called out it can show to them that their actions are okay and that people do not care. But I care and a lot of people I know that love or just even like My Little Pony care. That is why I wrote the article in this fashion.
I had to limit myself on all the personal stories I found. I found SO many that if I tried to even include half of them, this article would be double in length. So its not that rare, unfortunately. I want it to be and I want the people who support the actions of the individuals included in the article to understand the repercussions of these actions.
I would love to see these studies. Are these website polls on mainly brony sites or on websites that cater to all genders? The reason that there are documentaries on women in masculine jobs is because of the way patriarchy works. By showing that jobs are “masculine”, they limit the amount of people that can even apply to the jobs. The easiest time period to see this happen is during WWII and Im assuming thats where a lot of those documentaries you talk about are coming from. I cannot remember a documentary that has come out in quite a while that focuses on women in “men’s” jobs. I focused more on the entertainment industry rather than talk about real-life jobs, since the article focuses on a TV show.
Derpy is actually a term that is hurtful to those with mental disabilities because that and words like it are commonly used as slurs and an act of hate speech against them.
I am not saying people are guilty by association. If that was a real thing, bronies would have more shame in society than they do now.
The exact quote is “It has been taken over by adults, many with extreme rape fantasies, who make sexist, misogynistic comments when anyone tries to confront the behavior.” Please dont try to change my quotes, although I do understand where you are coming from and respect that.
Also you need to remember the subjectivity of both the fanbase and your article. Some fans accept that tumblrs such as Princess Molestia (Which was a comedy poking fun at the many aspects of Adult MLP blogs) are ok to post. I agree. You nor I should enforce that all media pertinent to a specific show must follow the same age group and rating. Look at Garfield Minus Garfield: Garfield is a cartoon aimed at children about a cat while Garfield minus Garfield is a cartoon about a depressed middle aged man slowly lapsing into insanity within the confines of his house. The second comic isn’t addressed to children but is based off of material that was.
“Please explain how this contributes to the cycle of hate.”
1) By fixating on the negative. Bronies are a big group, estimates go from hundreds of thousands to several millions. In such a big group there are always rotten apples. Fixating on them gives outsiders who know nothing about bronies the incorrect idea that the majority of the bronies are rotten. On top of that, by focussing so hard on the few rotten exceptions, like the alledged rapist, you give “haters” ammunition to spread their hateful biggotry (“bronies are autistic, pedophile faggots” and other nonsense like that) and a false sense of justification.
2) Dualism. By using phrases like “male privilege” and focussing so hard on male versus female. Especially when it comes to porn you make it seem as if this is a male thing. It isn’t! Many female fans make/enjoy rule 34 too, in fact the Molestia thing you mentioned is in part the work of a woman. You utilise a very dualistic way of thinking, which conflicts with feminist analysis, dualism is the cornerstone of patriarchical thinking.
Here, have a nice quote explaining the role of dualism and why we feminists reject it: “Western patriarchal thinking is based on ‘dualism’, a world view that orders the world by dividing it into opposed pairs of concepts: Mind is split from body, spirit from matter, male from female, culture from nature. One concept in each pair is deemed superior to the other. This ‘other’ is sometimes demonized and always discriminated against.”
By perpetuating this dualism you are damaging the feminist cause and continuing the cycle of hatred.
About the rule 34.
First of all, this is not inherent to the brony fandom. Rule 34 applies to everything and existed long before the show even existed. Blaming bronies for MLP rule 34 is just senseless, and thinking that rule 34 can be removed from the fandom is just silly. Rule 34 comes from basic human behaviour. Humankind is a sexual species. Sex is one of the biggest direct and indirect motivator for our actions. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Sexuality is a wholesome and beautiful thing, not something to be shunned. Sex only becomes bad when one of the partners becomes oppressed. As long as everything is done in consensus, there is nothing wrong with sex or sexual fantasies. Rape fantasies are even extremely common amongst women. Denying this fantasy is denying women the freedom to enjoy sex the way they want it. So simply assuming that the more daring rule 34 images are all made by men is naive and downright sexist. There is nothing wrong with making erotic art about fantasies, fantasy is fantasy and claiming that such art is causing people to disbehave is insulting to both men and women. Violence in movies and books does not lead to violence in real life, likewise for erotic art.
And as for children seeing inappropriate content, this is largely the parents’ fault. Underaged children should never be allowed to use the internet unsupervised. There are things far far worse than MLP rule 34 on the internet, after all. Most MLP rule 34 are flagged as NSFW and should be caught by a parental lock (or whatever the program is called in English).
“Young girls have one of the few shows that focus on them snatched away by adult males.”
Dualistic thinking again, men versus us. Men enjoying MLP does not snatch it away. Bronies do NOT want the writers to change the show they initially fell in love with, they don’t want change at all. Let the men enjoy our stuff too.
“There a literally HUNDREDS of shows marketed to them, but because the show refuses to introduce a slew of new male characters and focus on them or create more products for adults to wear and buy, Bronies get angry and aggressive.”
People are actually correct about the lack of male characters. There’s an odd tendency to portray males as animals of burden or men in uniform. I’m sure that the makers of MLP don’t have sexist intentions with that so I’m not too bothered, but it’s something to keep an eye on.
Bronies desiring more clothes and products for them is normal. They love the show and want to have related merchandise. Denying the adults because it’s “a show for kids” is again typical dualistic thinking.
And as for aggression, where did you get that crazy idea? Are you a brony? Are you in contact with the fandom? I am a brony and stay in touch through reddit, youtube, deviantart and equestriadaily, and NOWHERE is there any sign of aggression.
“That is a feminist issue”
The brony fandom is, in fact, quite feministic. Equality is a cornerstone of the fandom. There’s no distinction between men and women, nor between old versus young, or white versus black, there’s no discrimination.
The male bronies adore a show with many well written, strong, independent, intelligent female characters. How amazing is that? How can any feminist object to that? I can’t!
Don’t focus on the very few negative, don’t freak out about rule 34.
BTW, please read something about dualism in society. I can strongly recommend the work of Vandana Shiva about ecofeminism.
The dualistic thinking in your article makes me sad.
I do not dispute this, i just said that other fandoms also have their fair share of adult content. The fact that even with SafeSearch on there is at least one questionable picture on the first result page is unsettling to me, too, though maybe for different reasons. I even discussed it with a few other bronies, that it makes our fandom look more perverted than it is. On the other hand, you can’t cut off your children from the world. That is not right nor healthy.
I do not agree. I followed APM for a while, and i can with certainity that it does not promote rape or “rape culture” (rape culture is made up nonsense).
Ask Princess Molestia wouldn’t have been shut down if PinkiePony, an oversensitive feminist Christian girl (who wasn’t very smart) wasn’t restlessly trying to destroy something with the kind of humour many people (again, males and females alike) have enjoyed. BTW it was shutdown by its author, precisely because he was tired of PP’s silly movement’s attacks.
Yes please, do post the stories you have read.
Keep in mind that the fandom is 100.000s-1.000.000s of people big and that the angriest people shout the loudest.
I doubt you’d find a 1000 examples of bronies misbehaving so badly, and even a 1000 would still only be 0.1-0.01%
See how trivially small it is? That’s why people are outraged you branded them for such a tiny fraction of people. (not to mention that certain things you mention are just factually wrong and terribly biased)
Also, the things you write make it clear you have no connections with the fandom, so your sources are suspicious. Many people out there hate bronies because they challenge the sexist social norms and gender roles. Those haters often pretend to be bronies and start flame wars on the internet, just to provoke a backlash against bronies.
One of the things that makes it painfully obvious you are not in touch with what lives in the fandom is calling Derpy ableist. That line made me shudder! Derpy is adored and beloved by the bronies! The name Derpy is meant to be endearing, not belittling. Derpy was originally an animation error of an identityless background pony, the fandom saw the error and gave her life. Bronies gave her a name and a personality. Hasbro then decided to adopt Derpy, OUR pony, into the show and make her canon, as a gentle wink to the adult fans. So Derpy is our creation and we love her! Calling our cute little grey mare ableist will get you the same reaction as horribly insulting a mother’s innocent child. You’ll get angry glares and maybe even a slap in the face and rightfully so.
Oh and juicy detail, the first MLP staff writer who gave Derpy a speaking role is the mother of a disabled son, and she said in an interview that when she heard some outsiders considered Derpy to be ableist she was very very hurt.
For a start I have been a part of the brony fandom since the middle of season one, so around 2011. I will not deny that there are some pretty weird people with strange fetishes out there. However this is not unique to bronies, there are many, many fandoms out there, and *ALL* of them have the odd person who sexualities the thing they enjoy, more so the fact that the internet can be anonymous, only makes it easier for one to share their perverse ideas, and not be judged for it. There is no way to solve this without “involuntary euthanasia.”
I have mixed with many different ‘areas’ of the fandom over time, from your standard forums and sites, to the more sinister 4chan’s /mlp/ board. From my own observations, I can safely say that the majority of the fandom are just normal people who like a cartoon, only the odd person is a ‘clopper’. For instance, over the three years I have been a brony, I have met less than 20 such people. (I used to be an admin for a brony group with ~700 members..)
As for the “coming out of the stable” thing, where did you hear that? I can honestly say that I’ve never heard of it. Nor do I take any real offense to it, being asexual, coming out to people I knew was quite a hard thing to do, not as bad as it could have been if were homosexual, or bisexual but none the less it was certainly one of the more difficult things I have had to say in recent times.
Following that, the point of saying that we are socially outcast, isn’t untrue. People can’t accept that we like something they don’t, so they try to put us down. For example during my time at secondary school in the UK (11-16) I got quite a bit of flak for liking it, especially questions like “do you masturbate to it?” and “have you tried to rape a horse before?” These views come from articles like the one here, I understand that you are writing something that is expressly designed to show the negative areas of the fandom prominently, but all it really does is make people hate us more, and gets us more bad press, regardless of what we actually have to do with ‘that’ side of the fandom. This is not just in real life either, on the internet I get quite a few snide comments relating to the show, and things like this: “http://i.imgur.com/ZaKdtXT.png” crop up from time to time as well.
Finally, on the contributions of women not being noted and all that, it’s not because bronies don’t care, or view female bronies or “pegasisters” as inferior in any way… Well it’s just that content creators don’t really say what gender they are. At the end of the day a generic user name like “RainbowDash123” only conveys so much about the gender of said person. In mediums that you can hear or see the artist, it is easy to tell the gender of the creators. Voice actors like Rina-Chan, and vocalists like Chi-chi, get as much credit as good male vocalists and the likes. When I am on the internet, I don’t view people as genders because behind a screen, who knows what you look like? People can lie incredibly easily. If I’m looking at a piece of art, and I find out the creator is a guy I think “huh, ‘they’re’ a pretty good artist”, likewise if I look at a piece of art, and I find out the creator is female, I think “huh, ‘they’re’ a pretty good artist”.
Any who, that’s possibly a waste of 20 minutes of my time, because you can’t fill a cup that’s already full, you seem to believe that the majority of us are misogynistic, rapists and nothing that I, or anyone else can say will change that.
(Also the illustration for this article is wrong, a pony that looks similar to Rainbow Dash is shown as having a horn and wings, when RD is a Pegasus, not an Alicorn. Just thought you should know that. :3)
Oh boy.
How convenient that the author missed the part where pinkiepony (the person who ‘spoke out’ against the blog) was harassing bronies long before she ever wanted to have the blog removed…
Or that she has lied before about multiple things, including being harassed in real life by bronies, as well as having a failed pregnancy in an attempt to have her boyfriend stay with her…
Or that the whole “movement” she spawned was just nothing but a glorified anti-brony circlejerk to hate on male fans of the show…
Or that she is a massive hypocrite due to being against sexualized ponies… yet wanted her own Molestia-style blog (NSFW as it includes her mature art): http://www.horse-news.net/2014/01/not-so-breaking-news-pinkiepony-is.html
This is why you don’t get your facts from certain parts of tumblr.
Also, Max Veers is really old news. Max got thrown out thanks to both tumblr and bronies yelling at him repeatedly, and he’s basically never been seen again after his whole ordeal about two years ago.
Finally, just in case you were in the dark, the blog “Ask Princess Molestia” was always played off as sexual innuendo. There was NEVER anything graphic, despite what this article’s author claims.
– There was never any visible sex or molestation, nor any visible genitalia.
– The blog itself had actually moved away from the whole extreme sexual tension bit was became more slice-of-life with sexual-flavored jokes once in a while.
– The blog and it’s creator never said that rape was okay, nor supported the idea that you should forcefully have someone have sex with you.
And before you accuse me of being an upset fan of the blog for it being taken down, I actually thought it was tacky and boring.
I just can’t stand all the lies that surround it created over the last few months by people that never actually read through it and just wanted it to be forcibly removed from the site.
I’m going to go a little further than just trying to debunk all the errors in this post, that I have seen done both calmly, graciously, and most importantly, accurately by a few of the others who commented here. I, too, am a brony, or pegasister, as some of the female MLP fans prefer to be called.
It’s clear from your replies to comments that, as Anonymous said yesterday, you’ve got your mind set on believing that an obscenely disproportionate percentage of bronies are ‘horrifically negative and hurtful’ to the fandom’s reputation. Now, I’m about to agree with a few of your commentors, and disagree with you. It IS true that as a whole, there is more sexualized art of the My Little Pony characters than in most other fandoms. I don’t think that that fact supports any of your direct accusations, however. Your claim that we ‘twisted’ the intent is false, your claim that the show was intended ONLY for young girls is also false. It’s not all pink and purple and rainbows and happiness. If you checked out the show itself, you could see that there’s also a much darker side to some of the episodes, especially the ones in Season 4. It was also mentioned in a comment that there are many references made that can only be appreciated and/or understood by teens, or even full-grown adults.
I’m 17. I like the show. And, I’m sure you must think I’m a terrible person, because, yes, I am a ‘clopper’. And a resourceful one at that. But I would neither dream of EVER assaulting someone (sexually or just an attack, physical or verbal) over the show, or ‘because they wore an MLP t-shirt’. And every single one of my friends, male or female, are just as kind, and wouldn’t dream of doing something like that.
We stick up for each other when we’re feeling down. Friendship IS magic, and it’s what has made this fandom unique. We don’t just follow the show, we build up our own little groups of friends, and stick together. And nearly all of these groups are made up of caring, trustworthy people who wouldn’t do anything to harm someone else, period.
Are you familiar with some of the bronies’ biggest achievements? Galacon, Bronycon, Derpycon, and more. And, on the subject of Derpy, you make the fanon (eventually canon) name for her seem like an awful, nasty thing, when it just became a cute reference to her klutzy portrayal in the show, and the way her eyes drift, due to an animation error. It’s an endearment, not an insult, and you’re insulting good intentions by making it out to be such.
I am now going to come back to the whole ‘Princess Molestia’ page. You claimed that the art depicted this: “The horse was then shown graphically raping and molesting other ponies from the show, including her own sister, along with original characters from submitters.”
That is simply, pointedly UNTRUE. I don’t think that your sources are accurate on any of these points. That blog was at worst, PG-13, and was not taken down by Hasbro or Tumblr. I know the creator, and they took it down themselves solely due to people like you who give it hate by associating art CREATED of ‘Princess Molestia’, that were not made by the creator of the blog.
And now, my final point:
Your sources are questionable at best.
Seriously? ‘Fuckbronies4life’ tumblr? If you want information on bronies, that is of the worst possible places you could go. Try something less obviously biased. Maybe FIMFiction, Ponysquare, Equestria Daily, etc. Something not so blatantly anti-brony. Also, trusting UrbanDictionary for information isn’t always a good idea.
Also, giving this the ‘feminism’ tag doesn’t fit. This is not a feminist issue, and should not become one. You should leave the bronies alone to enjoy their favorite show. Sure, we have our bad eggs. Every group does. But this one, for the most part, is only beneficial to its participants and those that said participants spend time with.
Good day.
I didn’t really note this persons sources, but by god, “Fuckbronies4life”? Now I don’t like to jump to conclusions, but I have this funny feeling that, that tumblr *may* just be dedicated to hating bronies. To be fair I wouldn’t call EQD an unbiased source either, because after all it is a brony news site :P, I guess the only way you can get an ‘unbiased’ idea on the brony fandom would be to look at some positively biased sources and a couple of negative ones, there really isn’t a huge amount of ‘opinionated middle ground’.
Also, not only does the ‘feminism’ tag not fit, nor does ‘skinny minnie’, ‘politics’, ‘peace over violence’, ‘PETA’, ‘primadonna’, ‘hollywood’, ‘menstrual’, ‘fight back’, ‘fertility’, ‘rich kitchens'(wat?), ‘police brutality'(double wat?)… nah screw it, most of the tags really don’t fit this article. Nice way to attract traffic though, lying about tags…
Seriously though, “taliban prevent women from schooling” and “period products” I-…
All I can assume here is that these are general tags for the whole website not just this article??
Can someone please confirm that these tags are real. Or am I having some serious hallucinations?
>inb4 I get called a bigot etc for not wanting to kill all men after I read the tags and realized how much of a disgrace men are to humanity and how we should all be killed and sperm should be artificially produced lest humanity die out.
>inb4 I get called a misogynistic rapist pervert for above joke.
>inb4 I get eleventy millionty-billion death threats.
Great article. the response of the cats here really highlights what’s wrong with these people.
Seriously, if you’re frothing at the mouth and refusing to actually read the woman’s argument, let me bring you back to this statement, which is beyond true regarding your fandom. This is EXACTLY how to get the brony fandom out of shit-tier:
“To make Bronies truly acceptable, the positive side of the fandom needs to regain control and put pressure on the horrifically negative and hurtful side.”
Read it again.
and again.
This idea is like telling a group of footie fans to stop being rambunctious crazies. Good luck trying to control a group of people in the millions.
This is a big fandom, like anime fans, Doc Who fans and Pokemon fans.
Read THAT again. And again.
Or just go back to tumblr or twitter or whatever echo chamber tickles your fancy, and continue whining about bronies.
Hold accountable the miriad of other fandoms who have sexualized cartoon characters. It’s not even remotely limited to Bronies. Take a tag walk through Rule 34 sometime. Yes there are those that will sexualize the ponies, and any parent should know that googling anything can bring up sexual images of anything. There is no wholesome internet.
Also as someone with mental disabilities I’d like to point out I’m tired of people speaking for me. I have a voice, so do the many other disabled Bronies (Yes I’m a woman, I hate Pegasister though) who fought this battle over Derpy hooves when some white knights came along and tried to tell us we should be insulted by her name, and how she sounded in that one episode that she was given a voice.
If ye were huntin’ viewers, lassie, ya found em’! A WHOLE LOTTA angry viewers who aren’t too keen a’ judgement!
Has any antibrony feminist actually been involved with the kind of feminism that helps people in the real world?