So, it’s February 2015 and I just realised that it is now about six months since I became a Brony (more specifically, it’s about six and three quarters). My life has really changed since I started watching the show so I just thought I would write my first blog entry to share how I ended up as a Brony and how the series and its fandom have changed my life.

For me to properly explain the effect that my newfound Bronydom has had on me, I need to discuss my life before I discovered ponies. I have always been a quiet and introverted individual. In school, I always had the same small circle of friends who I spent just about all my time with. A lot of people outside that circle tended to pick on me so I never really tried to move out of my comfort zone and become friends with anyone else. Then came the inevitable day when school ended. Nobody I knew went to the same university as me and I found myself alone.

Nonetheless, I began my first year of university confident that I would meet a lot of new people there. Unfortunately my poor social skills and extreme shyness didn’t allow it. Before long, I just gave up on meeting people. I would go to university, do my work and then go straight home. I had plenty to do with studying and my hobbies, it didn’t matter if people didn’t like me right? So I deliberately isolated myself. I tried my best to always sit next to an empty seat so I didn’t need to talk to anyone. I put all of my focus into graduating with the highest grade possible and just shrugged off my complete lack of friends.

It worked until my third year, when my brain just suddenly decided it couldn’t take being alone anymore and it let me know, big time. I was hit with waves of depression and isolation, with an intensity that I had never felt before. To make matters worse, I developed anxiety and paranoia issues. I became convinced that I had a brain tumour and I spent months laying awake at night, telling myself that I was dying. The fact that I am sitting here typing this several years later obviously proves that I wasn’t ill at all, but at the time I was fully convinced and I was so scared I could hardly function.

Finally, the day of my graduation came. I put on my robe and mortar board, collected my degree and proudly posted the pictures all over my Facebook. After such a long period of depression and fear, surely things could only get better from here on. Nope. I struggled to find employment for an excruciatingly long time and without any friends except my parents, unemployment meant many long months spent at home with nothing to do, while my troubled mind did everything it could to depress and terrify me. Ultimately, I decided that I had no choice but to seek professional help. After a visit to the doctor, I found myself in counselling and prescribed medication for my anxiety. My counsellor inspired me to improve my confidence so I started attending social gatherings through Meetup. The initial attempts were a disaster. I was too anxious to even approach anyone and if they started speaking to me, all I could do was was reply with one or two word answers. I remember one of my earliest meets was specifically for those who were shy or socially anxious. I was the quietest one there.

I decided to keep at it though and things slowly improved. Very, very slowly. After about a year, I was able to introduce myself to someone, rather than waiting for them to approach me. To most people, that would seem inconsequential but to me it felt like a massive achievement. I felt my confidence and self-esteem improving, but as I said the progress was agonizingly slow especially as I was still wrestling with depression and anxiety.

And then it happened. The day on which everything changed.

It started out as an ordinary day. I woke up, got dressed, sent off some more job applications and spent the rest of the day playing video games in my room. I was looking for something to watch on LoveFilm (a UK streaming service like Netflix, which has since become Amazon Prime) and I came across My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I had heard of the Brony subculture but I didn’t really know much about it. I found myself feeling curious. There was no way a guy like me would ever like this show but I decided to watch the first episode to see what all the fuss was about.

Forty minutes later, having watched both parts of the Nighmare Moon saga, I found myself staring at my screen with an expression of utter disbelief. What had I just watched? Was this seriously My Little Pony? That girly franchise with all the candy coloured ponies with brushable hair? When did it become this awesome? After watching a few more episodes, I found myself relating to the characters in the show more and more, especially Twilight Sparkle. I saw how she went from the socially awkward bookish loner to having a group of amazing friends. I saw how happy the characters were together and it filled me with motivation. More than anything, I wanted to have friends again, as I saw just what I had been missing for all these years. I actually memorised some of Twilight’s letters to Celestia I tried applying the lessons to my own life and was surprised to find that they actually worked. This show was giving me better advice than any medical professional I’d ever met.

By this point, not only was I completely hooked on the show, I’d also discovered the sheer enormity of the fandom and its creative output. I spent hours every day watching fan animations, listening to Brony music and viewing fanart. After watching the Bronies documentary, I decided that I didn’t want to keep this a secret anymore. I’d found a new and amazing world and I wanted to dive right in. So, I told my family what I had been watching for the past couple of months, I started buying merch and signed up for my first Brony meetup. I went to the meet, had a fantastic time and found myself feeling more accepted than I had felt in over five years.

So, over the next few months, I continued meeting with my fellow Bronies, I signed up to a few Brony forums (including this one!), rapidly inceased my collection of pony merch and continued to enjoy the vast creativity of the fandom. But as much as I love the show, the music, the merchandise, the fanfics, the memes, the art and the animations, by far my favourite thing about the fandom is all of the friends that I have made. I have made Brony friends both online and offline. On top of this, my newfound confidence and optimism has carried over into the rest of my life and I have also gained a fairly large group of friends outside the fandom (they don’t know I’m a Brony yet but I intend to tell them eventually). Not only do I finally have friends, I have more friends than I have ever had in my life.

So, I guess the point of this ridiculously long post is just to say thank you. Thank you all for being so awesome, thank you all for being so creative and thank you all for just being there. If I hadn’t found this fandom I have no idea where I’d be right now. I’m proud to declare myself a Brony for life and I look forward to many more years as part of this incredible community.