general When Has A Fandom Rubbed You The Wrong Way?

[King Sejong 858]

   I have been getting increasingly more distant from bronies daily, as it both infuriates me and concerns me at the same time. The one thing that has gotten my disappointment recently, is bronies trying to claim the show is their's, and that there are not enough child viewers to satisfy, yet Hasbro keeps tabs on it's viewers, so they know that families are at the heart of their audience. Bronies can be very gullible, believing in rumours and comments, this is quite visible on the Equestria Daily, such as the recent fan letter to Hasbro, real or not, the fact is that many people fell for it before any facts were given. Finally, this is perhaps the most defensive fandom I have ever been a part of, bronies defend their show like religious people defend their gospel, it is done with the same energy and frequency, as much as I like the show, I can better use my time than trolling haters, or brony dissidents, because any critique of the fandom can be seen as negative, and suddenly you get angry comments, this may be a young fandom, but it has matured more swiftly than past fandoms, due to the internet, as people from around the world can represent the Yin and Yang, for many of it's good fans, there are bad fans, so it's our inability to acknowledge that these people exist, and claim it's a small group, keeps us from confronting the negative characteristics of our fandom, even as we have lost many good fans on the forums, of people leaving for reasons important to them, it would be wise to understand and improve the fandom when it needs too, not because it was popular to do so.   

Edited November 16, 2015 by King Edouard

[CandyStrike 603]

I have plenty of issues with this fandom.

 

I really hate a lot of what the FiM fandom did regarding Muffins.  I hate the name Derpy and Ditzy and I hate everyone going "derp" and crossing their eyes.  And oh god how I hate the reaction most bronies have to the changing of her name. "Boo hoo, we're being censored." "Boo hoo, soccer moms and SJWs" "Boo hoo, they're oppressing the pony!".  No, you all made some bad choices about naming and characterizing a pony.  Learn from your mistake and move on.  The show did.

 

And then a lot of bronies did the same sh*t when there was that big blue pony on the episode Canterlot Boutique.  Rude, mocking names everywhere.

 

And then the kneejerk defending of JanAnimations.  It's like people don't understand basic copyright laws.

 

Also, rule 34 and ponies.

[BPCannon 193]

Slice Of Life was quite decent for a "pandering" episode.

 

No one's headcanons really got shattered, all the fan-favorite background Ponies got equal screentime (complete with surprises like Steven Magnet), and the moral was surprisingly unique and mature-ish.

 

Personally I liked 100, I just hope they keep a reasonable balance of non fan service episodes too. Firstly because it won't be appreciated as much or have as much impact if it happens all the time, and secondly because not all fan ideas are good ideas

 

As long as it still entertains my kids and keeps them quiet for a while though i'm happy

   I have been getting increasingly more distant from bronies daily, as it both infuriates me and concerns me at the same time. The one thing that has gotten my disappointment recently, is bronies trying to claim the show is their's, and that there are not enough child viewers to satisfy, yet Hasbro keeps tabs on it's viewers, so they know that families are at the heart of their audience. Bronies can be very gullible, believing in rumours and comments, this is quite visible on the Equestria Daily, such as the recent fan letter to Hasbro, real or not, the fact is that many people fell for it before any facts were given. Finally, this is perhaps the most defensive fandom I have ever been a part of, bronies defend their show like religious people defend their gospel, it is done with the same energy and frequency, as much as I like the show, I can better use my time than trolling haters, or brony dissidents, because any critique of the fandom can be seen as negative, and suddenly you get angry comments, this may be a young fandom, but it has matured more swiftly than past fandoms, due to the internet, as people from around the world can represent the Yin and Yang, for many of it's good fans, there are bad fans, so it's our inability to acknowledge that these people exist, and claim it's a small group, keeps us from confronting the negative characteristics of our fandom, even as we have lost many good fans on the forums, of people leaving for reasons important to them, it would be wise to understand and improve the fandom when it needs too, not because it was popular to do so.   

 

Big yep to the claiming of the fandom as their own. It's still a kids show before anything else, as it should be

 

With the inability to acknowledge the bad though, I just can't see it. I've honestly seen more Bronies complaining about Bronies and the fandom than defending it. in fact it almost seems at the moment saying anything positive about the fandom or the current season of the show will result in someone replying to tell you why it's all gone down hill and why the fandom is full of A holes. Excluding Youtube, where anything decent will have 70% praise 20% critique and 10% trollage

 

Just find it a bit ironic that the most common complaint from Bronies is that their own fandom can't accept negative comments and criticism, but no one ever seems to react bady to that complaint. Whenever someone tries to say something positive though, particularly if it's along the lines of "I actually still enjoy the show" someone always shows up shortly after to tell them their opinion is wrong, and why they should be more negative.

Edited November 16, 2015 by BPCannon

[Gestum 2,493]

Am I the only one who gets angry of at all of the "What episode should I show my friend?" topics? Not because there's anything wrong with showing your friends a episode but because there's always a idiot who says "You should show them the season 4 final, then they won't think that it's for girls because a show for girls can't have fights in them." or "Don't show them Slice of Life because it's about a wedding and then your friends will think that the show is only for little girls because only little girls likes weddings."

[AnArtisticPontato 91]

I get pretty mad when people harass or get mad at someone in any fandom who likes a ship that they don't or draws differently than the style of the show or comic or whatever. Just because someone does something you don't like doesn't mean you should pester them until they kill themselves! 

[Megas 27,064]

Am I the only one who gets angry of at all of the "What episode should I show my friend?" topics? Not because there's anything wrong with showing your friends a episode but because there's always a idiot who says "You should show them the season 4 final, then they won't think that it's for girls because a show for girls can't have fights in them." or "Don't show them Slice of Life because it's about a wedding and then your friends will think that the show is only for little girls because only little girls likes weddings."

I can see where you're coming from. Conceptually there's nothing wrong with them. "What episodes did I like that I think my friend's might like too?" That's all fine and good

 

But the stuff you bring up though does make them pretty counterintuitive, and instead just makes the show sound to tryhard and edgy

Edited November 18, 2015 by Megas75

[Guest]

Out of curiosity, can I ask, as someone who's been around this for 5 years, in your opinion have these things gotten worse or better recently?. I only encountered this fandom about a year ago, and while I have seen some of this stuff - having to find and pre check a lot of things before I let my kids view, means in the past year I've spent a lot of time on Youtube, EQD, FIMFiction, and MLP related Deviant Art groups - To me it's been very much the minority. For every 20 reasonable people/comments you get one asshole saying or linking something stupid, and they're generall shot down pretty quickly. Also seems to be quite a large number of Bronies around these days who acknowledge and criticize the same things you mentioned. So from my perspective as a comparative newbie, it seems like something that still goes on, but is consistently unwelcome to the larger community, rather than being frequent. Several people have said the community was more volatile around 2011-2013.

 

I suppose what i'm asking is, does it still seem as bad to you now as it always was, or do you think that perhaps some of the worse elements - the harassers and threateners, have moved on been chased out, or at least become less vocal due to people not taking their crap?

 

Just seen a fair few things like this where people openly air their complaints about other Bronies from within the fandom, and one of the things I was told early on was that saying anything that could be taken as "anti brony" would generate a lot of threats and hate, but I've never seen it.

 

 

As the fandom grew, so did the problems, it is the inherent nature of fandoms. Literally the first year of this fandom I actually enjoyed it immensely. The people in it were sensible and the one or two bad seeds you ran into got told off for behaving poorly. Since content was low, quality content got more limelight than it did and everyone got a chance to get their stuff noticed. Hell back then anyone could get their stories onto EQD and they would actually send you feedback on how to improve your stories. Nowadays though they just deny it without any explanation and have let the popularity go to their heads.

 

Before bronies were a big new sensation, they were a lot better. The attention got to some's heads.

 

Is this the worst fandom ever? No. Is it the worst experience in a fandom that I have personally had? Yes. Is that my fault? No. I didn't actively go seeking the bad, but you'll find a thousand bronies who will insist that it's somehow my fault.

 

This site is more or less the last place I  inhabit within the fandom that actually still has a shred of decency to me.

[BPCannon 193]

Thanks for the info. I've only been able to comment on my own experiences and perhaps I'm sitting on the tip of the iceberg, but over the past year on forums and the like I've seen lots of Bronies making negative comments about the show and the fandom, and none of the backlash that's supposed to come from it. In my short time here it seems the most vocal are the small group who want to force everyone to agree that the show has gone downhill and the fandom is a terrible community. I have encountered people who take the show far too seriously and a few pervs, but for me at least they have been very much a minority

Edited November 16, 2015 by BPCannon

[Castle Bleck 19,167]

On 11/16/2015 at 8:53 AM, Lucky Shot said:

attempted to sue Hasbro for using the name Derpy, not because that name was made by the fandom, but because it was "ableist" (note: the writer of Last Roundup, Amy Keating Rogers, has an autistic son)

I'm autistic myself, and even I call BS on said attempt.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Antagonist

[SilyGeny 369]

I hate the Little Monster fanbase, most of them literally get so mean on social media, and bully other artists their "mother" (Lady Gaga) had beef with, It feels just like a bunch of sheeps following their leader to the unknown...

[Megas 27,064]

I currently have a bone to pick with Smash Bros fans. Talking about 3rd party characters in Smash is always...interesting to say the least. But it's kind of funny seeing fans complaining about how adding some characters like Cloud, Ryu, or Brawl's Snake(who are all big icons in the gaming industry btw) somehow degrades the franchise, hurts the integrity or purity or some shit like that......yet most of the time they're content with asking Nintendo to include several Sonic characters

Edited December 25, 2015 by Santa Megas

[rjrgmc28 130]

My experience with bronies thus far in the past 5 years:

 

• Insults left and right for not liking character X or liking character Y
• Death threats over the most trivial of things.
• Being told I am an intolerant asswipe worse than Hitler for not wanting porn of MLP in my face.
• Sexual harassment. Amazing considering I am male, but that did not stop people from asking me for inappropriate pictures, making inappropriate gestures and being all around disgusting pigs.
• Rumor spreading. I love when people who have a bone to pick over something that happens on the internet decide that they need to go on vengeance plots and spread rumors.
• Being the actual victim in a situation and being told I am not the victim and instead, siding with the perpetrator because she is female and there is no way she could have done any wrong. When in reality we all know it's  because they are lonely males who think if they white knight for this girl the chance to bone her may appear.
• PEOPLE SENDING ME PORN FOR NO FREAKIN' REASON OUT OF THE BLUE WITH NO WARNING.
• PEOPLE SENDING ME THEIR FREAKIN' NUDES. BOTH MALE AND FEMALE. SERIOUSLY. WHY DO PEOPLE THINK THIS IS OKAY TO DO?
• Explicitly telling people I don't want their ERP, and they try to turn any RP into an ERP anyways.
• Had quality content that I worked on rejected without any feedback while I watched stories like My Little Dashie take front pages.
• Theft of my artwork.
• General rudeness both online and when meeting bronies in real life.
• Being told off for criticizing any of these things with the fandom and told that I am the problem.

 

Wow. That's horrible. In fact, that is plain wrong.

 

That's why I got out of the fandom myself a few months ago due to some of the stuff that was mentioned above. All the classic ideals of the fandom for me have now all but been taken over by a my way or the highway attitude.

 

I also encountered in the last few months of my fandom experience:

 

* Was told to go and "off myself" or "get hit by a vehicle" when I spoke out against the future of the show.

* Got banned from a brony forum for being critical on an episode and also another for a minor offence that didn't warrant a instant ban.

* Got sick of the constant "you must thank this person or you are considered a traitor and a coward" mentality on social media.

* Spoke out against the 100th episode and got torn to shreds by the fandom when I literally said it sucked, even with valid points on why it did suck and what could it be done to improve on it.

* Encounted some people (not naming who) who can't even take a hint of criticism or why the show's popularity or magic is now pretty much gone, done and dusted.

* Lost some of the friends I made when I joined the fandom due to differing opinions.

* Pretty much got high blood pressure and gained a lot of weight due to the depressive and agressive episodes I had due to the above. So yeah, it caused some health problems in which I'm trying to now get sorted out.

Edited November 21, 2015 by rjrgmc28

[Castle Bleck 19,167]

When someone says, "No villain can be a threat with Discord around."

...Despite a villain doing just that in Twilight's Kingdom. Hell, even a one-off monster ruined his day in Three's A Crowd.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Antagonist

[The Fabulous Darky 90]

Oh boy where do I start.

 

Bronies:

 

​

My bad experiences are mostly through the RL meetup communities I've went to. I only went to those to meet up with maybe 5 people who I felt close with. Everyone else just annoyed the piss out of me. Most of the meetups they would bring alcohol, so I would drink myself into a stupor to pretend I'm somewhere else, which only ended in my one friend driving me back and taking care of me lol.

 

I've had my good moments in brony meetups but there was a lot of drama over some people who were too socially awkward to function, and then it got to a point where some guy who has personally sexually harassed my friend and others started a fundme campaign for his divorce, getting people to side with him against his wife when he was the one looking for an affair. A whole bunch of people sided with him because you know it's only the "magic of friendship" to side with a divorce and that pushed me over the edge and I left the group, told the mods what REALLY was going on, and left them to handle the situation.

 

And of course I've had experience with some of the horse famous people. I refuse to name names, but one of them is an animator who I was very fond of. I've tried conversing with him but he seemed to give very short answers so it seemed like he didn't wanna talk. Everyone else in my group tried conversing with him as well and he just didn't seem to talk and he just kept to himself petting his plushie. Then after the meetup someone hit his car (lol) and when he got back he made a big post about it saying how we apparently didn't give him any attention when he hasn't said anything to us. Then I never saw him again. Though he seems to deal with a lot of personal problems, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on those grounds, but he still came off as a prick.

 

Then I met with a famous musician whom my one friend was personally working with. He was performing at a convention I've went to earlier this year and I thought he would actually play his signature instrument, but instead he had someone else perform, and he went on-stage for about 5 minutes, did a little song, then left the stage without even acknowledging my friend. He also screwed my friend over $500 over some equipment he needed but I don't know the full details on that. He just came off as a real sell-out and very different from his online persona and it was very sad to see.

 

 

 

I'll go on about furries and homestucks later.

[KalarMar 23]

Call of Duty (COD) fanbase.
or at least a few people who called themselves COD fans (maybe 100-150 active posters over a couple of years)

There was a time I used to watch Let's Plays on youtube (2010-2011). I watched Chuggaaconroy play some Mario and Pokemon games and in the comments there was these COD fans that messed the whole comment section up. Before they appeared the comment section was a relatively peaceful place, but their foolish pride was just too much. They basically told Chuggaaconroy how childish Mario and Pokemon games were. Then they said that he should play a real game, COD to redeem himself and become a man.
 
Now these people who wrote these comments were bad trolls, but they won. They ruined half the comment section with something that was completely unnecessary. Video after video. Month after month. And also year after year. Today there are no such comments there thankfully. The moral I took from the story was that you don't need to write a whole lot to prove them wrong. All you need to say is that you're: Good enough as you're and that you don't have to prove anything to strangers on the internet.
 
Today people just get upset over someone just mentioning a topic they don't like on a thread. This sucks because it hinders people from expressing themselves. The moment you want to share something amazing you have to think of that someone might attack, ridicule, insult, harass, degrade or hate you because of it.
It's not what they say that matters. What matters is the negativity that they bring. It ruins all the fun.
 
Some people mention that bronies bringing the ponies to non-pony thread as a bad thing. This is not true, I would say that it's the intolerance of ponies that is the problem. Good things come when people can mix things with other unrelated things. The majority people are tolerant and fine with someone bringing in unknown/unwanted stuff. What seams to matter is the intolerance in the minority, and an other thing that matters is how you go about it. Basic thread moral, apply that and you should be doing your part just fine.
 
Now I would like to finish with that if it's true that we can believe in what god created us (religious freedom). The I also think we can like what we enjoy. Therefor I don't blame the whole COD fanbase, in fact I believe they think the COD comments that I mentioned are unnecessary as well. Sometimes I find bronies that make comments that I don't stand for and would be against.

 

It's hard to communicate IRL. A ton of people don't know how to communicate with others (you have to know how the other person thinks like). Then add a barrier such as the internet, it only makes it harder. I can't even tell if the other one is serious or not. This leads to a lot of misunderstanding, and this negative spiral has made the youtube comments one bad community for large parts of it.

I blame it on the system for making it harder to do right.

and I blame it on people who fail to realize the failure of the system.

Edited December 26, 2015 by KalarMar

[CaptainDoubloon 856]

I had one infuriating encounter with the FIM Fiction bronies on that site when I posted part of the story I wrote. One brony kept yelling at me saying no one on fim fiction likes stories with humans turned ponies and didn't like my story. If they didn't like my story topic, they didn't have to read it. Then they posted a video of people booing and said if I didn't change my story that's all I would receive from people.

Edited December 26, 2015 by Captain Doubloon

[ShadOBabe 18,984]

People tracking me down to tell me a pairing/headcanon/whatever I like is "cancer" and needs to stop.

 

...

This is what some people do with their time... 

Edited December 26, 2015 by ShadOBabe

[Castle Bleck 19,167]

On 12/25/2015 at 10:42 PM, Captain Doubloon said:

I had one infuriating encounter with the FIM Fiction bronies on that site when I posted part of the story I wrote. One brony kept yelling at me saying no one on fim fiction likes stories with humans turned ponies and didn't like my story. If they didn't like my story topic, they didn't have to read it. Then they posted a video of people booing and said if I didn't change my story that's all I would receive from people.

You'd think all that matters is you writing the story itself well.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Antagonist

[CaptainDoubloon 856]

Exactly! I would have preferred if people had commented more on the story itself rather then the topic I chose. I forgot to mention because I had wanted my OC to romance Twilight I was labeled from someone as being sexally frustrated. I was like, what??? That made no sense to me and didn't even cross my mind writing the story. The story was never finished but I was only going to have a crush/light-hearted romance in the story, a more family-friendly romance that would be seen similar to watching an episode of the show.

Edited December 26, 2015 by Captain Doubloon

[Comic Sans 401]

All the sexual themes in the furry fandom infuriate me on a daily basis. I'm in the fandom for having a cute character and socialising and all of that stuff. It's weird though, as my best friends boyfriend is an NSFW furry artist and I'm perfectly fine sitting there while he draws that kind of stuff, but outside of that it drives me crazy.

[Snow Frostflame 3,567]

never actually... If I hated another fandom then what would make me any different from ABB? That and I really dont care about any other fandom.

[Lisa 5,552]

The brony fandom tends to annoy me quite a bit. Out of all the fandoms I've been in, this one has been the most displeasurable. You're probably thinking why I'm on this site then, to put it simply this place specifically is actually alright, and I have a lot of friends on here. But elsewhere the brony fandom has been pretty bad for me. 

- I've been sent death threats once for saying I hate Derpy.

- I'm apparently a shit artist because I haven't done artworks encompassing all of the Main 6 characters equally. (lol)

- I've been called an idiot, bigot, and "not a real brony" for not liking a certain episode.

- I've been called "not a real brony." Apparently there's a hierarchal status of liking a show, and I'm at the bottom.

- I've been flamed for preferring to not be called a brony. 

- Apparently I'm ignorant for saying that cloppers should keep clopping a private thing to themselves. 

 

So yeah, my time in this fandom has not been a good one. 

[gamecubeguy214 2,511]

Someone from the Star Wars fandom made me pretty mad when they spoiled the saddest part of The Force Awakens.

 

Han Solo's death.

 

[KatonRyu 1,026]

Fandoms used to be able to infuriate me. Now, I just roll my eyes when people display behavior I classify as stupidity. I used to hate Contestshippers in the Pokemon fandom with a fiery passion, though, because they were in the way of my OTP, Advanceshipping.

[ghostberry 40]

I'm a bit too old to get angry. There was a post here which was eventually locked, about comparing classical music to mlp. I got a bit snarky and called it out for being elitist and cringy so there was an even more elitist reply.

 

The post was actually so silly it was narrated by this high-pitched John Cleese in my head and it got me cracking up.

Edited January 6, 2016 by ghostberry