How and when did you become a brony?

[Ryzu 984]

From what I remember I was really depressed and thought of anyone I knew who was depressed and went through an instant change. I knew these 2 guys who watched mlp who had that happen to them so I checked the show out, but then I think I chickened out watching it because of the judgment.

 

But then my brother introduced me to their fan content and I eventually stumbled into this:

This is what got me to give it another chance and I was happy with the results.

Oh and that video changed my life as well. Helped me through a lot of pain.

[vanlil 11]

I got into MLP by seeing it in places.

I watched it

then foudn bronies.

[Komrade Superman 8]

Some where between 2011 and 2012.

[Agandor 37]

A long time ago. I first learned about MLP trough random posts and videos popping up on youtube and google, and at first I hated it. Like most did.

 

I actually made a drawing of a Weavile holding the chopped off and bloody head of Pinkie Pie in her paw, and a knife in the other. Yeah, I was that much against getting MLP showed in my face whenever I checked my youtube feed or visited forums around the web, also with profile pictures everywhere and sprays in TF2. Like, guys, really?

 

So one day after I was done at school, I come home, crank up my laptop, make me some food, and sit down, wanting to watch something while I eat. Finding nothing though, I think to challenge myself; "Dude, why don't give it a shot? Let's see how bad it really is."

 

So I watched the first episode. And the second. Then the third. And onwards.

 

Today I own plushies, comics, clothes, wristbands, talk to other bronies online, have a picture folder of nothing but MLP art from Deviant, got lots of brony youtubers in my subscriptions, tries to voice act characters, and can't wait for season 5 of this goddamn amazing show to be released.

 

What happened!?

Edited February 26, 2015 by Agandor

[StormRider245 61]

Technically: I have never still becomed brony. But if you mean that when I start watching the show, then it was some now about 3 - 4 years ago, when one of my former friend suggested me to watch MLP-FiM.

[Wooona 29]

I first started watching the show sometime in January this year, so I'm a pretty recent convert. I'd been hearing about the show in random places over the internet, and eventually decided to give it a shot. Best decision I've made in years!

[BritishBrony2012 793]

My brother show me some MLP episodes and fan-made videos and also show a video showing Derpy given sad speech. It took awhile to get into it and after my Birthday, 13th October got hook and start buy a box of four mini pony figures, and start seeing some fan made videos, musics and fics Watch entrie season 1 & 2 before season 3 start.

[Nebula 28]

I wasn't interested in the show and hated fanbase for 2 years (Probably because I was the type of person who wanted to like "normal" things.). Even earlier this year I was still against fans yet I was a fan myself.

 

In early 2014 I started to find some fan created stuff, I read My Little Dashie which made me interested in becoming a fan of the show. I found some other fan created stuff like Snowdrop and the Fluffle Puff videos on Youtube and my interest grew. 

 

I watched my first episode around August 2014 and liked it, although I've only seen around 20 episodes as of now because I'm a closet brony and watching the show secretly is hard because I don't have any headphones atm.     I'll definitely get around to watching the other 71 episodes and hopefully that will happen before S5 comes along, I guess I've had my own small hiatus. 

 

Idk if this means I'm not a fan because although I haven't been able to watch all of the episodes, I've enjoyed the ones I've seen and I still enjoy fan created things.

[~Phoenix~ 196]

it was at least 3 years ago. i was an eighth grader in middle school (now i'm a junior in high school). i think season two was airing. episode 16 maybe? if i could remember the time i would click it above. but actually, my story is a strange one. i was at a boy scout camp out for skiing. it was January then? i don't remember. but a friend of mine, named josh had printed out copies of cupcakes, and sweet apple massacre. a third friend of ours, named liam was a brony. i ddnt know what a brony even was at the time, but here we are, eighth grade, reading cupcakes and sweet apple massacre, that Liam had apparently recomended to josh. i was a really good friend with josh so i'm like "dude let me see that" you know how it goes. the reason i started watching the show, is because, get this, i was curious who the characters were that got brutally murdured in what i had read. so here i am today

[Shipping_Trash 38]

Since MLP started, since I was a girl back then, nobody really judged me for liking it.

[Mysterious Grepper 89]

The first time I saw brony-related material was in a MediaGoblin crowdfunding video (MediaGoblin is a piece of web server-based software that hosts many different types of media. Think of it as a decentralized alternative to YouTube, SoundCloud and Flickr.) discussing federation. Federation is the ability for users of different hosting providers to communicate with each other using their own provider, an example is email. Anyway, this video used rainbowdash.net (running pump.io) as an example of a federated server. I was homophobic at the time, and assumed that it was an LGBT community. It's Rainbow Dash, after all. As far as I can recall, this happened in summer 2013.

 

Later, while playing Minetest, a Free Software/Open Source Minecraft clone, I saw a sign somewhere on a server that said, "Watch My Little Pony! Become a Brony!" I didn't think much of it, except that I wouldn't want to watch a girl's show. This probably happen a few months later.

 

In late October 2014, I was looking through channels on TV with my brother. I saw that My Little Pony was on, and I decided to watch it to see what it was like. The episode was Read It And Weep. I later looked up "Men that watch My Little Pony" up online and discovered the Brony community. I found a blog post explaining why older fans like MLP, so I decided to give it a try.

 

It's surprising how much I came to know the fandom in about four months.

[SteamyPancakes 29]

How I became a bring is a long story. I was learning about PC master race and why it was so good by a steam friend (I was gaming on an old iMac mini back then) and I asked the guy about his profile pic and why it was a pony when he was obviously a male older than 7. He told me about the show and the fandom and I willingly watched the first episode for him. I liked it. I ended up watching the whole 2 seasons that were out at the time in about 5 days. I was becoming addicted with the show. The fandom was great and everything was nice. I kept watching until late s4. I started playing basketball and forgot all about mlp. But here I am in the past week watching MLP s4 and it was awesome. So I'm glad to say I'm a brony again. I've watched MLP since I was 11. Now I'm 14.

[EchoPone 6]

Well, I just remember sitting on the computer with a good friend of mine; when we came across "My Little Pony". We were so confused to how it even had it's own fan base, but after many hours of further research we found that it was actually a pretty good show; and had an amazing fan base. I believe it was about three years ago, and still love the fandom to this day.

[Hypn0ticD 1,213]

I actually don't remember the month at all, but it had to be some time in 2012... I went in with the expectation that FIM would be just like previous generations--shallow and saccharine. Boy, were my expectations blown away!

[TheJLeeTeam 914]

How I became a brony is an interesting story. Now let me start off by saying throughout 2010, 2011, and most of 2012, I barely saw any MLP content besides the toy commercials. Like always it was a toyline I didn't care for along with a bunch of other toylines. I didn't even now about the show at first. The first instance I saw the name of this show was around February 2011 when I was looking up parental guidelines on Wikipedia just out of curiosity sake because I wanted to know how they worked. And one of the examples for TV-Y shows that were listed was My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

 

I might of seen a few pony avatars in 2011 and early 2012 but I don't remember but even if I did I didn't care for them. I was very indifferent towards MLP. I figured the pony avatars were coming from girls who grew up with MLP. But in early 2012 the first instance I saw a brony was in AVGN Q&A panel where, some guy was asking AVGN about MLP:FiM. I wasn't really curious as to why he asked that, I figured he watched it simply because it's a cute show because I really like cute japanese characters and I guess some guys like cute characters because it's easier to bond with them. And there was even a MLP club at my high school which is no longer going.

 

Now in the summer of 2012 I became obsessed with Keldeo from Pokémon because I gained an emotional bond to him, loved his background, attacks, he was a beast in the TCG, and I found him adorable yet awesome. And he kind of resembles G4 ponies, and the 15th Pokémon movie also had friendship themes, emotional moments, and inspirational life lessons. I started to see more bronies after the pre release for Boundaries Crossed in November 2012 where I pulled a Keldeo EX, and one of the guys playing was wearing an MLP shirt on. I thought that was a fitting shirt. So yeah after I became obsessed with Keldeo I was a little more interested in MLP but still very indifferent and had no plans to watch FiM. On a side note let me just admit that the 15th Pokémon I like way more than Equestria Girls.

 

Now in late 2013, I was in the MLP club in High School. The reason I was there is because the club was in the same room as my art class and I was finishing up a project. They played a video called "Lets Go and Meet the Bronies" I think that's the first time I heard the term brony and I thought brony meant a male pony. I was still indifferent towards MLP and didn't watch it to see why guys watch it. I figured older guys watch this show just because it's cute. But while I do like cute characters I preferred japanese ones more so I was uninterested.

 

In early 2014 I became really annoyed by certain things going on in the gaming industry particularly people who say "Smartphones will replace handhelds" not to mention school related stuff. I felt like I needed to watch a relaxing, happy show so I decided to watch shows on PBS Kids Sprout but it didn't work for me. In April 2014 during spring break, on one night, I decided to watch MLP:FiM as my happy show since I was obsessed with Keldeo and I heard a few guys like it so I thought I might like it too. So the next morning I turned it on and the first episode I saw was Winter Wrap Up and I became hooked ever since. Though I only saw a few episodes in April and May, it wasn't until June where I really started getting into it.

Edited March 27, 2015 by TheJLeeTeam

[Mrain901 216]

For a while I didn't really get what a "fandom" really was, so I was kinda like, "Ok, people like My Little Pony... whatever..." One day at school, however, a friend started telling me about the show and he mentioned a lot of the villains in it, and I specifically remember thinking: This sounds like some anime... but at the time I didn't really watch much TV so I kinda ignored it. It wasn't until I had seen the S1 finale of Gravity Falls (I'm going somewhere with this) that I decided to watch it, since Gravity Falls showed me how good a TV show can be. I realized that there were some really good shows out there, and I remembered MLP, and thought, "Meh, why not." And from then on I was assimilated into the herd.

 

Also worth noting that this was actually the first place I connected with the fandom outside of listening to a couple songs from Toaster and Tombstone. I have a history of joining a lot of forums (I think I'm at 8 or 9 now) and this was a logical first step.

[ArDee 100]

April 2014. Got into fanfiction first, then watched the S4 finale a couple days after it premiered; I've watched most, but not all, of the episodes as of now. My first anniversary will be shortly after the S5 premiere, closer to S5E3, which is a neat coincidence.

Edited March 27, 2015 by RCTM

[RedFlag450 0]

I became a brony in July of 2012. Before that I heard about the brony fandom and found it actually quite interesting. I than decided to give the show a try and I enjoyed it. Twilight and Pinkie are the best in my personal sentiment.

[MLG4Ever 876]

It is in the Hiatus of S3 and S4 and I found this video in the recommend section:

And then I started watching the show

1st episode was Babs Seed and the morals of the show got me hooked

A year later I was very popular on twitter and don't know how I got so popular on there (@TheRealMLG4Ever [does not exist anymore] )

https://twitter.com/travisodyssey/status/510565997468606464

https://twitter.com/TheBiggestJim/status/496157129800040448

...yep pretty much sums up everything

Edited March 30, 2015 by MLG4Ever

[MikatheDoctor'sfan 11]

I watched the show and love it. Pretty simple really and as for when.   I think it was around May at 2013 I started watching it.  

[Alphys Hedge 671]

I became a brony in late June 2014. I started out by finding "Sonic vs. Rainbow Dash", I watched it, and I was like "Hey, haven't I seen that rainbow thingy somewhere?" I looked up rainbow dash, found the series, and long story short, I watched the first episode, the second episode, the third the fourth fifth sixth seventh etc.

[vivishy 1,032]

I became interested in the show in August of 2012. An ex told me all about this great show about ponies. I'll admit when I first heard about it I was a bit skeptical but after watching the episode Sonic Rainboom I got hooked. So, I went on Netflix and started watching it from season 1. After that I started watching it when it would come on TV. I did not join the forums until recently but I'm so glad I did. I just really love discussing things on here and the community is so positive and friendly.  

[xCuddlefish 41]

 

Basically, I got into MLP when Portal 2 was out, or at least some time when this was released. So about March of 2011. I've been on and off in terms of the community, but its one that I definitely always come back to.

[Honsou 399]

Sadly, for years, I made fun of Bronies, MLP and everything associated with the brand. One day this year, after watching a fantasy character deathmatch video on youtube which featured Rainbow Dash vs Starscream, I decided to check it out. I watched the Season 1 pilot, and the story hooked me instantly. And the rest is history. I won't buy any of the toys though. My money goes to tobacco, cars, and bullets. If I have money left over, it goes to 40k Miniatures.

[Lagrangian 64]

Hmmmmm, whenever the end of season 1 was.