I’ve heard bits and pieces about Bronies. However, it wasn’t until I experienced my first con that I realized that the Brony subculture is a large and very serious group within nerd culture.
What is a Brony you ask?
These are grown men and teenagers who are fanboys of the ostensibly girl-oriented series My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic as well as the fourth generation My Little Pony franchise. Hence the portmanteau term Brony which combines the terms “Bro” and “pony”.
I kid you not. This is a thing. And it’s real.
The Brony Movement started shortly after the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic series. Originally targeted towards young girls, the show started to attract a large demographic of males who developed an affinity towards the characters and plot lines. Several fans, or Bronies, would attend local meetups and the show's creators, including executive producers Lauren Faust, Jayson Thiessen, Christophe Toverski, the writers and voice actors, Hasbro and the Hub have sought to embrace the Brony community, communicating openly with them and placing subtle nods to the fandom within the show and licensed property.
An annual convention dedicated to Bronies initially began in New York City and currently takes place in Baltimore, Maryland. The next Bronycon takes place in Baltimore on from August 1st to the 3rd, 2014.
Bronies can be found everywhere. I attended an anime con a couple of weeks ago and ran into several Bronies. Some Bronies prefer just wearing simple T-shirts embossed with a logo or phrase. Other Bronies elect to cosplay as their favorite ponies. It was fascinating to me as a nerd who is always drawn to the eccentricities of others that I had to learn more. As it turns out, the fanboy culture is so popular, that My Little Pony creator Lauren Faust and famed voice actress Tara Strong (X-Men, The Powerpuff Girls, Teen Titans) teamed up and started a Kickstarter fund to finance a documentary called My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic from Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony. The Kickstarter according to bronydoc.com became the second most funded project in the site’s history. The Bronies Facebook fan page alone has over 75,000 fans.
I told you it was serious and very real.
The 90 minute documentary released in 2013, chronicles the lives of Bronies and their fandom surrounding My Little Pony. They also examine the vitriol and harsh criticism of others outside of Brony culture who do not comprehend their passions and interests. It has been believed by some that Bronies are a new league of extraordinary gentlemen who are embracing their masculinity through a feminine outlet. Bronies have used this movement (if you will) to propagate their own form of feminism. They are essentially breaking gender stereotypes.New feminism or perhaps Bronyism?
I will be honest, I’m not completely sold on the idea of this being a movement of empowerment per se, but I find it fascinating. The feedback and comments from self-declared Bronies who articulate why they have such a vested interest in this whimsical cartoon directed towards pre-adolescent girls is fascinating.
It is easy to criticize the subculture of Bronies as gender types condition girls and boys to like specific hobbies and interests. If somehow the alignment is off, then cognitive dissonance forces us to believe that men who like feminine concepts are strange or homosexual. However, there are actually a large number of heterosexual men in the Brony community and all are fully functional people who serve in the military, own businesses, or work in tech-savvy fields.
As a self-declared nerd who has a preference for embracing new cultures, ideas, and theories, I can’t help but wonder what makes the Brony subculture any different from hardcore anime fans or comic book cosplayers? I am a grown woman who enjoys live-tweeting episodes of Jem & The Holograms every Saturday night. I could easily be judged as weird or strange for my own personal fandom for an 80s cartoon about a pink-haired girl and her rock band. It is a show targeted to girls more than half my age, and I am living in 2013 yet still have an affinity for 80s art, music, and literature. Does that make me a weirdo?
I’m not rushing judgment on the subculture of Bronies just yet, because quite frankly I am very new to the fandom and my inquisitive mind wants to know more about the captivation of this TV show and why it has become this major phenomenon among men. It may not be “normal,” but what is exactly is normal anyway?
I welcome all Bronies reading this post to comment. The virtual mic is all yours.
