Long essay/report on MLP/Bronies/fanfiction; needing some constructive help

Knight Hadron · March 24, 2015

So I've been working on a MLP paper in my free time; here is the result. Of course, it isn't finished - I don't have an introduction yet and it isn't finished writing-wise. But before I write more I wanted to get this out and see what you guys think; I don't know if I'm mis-representing the fandom or not. I write in a very casual style, some of that will be cleaned up, some won't be cleaned up. The big thing I'd like help on is telling me if I'm missing anything important about the fandom or saying something wrong. For your information, I'm in high school, this is not connected with school, and I'm also going to use this to explain to my parents that I watch this show. I repeat: this essay has not been totally written yet. I actually doubt anyone is going to read this long thing. End of ramble. Let's hope the forum software doesn't cut me off. 21737 characters including quotes.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (MLP:FiM) is an animated television series based off the toy line My Little Pony, which reached its height of popularity in the 80's. My Little Pony was a toy franchise with several animated works targeted entirely to young girls. In 2008, Lauren Faust was approached by Hasbro to reboot the MLP franchise (the last animated series was in the 90's). Faust had worked on many award-winning animated series before then, such as The Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, and Lisa Licht from Hasbro Studios thought that Faust's style would be well suited to the MLP line. To quote from Wikipedia:

Faust said she was "extremely skeptical" about taking the job at first because she had always found shows based on girls' toys to be boring and unrelatable. My Little Pony was one of her favorite childhood toys, but she was disappointed that her imagination at the time was nothing like the animated shows, in which the characters, according to Faust, "just had endless tea parties, giggled over nothing and defeated villains by either sharing with them or crying". With the chance to work on

My Little Pony

, she hoped to prove that "cartoons for girls don't have to be a puddle of smooshy, cutesy-wootsy, goody-two-shoeness". (Wikipedia,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Little_Pony:_Friendship_Is_Magic#Origin

)

Faust had created a world for her childhood My Little Pony toys to play in, and she set out to make that world a reality. With diverse personalities of the characters, wonderful animation, a expertly-chosen color set, and a more realistic take on interactions between characters than many children's TV shows, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic was destined from the start to be something different and fantastic. Then, add on the fact that the MLP team knew that many parents would be watching the show with their kids and therefore added in pop-culture references. Unto that add that, even though the show was designed for children, Faust included deeper meanings and places where adults could walk away with something more than their 8 year old could. That makes MLP, at base value, one of the better childrens' shows. Although, I must admit, I am biased towards MLP so of course I'm going to say that.

So all that is good and well. MLP:FiM premiered on October 10, 2010. Currently, four seasons have elapsed, and a fifth is planned for Spring 2015. Children like it, and Hasbro sells lots of MLP toys. What could go wrong?

Enter the internet. And go deep into it. Deep enough to find 4chan. Described as a “charming internet cesspool”, 4chan is a anonymous internet image board, somewhat like a forum. Numerous memes have been born at 4chan, and trolls abound. If you aren't careful, you'll run into either instructions for homemade explosives or boatloads of pornography. Just like the rest of the internet, but in much easier access format. I could write more about it, but I'd rather not...4chan is disgusting. One man said “If the internet were a human being, 4chan would be its anus”.

Why am I saying all that? Because, someway through Season 1 of MLP, some guy posted a MLP image on the cartoon board of 4chan. He wanted to poke fun at it, but instead, like many memes, it exploded. Here comes the fun part. Pony threads started appearing on many boards, and the mostly-male commenters got hooked. They made it to the infamous /b/ board. To quote from Jezebel (censorship mine):

Big-eyed, pastel-colored cartoon ponies who talk about friendship are the antithesis of everything /b/ stands for, and thus a civil war broke out on the boards. The denizens of /b/ fought back against the influx of ponydom with bannings and the usual photos of hardcore sex acts and dead things, which would traumatize the average internet user for life. According to Know Your Meme, the Bronies adopted a surprising mantra: "I'm gonna' love and tolerate the s*** outta you." Fans responded to hate by calmly working around bannings and posting even more pony pictures, enraging their /b/ opponents even further. Eventually things died down when the creator of 4chan acknowledged the popularity of ponies on the boards. Says fan Sam Levine:

"My Little Pony is the only group to take on 4chan and win. 4chan once took on the F.B.I. and won. So you might say that

My Little Pony

is more powerful than the F.B.I." (

http://jezebel.com/5827591/the-unlikely-origins-of-the-brony-or-dudes-who-like-my-little-pony

)

Just in case you are wondering, I stay away from 4chan. Should be obvious. So, basically MLP took over the /b/ board. Since then, 4chan has made separate pony boards and most “bronies” moved to MLP-centeric sites. Most bronies today have never been to 4chan; they found the show through cleaner means. Just like me. I'm only saying all this 4chan stuff to show how MLP and the internet interacted and are interacting, as I will elaborate on later.

So bronies are fans of a children's show called MLP:FiM, which was developed from the start to be better than an avarage mindless childrens' TV show, and they started as a joke on 4chan, an internet imageboard, but inadvertanly took over 4chan and transformed into something bigger. Bronies eventually moved off 4chan and created their own websites, such as fimfiction (fanfiction), Equestria Daily (news), and others. They also created large amounts of fan work, such as music, art, fiction, commentaries on episodes, and in-depth analysis of the show. Most bronies today have found the show through those means, not 4chan; I myself found the show through a programming forum: a user's profile picture had a pony on it and I decided to find what all this fuss was about.

Grantland puts it this way:

When

Friendship Is Magic

launched in 2010, it became an immediate hit not only with its intended demo of young girls, but an unexpected group of dudes, whose age was also way out of the projected range. Men of all ages came to defend the show after the website 4Chan republished an essay on Cartoon Brew written by animation critic Amid Amidi, who tore into the show for its blatant pandering and product tie-ins — Amidi considered this a throwback to the ’80s when more or less every new cartoon came with an accompanying range of toys. 4Chan commenters sprang to the show’s defense, pointing out that it was actually very well-constructed, looked great for a Flash animation, and genuinely aspired to teach good values through its “Elements of Harmony”: generosity, loyalty, honesty, kindness, laughter, and magic. It’s interesting that the Bronies movement sprang from 4Chan, which is known for picking up cultural rocks great and small to GIF the bugs wiggling underneath.

Friendship Is Magic

memes and in-jokes took off on 4Chan, and anti-

Pony

trolling got so vicious that any discussion of

My Little Pony

whatsoever was temporarily banned on the site. Meanwhile, Brony fandom took off more than ever, with websites, art communities, and even terrible microgenres of music devoted to celebrating

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

. (

http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/the-internet-is-magic-exploring-the-wonderful-world-of-my-little-pony-fandom-in-bronies/

)

It's one way of putting it at least.

Documentaries have been produced and essays have been written about how and why there is still a fandom around My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. It's hard to say, as each individual enjoys the show for different reasons, much like any other adult fandom. Unlike Star Trek, Doctor Who, and other adult fandoms, however, MLP:FiM is radically different.

Todd VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club favorably noted its "sheer and utter joyfulness" and lack of cyncism, unlike many other shows that have garnered a cult following of parents and adults. He also complimented the show's complexity as compared to other children's shows. MLP:FiM teaches friendship, joy, and a positive outlook on life. Sexuality is non-existent, death is not portrayed (except for one shot with a funeral in the background that children would easily miss), and violence is generally avoided, and when violence is used, it does not have any ecessive gore or anger which could contaminate the innocence of the show. The animation mirrors the joyfullness of the show: expertly-chosen colors and cute animation make the show itself almost addictive, without being too “girly”.

Also, I quote from wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Sincerity#As_a_cultural_movement:

As [an] example of New Sincerity as a cultural movement, some writers have pointed to the adult fans of the Canadian/American animated television show,

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

.

The show, which premiered in 2010, is designed to foster sales of Hasbro's toy line, but has attracted older teenage and adult fans outside the show's target demographic of young girls and their parents. The fans, who call themselves bronies, have been described as "internet neo-sincerity at its best", unabashedly enjoying the show and challenging the preconceived gender roles that such a show ordinarily carries. As many of these fans are technology-savvy, the brony community have created a large number of derivative works ranging from artwork, stories, music, and video media.

One reason for this “anabashed enjoyment” of the show is that the internet is anonomous. 4chan is. Deviantart is. Youtube is. The internet only knows you by what you chose to reveal under your internet name. Change your name, and no one knows who you are. So, even though some teens may not want to admit they love a children's show in real life, they can do so online without danger. That feeling of rebelling against cultural norms holds a real anchor in many teenagers, and liking MLP:FiM is one such act of disconformity. Then, with brony conventions, meet-ups, and the like, the internet personality can finally meet up with the real person, and the bronies can finally meet face to face. Because of their common interest, and having no fear of not being accepted as a brony, normally insecure bronies can be open with other bronies.

Most likely, that's why there is such a big deal in the brony circles to “come out of the closet”. One would think it's like being gay or something, and in one way, it is. Bronies and gays are socially condemned for the most part, and online, anonomously, they can show their true identity. A little off topic, but I also would like to note that anonomousity on the internet can be used, not only to show what you are afraid to show in real life, but to do what you are afraid to do in real life. People can talk dirty about elected officials, black people, and the like on the internet because of anonomousity, but in real life, they would never in their right mind call the current president racist to his face. Back on topic. So not only is liking MLP:FiM against cultural norms in the first place, it is also a message of love and tolerance, something that in this day and age young men are not assumed to show. Young men play video games. They shoot up bad goblins attacking their camp. They play football. They rebel against parents. They do not watch candy-colored ponies. So loving My Little Pony is against what people expect, making it dangerous to like in the age of the crowd. That gives it a special appeal.

Also, because MLP:FiM is a show about friendship, the brony community is very tolerant, and because of the above-given reasons, a lot of insecure/disabled/autistic people cling to the show. Sometimes, in this world filled with hate, they want a safe, loving place to come home to; in fact, some bronies found hope for living after finding the MLP fandom. Others use it as a form of escapism. But don't get me wrong; this doesn't mean all bronies are like this. You've just got to be careful, because if you let a few mentally-disabled people contaminate your opinion of the show....you're wrong. There are many people who go to the other extreme: they over-analyse the show. That isn't bad, and is quite fun actually. Because the show has many references to other eras, such as Jewdish mysticism, Greek culture, and others, developing theories of how the world of Equestria works is quite fun. I'm getting off topic here. Many people quip that the brony community is autist and retarded. While one bad apple can't spoil the bunch of good apples in this context, from an outsider's point of view, they can. Please don't take this as offence to autistic people; a lot of them have been helped from MLP:FiM. I guess I think that I can't assume that the general reader understands that autism is used as a common insult on the interwebs, and that I can't assume that people are immune to flaming...off my rant box.

From wikipedia (Sorry guys, I hate quoting from wikipedia too....) (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Little_Pony:_Friendship_Is_Magic_fandom#History):

One contributor to "The Brony Study", Dr. Marsha Redden said that the adult fans are "a reaction to the US having been engrossed in terrorism for past ten years" in a manner similar to the Cold War, and are "tired of being afraid, tired of angst and animosity"; the show and its fandom are outlets from those strifes. She compared the brony fandom to that of the bohmians and beatniks after World War II and of the hippies after the Vietnam War. In a similar vein, Amy Keating Rogers, one of the show's writers, believes that the fans have come to like

Friendship Is Magic

due to "so much cynicism and negativity out there in so many [other] shows", while the show "has such a positive message" that counters this.

Just compare MLP's fandom to other adult fandoms. While I haven't researched this a lot, I can just say that whatever you say against MLP I can spin onto any other fandom, and add that MLP is in general a show that is much much more happy and innocent than most other adult fandoms.

Because of MLP:FiM's origin in 4chan and the internet, meme culture is very deep in MLP. Memes such as 20% cooler, 10 seconds flat, Scootallo the chicken, Sweetie Belle the dictonary, and numerous others abound. Pony people sometimes are overjoyed by pony and spam pony pictures on forums unrelated to pony. I take that as just a quirk of the fandom and accept it.

But there are some quirks that you can't overlook. The cloppers. WARNING: Viewer discretion advised from now until I say so. Cloppers are people, mostly men, who, bluntly said, find sexual gratification in pony porn. Pony porn abounds if you aren't careful, in the form of pictures and stories, called clop. If you turn the mature content filter off on fimfiction.net, the fan fiction site, the home page is filled with disgusting clop material and gore. Most of the brony community looks down on the cloppers and doesn't encourage them. The cloppers, for the most part, stay to themselves. I'm saying this not to strike fear but as a warning. The internet is full of bad things, and the rule of the internet that says “if it exists, there is porn of it” is horrifingly true. Also things to avoid are the obvious: exessive gore and violence, and the typical demented stuff. Because MLP exists on the internet, bad people will exist alongside MLP. Basically, I can summarize this section as: there are people out there who strip MLP of its innocence and turn it into a form of sexual or carnal gratification. They have managed to somewhat make the 4chan pony boards an unsafe place (not that they ever were, being 4chan), and gave bronies a bad name. Even so, the brony mantra is not to lash out at them but to tolerate (not accept) them. END OF WARNING.

Let's move on to cleaner, fun stuff. Hmm...COLORS! The color choices of MLP! Some people credit the insanely cute characters and the expertly chosen color combinations for their like of the show. It's just so joyful and innocent in contrast to our world, a world full of distrust and violence. I may seem cynical about real life here but I'm not; I'm just stating a contrast.

Many people go to MLP for its postive outlook. Many have written fan works, be it art, music, or fiction. Even non-fiction analysis of the show. Their works can be found easily. Fimfiction.net is one that I would refer you too, but with the warning to beware of clop, gore, and extremely bad writing; any one of those might tarnish your opinion of the show, and I don't want to risk that. Speaking of fimfiction, I have got to delve into homosexuality for a moment, to clear up any suspicion. Then I'll get back on track to talking about me and how I have interacted with and discovered My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

If you spend any time on any fan work site, you will undoubtly find homosexuality, usually shipping a female with female. In case you didn't know, shipping is defined as the following (taken from http://mlpfanart.wikia.com/wiki/Shipping):

Shipping

is a term in fandoms describing the act of putting two characters in fictional work together in a relationship, romantic or otherwise. It is known as a very common activity within most fandoms, and is the result of the emotional involvement the fans put into their respective fandoms. The word shipping itself is derived from the word "relation

ship

", and is used as a noun ("a ship"), verb ("to ship"), and adjective ("that moment is shippy"). Other synonyms for shipping include pairing or coupling.

It's kind of given that people are going to ship MLP characters. The question is, which ones? Well, because the show was targeted towards girls, the main characters are girls. The Mane Six, the two princesses, and others are all females. Derpy, Trixie, Zecora, etc. The male characters (Royal Guard, Shining Armor, Big Mac, and other background characters) do not have as distinctively carved personalities, and even then, they remain as background characters. Which means, the most common option is to ship the main characters, who happen to be female. Sorry guys.

But I don't think that there is any push against lesbian ponies; given an encreasingly accepting culture and general tolerance from brony to fellow brony, those who ship female to female are still loved, even by those who don't personally ship the characters. I can't say for sure, because most male-to-female stories are clop related and I can't find any male-male that aren't clop (however I haven't looked for them so...), but I can safely say that most ships are female-female. Soarin-Dash, Fluttershy-Big Mac, and Rarity-some male character, usually OC, Rarity-Spike, and Spike-one of the CMC are the big male-female ones by my experience. I don't know why I just said all this. Anyway.

Point is, you can't avoid lesbian ponies completely like you can avoid clop or gore; they are too widespread. So, because many (not all) good fan works are romance, how does one go about this stuff? For me, is it safe for me to read female-female shipping, even though I am a Christian? Please do not hold me accountable for any wrong theology here; it is not my intent.

First off, what we are dealing with is a fictional depiction of two female characters in a romantic relationship that may or may not be marriage and may or may not be sexual in nature at the time of writing, and that is located in the fictional universe of Equestria, where there is no supernatural being such as a god; however, I do not know if morals are relative or absolute – that would in a philosophy paper not here – so I don't know if there is an absolute “sin”-type wrongdoing in Equestria.

“Fictional depiction”: These characters are fictional and not real; they are in a fictional universe, and our imagination is the only catalyst for their being. Therefore, what is wrong in our universe does not have to be wrong in the fictional universe.

“Two female characters in a romantic relationship...bla bla bla...”: Basically homosexuality. My personal thoughts on Equestrian sexuality is, because of the wide mantra of love, friendship, and the like, that sexuality is non-existent. Because of the need to reproduce, ponies generally have hetrosexual relationships, but female-female relationships might be able to reproduce because of magic spells. While socially, homosexuality might be frowned upon, I see no basis for it being a wrong act in Equestria. Given that, I could extend the realm of acceptance to relationships with more than two people, but I'm not going that way. However, I still outlaw rape, sexual abuse, rampant orgies, and other “sins” such as that. In other words, sex must be founded in love, not desire, just as on Earth.

Speaking of Earth, I must say that I believe that homosexuality is wrong on Earth. Some people are going to argue that fact, and interpet the biblical passages condemmning homosexuality in a way so that the passages aren't actually condemmning homosexuality. Even if they are in fact right in their interpetation, I stand by the argument that homosexuality is not God's plan for marriage. With female-female or male-male, the symbolism isn't there, 1 Corintians 11 falls apart, the creation story falls apart, everything relating to husband/wife is demolished, and so on. Also, God calls us to reproduce, and you can't do that with homosexuality. In a last stab, the people for homosexuality would call on the argument “God loves everyone, love is love, love knows no bounds, love knows no gender”. To that, I would say that love knows no gender, but a romantic love is designed for both genders together. In other words, love is limitless, but the special type of love that binds a husband and wife can only be found in hetrosexuality.

So, in this universe, homosexuality is not God's intent. Because it goes against His will, it is sin. However, that relies not on moral precepts common to mankind such as honesty, but on the existence of a God. Honesty is benefitial even without faith in God, but abstence from homosexuality does not offer any personal improvement unless there is faith in God. I'm gonna get some arguments there, so I'll just say that I'm talking about homosexuality at base value; the sexual/romantic/social/moral/physical actions commonly associated with homosexuality are not at play here. I am talking about a loving homosexual relationship where the only difference, to someone that does not have faith or cultural bias, is the gender of the people involved. Homosexuality, while it could be argued that it isn't nature's way of sexual relationships, generally does not violate any hard and fast moral rules except for those that society or religion puts on.

Which means, that if you move into a universe that does not have God as its backbone, there is no argument against homosexuality besides cultural ones. There are other reasons (natural/other), but they are debatable; such as the following argument against the claim that homosexuals are worthless to society because they can't reproduce: you don't really need everyone in a relationship that can produce offspring in a civilized society (like Equestria) – that requirement is bigger in a primitive society. Equestria does not have a god as its backbone, and therefore there is not really a restriction on sexuality, save culturally-frowned upon ones and of course “relationships” that are not based in love such as rape and orgies; in other words, to any sexual act that is not performed in love but in sexual desire, I see a big reason against.

So, in the fictional universe of Equestria, there is not a reason against homosexuality. People can write fanfics about homosexual relationships and the story itself will not be bad, unless it contains bad material like I have discussed. However, is reading those stories bad when you are a Christian? Is imagining a relationship that, in the fictional universe, is good, but in real life, it isn't? I'm now talking only about true, loving relationships that are based in love, not sexual desire. It's kind of hard to find fics like that out there but they do exist. Back on topic. I don't have a hard-and-fast answer for you here, but I'll at least give some points.

One, what is fiction is fiction. Just because I read something does not mean I'm going to do that. I can read, say, Greek myths for the fun of the epics, as long as I keep in mind that it isn't true and that I shouldn't gain my enjoyment from sinful acts portrayed in the story. I'll make up an example.

Say there is a story, in a fictional universe. This universe is in the middle of a war, and the soldiers are rough-and-tumble guys with thick swearing tendencies. Should I do injustice to the characters and filter the “bad” words? Should I filter out the war's violence? Yes, if I'm writing to children or going to give the story to sensitive adults. But, if the person is not affected in a bad way by depictions of violence, then is he free to read it, provided he does not find enjoyment in the bad acts themselves? Taking that over to shipping, I can say, what if there is an universe with no “god”, but still morals, and two females are in a loving relationship? On Earth, due to it being against God's will, those relationships would not be good to have. However, without God, as I have shown, romantic love doesn't really have to have limitations. Therefore, in this fictional universe, homosexuality is fine. And, is it fine to read? Assuming you don't get enjoyment out of the fact that there is homosexuality, but rather the love/story behind it, I can't find an argument against it.

So, until I find an opposing argument that holds ground, I will say that reading fiction that takes place in a different world with acts that are against what our God says here on Earth, but acceptable in the fictional universe, is fine to read, given the following conditions:

1. That the reader does not gain enjoyment from reading the carnal acts themselves.

2. That the reader is not affected badly from the carnal acts.

3. That any act that is evil here on Earth, but ok in the fictional universe, is ok to read. Such as homosexual relationships where love, not carnal attraction, is the key factor.

In essence, evil acts in fiction are to be viewed at the viewer's discretion, and acts that are founded in good principles like love are certainly fine in the fictional universe and can be read, even if they happen to intrude on this universe's biblical principles. I really can't express myself here well by the looks of it, so I may have said something unintentially wrong. Forgive me.

Whew. Done with that sub-essay on shipping and fiction and such. Now let's back up a little. You've got all the background information on MLP and bronies and such. Now, maybe you're asking, why? Why all this?

I could go on and on. Gender issues, the intended demographic, and more. But that delves into philosophy, socialogy (spelling is wrong there), and such issues. I'm going to try to bring this long, winding essay to a conclusion somewhere. I'm going to now move from the brony fandom itself to me. I'm going to explain why I came, why I stayed, and what I think of the fandom. Some of those other issues that I stated will come up, and I will discuss them. Hopefully, some of the confusion from my earlier ramblings about the fandom's demographic and actions will clear up.

AmberDust · March 25, 2015

Oh, dear. Hopefully you don't need something this extensive just to confront your parents...

The first thing I'd mention is to change "the '80s" to "the 1980s". Time to read the rest...

Okay, secondly, NEVER quote Wikipedia. Find where Wikipedia got this fact, and quote that source instead. this is a good tip for every essay.

Okay, this is...really long. But here's my tip: you the a little too casual with your language at some points, and it takes away from the credibility. Also, there are a few awkward sentences in reversed-syntax that should be fixed. ("So bronies are fans of a...")

Additionally, you should typically keep to third person and not mention your own opinion. Like when you're talking about 4chan, you keep mentioning how you personally stay away from it. This doesn't really add anything to the essay, so you can just omit it. Or just replace it with "this is where/how I discovered the show" when you get to that part.

I'll try to read the rest later.

Edited March 25, 2015 by AmberDust

Knight Hadron · March 25, 2015

Oh, dear. Hopefully you don't need something this extensive just to confront your parents...

The first thing I'd mention is to change "the '80s" to "the 1980s". Time to read the rest...

Okay, secondly, NEVER quote Wikipedia. Find where Wikipedia got this fact, and quote that source instead. this is a good tip for every essay.

Okay, this is...really long. But here's my tip: you the a little too casual with your language at some points, and it takes away from the credibility. Also, there are a few awkward sentences in reversed-syntax that should be fixed. ("So bronies are fans of a...")

Additionally, you should typically keep to third person and not mention your own opinion. Like when you're talking about 4chan, you keep mentioning how you personally stay away from it. This doesn't really add anything to the essay, so you can just omit it. Or just replace it with "this is where/how I discovered the show" when you get to that part.

I'll try to read the rest later.

I was afraid no one would read this long thing .

A lot of the casual language is just me thinking out loud. I'll clean it up later; I tend to write casual then clean it up, because if I write "correctly" the first time I spend more time thinking about how I'm writing not what I'm writing.

I'm not doing this "just" to have something to show my parents; that's a side benefit. I just want to collect my research and thoughts on the fandom.

For the 4chan part...I understand what you are saying. However, my parents....I don't know if they would freak out about me being online to the extent I am. They haven't restricted me, but they sorta imply that they want me to be careful. That's maybe why I'm too cautious in how I talk.

As for wikipedia, *sigh*. About 4 quotes from wikipedia that aren't wikipedia quoting someone else. I don't know how to "reword" the information without it being plagarization, maybe I could find other articles and quote, or just say it in my words, which usually turns out to be close to what I'm copying from. Any suggestions?

By the way, you started out with "Oh, dear." From then on I felt like Rarity was talking to me, until you said Wikipedia.

AmberDust · March 25, 2015

All points on Wikipedia are paired with a citation to the original source. I could help you reword some if you send me the quotes directly from the source. I love essays. (I'm a nerd, I know.)

Knight Hadron · March 29, 2015

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (MLP:FiM) is an animated television series based off the toy line My Little Pony, which reached its height of popularity in the 1980's. My Little Pony was a toy franchise with several animated works targeted entirely to young girls. In 2008, Lauren Faust was approached by Hasbro to reboot the MLP franchise (the last animated series was in the 90's). Faust had worked on many award-winning animated series before then, such as The Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, and Lisa Licht from Hasbro Studios thought that Faust's style would be well suited to the MLP line. Faust, however, was very skeptical about taking on the task. She found many shows aimed at young girls, especially ones based on toys, to be boring and unrelatable. Her childhood imagination had taken MLP toys and transported them to a complex and vibrant world. She wanted to turn that world that her childhood My Little Pony toys were in into reality, and prove that “cartoons for girls don't have to be a puddle of smooshy, cutesy-wootsy, goody-two-shoeness", as Faust said in an magazine article (http://msmagazine.com/blog/2010/12/24/my-little-non-homophobic-non-racist-non-smart-shaming-pony-a-rebuttal/).

Faust had created a world for her childhood My Little Pony toys to play in, and she set out to make that world a reality. With diverse personalities of the characters, wonderful animation, a expertly-chosen color set, and a more realistic take on interactions between characters than many children's TV shows, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic was destined from the start to be something different and fantastic. Then, add on the fact that the MLP team knew that many parents would be watching the show with their kids and therefore added in pop-culture references. Unto that add that, even though the show was designed for children, Faust included deeper meanings and places where adults could walk away with something more than their 8 year old could. That makes MLP, at base value, one of the better childrens' shows.

So all that is good and well. MLP:FiM premiered on October 10, 2010. Currently, four seasons have elapsed, and a fifth is planned for Spring 2015. Children like it, and Hasbro sells lots of MLP toys. What could go wrong?

Enter the internet. And go deep into it. Deep enough to find 4chan. Described as a “charming internet cesspool”, 4chan is a anonymous internet image board, somewhat like a forum. Numerous memes have been born at 4chan, and trolls abound. If you aren't careful, you'll run into either instructions for homemade explosives or boatloads of pornography. Just like the rest of the internet, but in much easier access format. I could write more about it, but I'd rather not...4chan is disgusting. One man said “If the internet were a human being, 4chan would be its anus”.

Why am I saying all that? Because, someway through Season 1 of MLP, some guy posted a MLP image on the cartoon board of 4chan. He wanted to poke fun at it, but instead, like many memes, it exploded. Here comes the fun part. Pony threads started appearing on many boards, and the mostly-male commenters got hooked. They made it to the infamous /b/ board. To quote from Jezebel (censorship mine):

So, basically MLP took over the /b/ board. Since then, 4chan has made separate pony boards and most “bronies” moved to MLP-centeric sites. Most bronies today have never been to 4chan; they found the show through cleaner means. The reason for all this 4chan stuff to show how MLP and the internet interacted and are interacting, as I will elaborate on later."My Little Pony is the only group to take on 4chan and win. 4chan once took on the F.B.I. and won. So you might say that My Little Pony is more powerful than the F.B.I." (http://jezebel.com/5827591/the-unlikely-origins-of-the-brony-or-dudes-who-like-my-little-pony)Big-eyed, pastel-colored cartoon ponies who talk about friendship are the antithesis of everything /b/ stands for, and thus a civil war broke out on the boards. The denizens of /b/ fought back against the influx of ponydom with bannings and the usual photos of hardcore sex acts and dead things, which would traumatize the average internet user for life. According to Know Your Meme, the Bronies adopted a surprising mantra: "I'm gonna' love and tolerate the s*** outta you." Fans responded to hate by calmly working around bannings and posting even more pony pictures, enraging their /b/ opponents even further. Eventually things died down when the creator of 4chan acknowledged the popularity of ponies on the boards. Says fan Sam Levine:

So bronies are fans of a children's show called MLP:FiM, which was developed from the start to be better than an avarage mindless childrens' TV show, and they started as a joke on 4chan, an internet imageboard, but inadvertanly took over 4chan and transformed into something bigger. Bronies eventually moved off 4chan and created their own websites, such as fimfiction (fanfiction), Equestria Daily (news), and others. They also created large amounts of fan work, such as music, art, fiction, commentaries on episodes, and in-depth analysis of the show. Most bronies today have found the show through those means, not 4chan; I myself found the show through a programming forum: a user's profile picture had a pony on it and I decided to find what all this fuss was about.

Grantland puts it this way:

It's one way of putting it at least.When Friendship Is Magic launched in 2010, it became an immediate hit not only with its intended demo of young girls, but an unexpected group of dudes, whose age was also way out of the projected range. Men of all ages came to defend the show after the website 4Chan republished an essay on Cartoon Brew written by animation critic Amid Amidi, who tore into the show for its blatant pandering and product tie-ins — Amidi considered this a throwback to the ’80s when more or less every new cartoon came with an accompanying range of toys. 4Chan commenters sprang to the show’s defense, pointing out that it was actually very well-constructed, looked great for a Flash animation, and genuinely aspired to teach good values through its “Elements of Harmony”: generosity, loyalty, honesty, kindness, laughter, and magic. It’s interesting that the Bronies movement sprang from 4Chan, which is known for picking up cultural rocks great and small to GIF the bugs wiggling underneath. Friendship Is Magic memes and in-jokes took off on 4Chan, and anti-Pony trolling got so vicious that any discussion of My Little Pony whatsoever was temporarily banned on the site. Meanwhile, Brony fandom took off more than ever, with websites, art communities, and even terrible microgenres of music devoted to celebrating My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. (http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/the-internet-is-magic-exploring-the-wonderful-world-of-my-little-pony-fandom-in-bronies/)

Documentaries have been produced and essays have been written about how and why there is still a fandom around My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. It's hard to say, as each individual enjoys the show for different reasons, much like any other adult fandom. Unlike Star Trek, Doctor Who, and other adult fandoms, however, MLP:FiM is radically different.

Todd VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club favorably noted its "sheer and utter joyfulness" and lack of cyncism, unlike many other shows that have garnered a cult following of parents and adults. He also complimented the show's complexity as compared to other children's shows. MLP:FiM teaches friendship, joy, and a positive outlook on life. Sexuality is non-existent, death is not portrayed (except for one shot with a funeral in the background that children would easily miss), and violence is generally avoided, and when violence is used, it does not have any ecessive gore or anger which could contaminate the innocence of the show. The animation mirrors the joyfullness of the show: expertly-chosen colors and cute animation make the show itself almost addictive, without being too “girly”.

Quoting from Wired:

Every nerd has a favorite TV show they watch religiously and know inside and out. But

My Little Pony

seems like an unlikely object of fanboy love. Since the show debuted last fall on cable channel Hub TV, it’s attracted a growing number of male fanatics. Their love of the show is

internet neo-sincerity

at its best: In addition to watching the show, these teenage, twenty- and thirtysomething guys are creating pony art, posting fan videos on YouTube and feeding threads on 4chan (and their own chan,

Ponychan

). (from

http://www.wired.com/2011/06/bronies-my-little-ponys/)

One reason for this anabashed enjoyment of the show is that the internet is anonomous. 4chan is. Deviantart is. Youtube is. The internet only knows you by what you chose to reveal under your internet name. Change your name, and no one knows who you are. So, even though some teens may not want to admit they love a children's show in real life, they can do so online without danger. That feeling of rebelling against cultural norms holds a real anchor in many teenagers, and liking MLP:FiM is one such act of disconformity. Then, with brony conventions, meet-ups, and the like, the internet personality can finally meet up with the real person, and the bronies can finally meet face to face. Because of their common interest, and having no fear of not being accepted as a brony, normally insecure bronies can be open with other bronies.

Most likely, that's why there is such a big deal in the brony circles to “come out of the closet”. One would think it's like being gay or something, and in one way, it is. Bronies and gays are socially condemned for the most part, and online, anonomously, they can show their true identity. A little off topic, but I also would like to note that anonomousity on the internet can be used, not only to show what you are afraid to show in real life, but to do what you are afraid to do in real life. People can talk dirty about elected officials, black people, and the like on the internet because of anonomousity, but in real life, they would never in their right mind call the current president racist to his face. Back on topic. So not only is liking MLP:FiM against cultural norms in the first place, it is also a message of love and tolerance, something that in this day and age young men are not assumed to show. Young men play video games. They shoot up bad goblins attacking their camp. They play football. They rebel against parents. They do not watch candy-colored ponies. So loving My Little Pony is against what people expect, making it dangerous to like in the age of the crowd. That gives it a special appeal.

Also, because MLP:FiM is a show about friendship, the brony community is very tolerant, and because of the above-given reasons, a lot of insecure/disabled/autistic people cling to the show. Sometimes, in this world filled with hate, they want a safe, loving place to come home to; in fact, some bronies found hope for living after finding the MLP fandom. Others use it as a form of escapism. But don't get me wrong; this doesn't mean all bronies are like this. You've just got to be careful, because if you let a few mentally-disabled people contaminate your opinion of the show....you're wrong.

There are many people who go to the other extreme: they over-analyse the show. That isn't bad, and is quite fun actually. Because the show has many references to other eras, such as Jewdish mysticism, Greek culture, and others, developing theories of how the world of Equestria works is quite fun. I'm getting off topic here. Many people quip that the brony community is autist and retarded. While one bad apple can't spoil the bunch of good apples in this context, from an outsider's point of view, they can. Please don't take this as offense to autistic people; a lot of them have been helped from MLP:FiM. I guess I think that I can't assume that the general reader understands that autism is used as a common insult on the interwebs, and that I can't assume that people are immune to flaming...off my rant box.

Neuropsychologist Dr. Marsha Redden did a study on bronies, plainly called the Brony Study, back in 2011. She talks about it in a news article from 2012:

And from Net Nebraska:“I think bronies are a reaction to the U.S. having been engrossed in terrorism for past ten years, living on the edge the same way my generation lived through the Cold War. They’re tired of being afraid, tired of angst and animosity. They want to go somewhere a lot more pleasant.” (quoted from http://www.dailydot.com/society/bronies-brony-my-little-pony-study/)Instead, Redden believes that the fandom is a normal response to the anxiety of life in a conflict-driven time, she said.After several months of studying bronies, she [Redden] doesn’t think, based on scientific evidence, that the group is as weird as they’re made out to be by some.

Marsha Redden said the show’s strong themes of friendship, paired with the focus on a moral or teaching moment woven through each episode, resonate with young people who’ve spent half their lives in the post-9/11 atmosphere of war and terror.

Also from Net Nebraska, same article:“My Little Pony is just the happiest, friendliest, let’s-all-get-along cartoon or show that you could find,” Redden said. “And this is a respite from the daily life of living with, ‘What level of terrorism are we today?’ and things like the bombing in Boston.” (from http://netnebraska.org/article/news/brony-fandom-carves-out-space-young-men-enjoy-friendship-and-cartoon-ponies)She pointed to the history of the 20th century: World War I was followed by the Roaring Twenties. World War II gave birth to bohemians and beatniks. The Vietnam War led to the hippies. Perhaps the so-called War on Terror has led to Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash.

North Carolina clinical psychologists

Marsha Redden and Patrick Edwards

have been studying Brony culture for the last few years.

They said many people are confused by – if not suspicious of – young men who are passionate about sparkly pink and purple ponies.

“(They say) it’s a gay thing, that they are sexual perverts, that they’re 30-year-olds who live in their parents’ basement and watch TV all day,” Edwards said. “You know, they must be a deviant group. And so our interest in the first survey was to look at some of those myths and see if in fact they were true.”

Redden and Edwards surveyed more than 24,000 Bronies

. Among their findings: the average age is 21 years old, and 86 percent percent of Bronies are male (some female fans call themselves “pegasisters,” but others prefer the umbrella “Brony” term).

As for the assumption that Bronies are gay? Edwards and Redden found that 84 percent consider themselves heterosexual.

“A lot of times, I think, when fandoms first start up, they first get bombarded with these negative stereotypes,” Edwards said. “But our research showed rather quickly that was not the case.”

Look for yourself. Compare MLP's fandom to other adult fandoms. While I haven't researched this a lot, I can just say that whatever you say against MLP I can spin onto any other fandom, and add that MLP is in general a show that is much much more happy and innocent than most other adult fandoms.