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The Bronies: The fandom and its stereotypes
Bronies are fans of My Little Pony: Friendship is magic and this article analyzes the stereotypical view on the Brony fandom.
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"Neck-beards", "no life", "autistic", are words that are linked to the Bronies. Bronies are fans of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and as you might think, this is indeed a show originally created for little girls. The Brony fandom exploded and has between 7 million and 12.4 million followers .
This article tackles the stereotypical idea of the Bronies by researching them with an emic and etic approach. I will use an (digital) ethnographic approach (Varis, 201) when studying the several Brony fan pages on social media and the Brony forums. Since these accounts are anonymous and the forum is open for everyone, I will use them for my research, of course with well-consideration.a body. I am aware that the public profiles are only a part of the whole community (Varis, 201). I mostly will observe the online context, but also the offline activities that came into being.
Back to topMy Little Ponies and the Bronies
The concept of My Little Pony originated in 1981, but the television show My Little Pony: Friendship is magic was released in 2010. Lauren Faust is the creator of the show and it originally targeted little girls as its audience. After the first episode an unlikely group of fans made its entrance, the Bronies.
Adult men created fan pages on 4chan and shortly after that a counter response followed from the anti-Bronies. The discussion escalated and 4chan soon banned any user who mentioned My Little Pony. 4chan has welcomed the Bronies back, but because of the exile the Bronies created their own sites like Ponychan.net and Equestriadaily.com. Because of the creation of their own sites, they are not active on 4chan anymore.
The Brony fandom is often seen as a fandom that is dominated by adult-men. Although most of them are indeed men, in 2014 around 17,7% of the community were women.
The word “Brony” is a contraction of bro and pony. Since women are not really called bro’s, they have a different name. The women in the Brony community are called Pegasisters. Pegasister is a contraction of the words Pegasus and sister. Because the Pegasisters are the minority of the Brony community, I will only use the words Bronies and Brony in this article. When mentioning the Bronies, I also mean the Pegasisters.
Back to topBronies as a micro-population
Bronies are part of a micro-population (Maly & Varis, 2016). Their globalized niched culture is mostly found on the internet. The Brony community developed on the internet, on 4chan, and since then elaborated even more.
Although at first sight it may seem that the Bronies are a homogenous globalized micro-population, there are different subgroups connected to different (online) spaces. One aspect that all Bronies share is their love for My Little Pony. It is the way in how far this love developed that matters.
One of the forums the Bronies are active on is mlpforums.com. What is special about this forum is that users can earn different kinds of awards. There are event badges, you can earn these badges by logging in or passing a challenge during an event. Bronies can also create creative content and they can earn a badge for that.
The word “Brohoof” is used by the Bronies on different forums and sites. It can be seen as a greeting in chats or discussions. On mlpforums.com, you can see how many brohoofs a Bronie has. You could compare it with the Facebook likes. If you like a post, you press the “Brohoof” button and the site monitors how many Brohoofs you have.
As a response to the emerging Brony community, a documentary has been made. The documentary is called Bronies: The extremely unexpected adult fans of My little pony. Lauren Faust, the creator of My Little Pony: Friendship is magic, also contributed in making this documentary. She made short videos that are shown in the documentary.
The short videos can be found in one video on youtube. In the video we can see a pony professor explaining to his students what bronies are. He is talking about moderators, hipster bronies and creative bronies. The moderators are the ones that control the forums, the hipsters are the true brony fans and the creative bronies make music, art and stories, inspired by the show. The video explains the Brony community very well and after watching this, you might even consider it to become a Brony or Pegasister.
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each onthey they Bronies organize conventions and these are called Bronycons. It is a contraction of Brony and convention.reallyanythese
The Brony fandom is not the typical type of fandom. Why would adults like My Little Pony that much? When asking regular people about Bronies they often see them as friendless, autistic, obsessive and as sexual deviants. Bronies are thus seen as outsiders by the mainstream who are not fans of My Little Pony. As Howard Becker explains in his book about outsiders, is an outsider someone who doesn’t obey the rules of a certain kind of social group (Becker, 1963). It is not that the Bronies are breaking a law, but they are doing something that is not socially accepted.
The mainstream would say that My Little Pony is a show for little girls. Bronies do not follow this mainstream thought, because they are actually adults who like the show. As little children enjoy the show because of its cartoons, the Bronies mainly enjoy it because it actually addresses adult issues. One of the episodes description says "When Twilight becomes friends with an owl who helps her with chores around the house, Spike gets jealous and fears he will be replaced." A child would enjoy watching the episode without questioning the hidden message behind it, but a Brony would apply it to his own life.
“A society has many groups, each with its own set of rules, and people belong to many groups simultaneously. A person may break the rules of one group by the very act of abiding by the rules of another group” - Howard Becker
This picture is content created by a Brony. This picture shows the stereotypical view that the mainstream have when they think of Bronies.
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To become a part of the Brony community, it depends on your personal conditions, material conditions and your knowledge. The material condition is about living close to each other or meeting each other on conventions. Bronies organize conventions and these are called Broncons. It is a contraction of Brony and convention. Some bronies really fly to another country to visit these Broncons. To be a Brony is to watch My Little Pony and have a certain kind of knowledge of it. You do need the knowledge to be a fan. If you want to join a forum you have to know what you are talking about. Most Bronies also like to collect merchandise.
Back to topThe Brony community is polycentric and this is also something that they really want to point out. The mainstream often sees Bronies as a stereotype man who creates sexual content based on My Little Pony. Ofcourse, there are Bronies like that, but every fandom has extreme fans. The normal Bronies, the ones who just really enjoy the show and like going to Brony conventions, do not agree with the over sexualized Bronies.
At first it might seem like all the Bronies are the same and that there is not any difference between them. In reality there are five kinds of Bronies which I will elaborate by the following image.
This image is content created for a My Little Pony forum. The image explains the different types of Bronies. One could say that the "Clopper" and the "Ponyfag" are seen by the mainstream as the stereotype Brony, whilst most of the community consists out of "true Bronies".
The closet Brony is someone who is too shy to tell people about his love for My Little Pony. One of the advantages of the Brony community is that it is mostly online and you can create anonymous avatars on the Brony Forums. This type of Brony will mostlikely not collect My Little Pony Merchandise, because if someone would see it, they would be embarrassed. This type of Brony should not be confused with someone who is new to the community. Someone could be a Brony for two years and still keep it a secret. The closet Brony really does not want anyone to find out about their obsessio. That is why they do not collect anything and create anonymous accounts on Brony platforms.
True Bronies are the ones that go to Bronycons, create fan art, make music and do not make it a secret that they are a fan of My Little Pony. The Clopper and the Ponyfag are the ones that are seen as deviant by the mainstream and also by other My Little Pony fans. They are the actual sexualized and overobsessed Bronies.
A Gurony is not the same as someone who hates the Bronies. Altough it might seem like it, they are Bronies because they enjoy My Little Pony. A True Brony would make acceptable fan art, go to the Bronycons and just enjoy talking about it on a forum. A Gurony however, sees pleasure in making violent content, something a True Brony would despise.
The Anti-Bronies are the ones who do not like the Brony community. As said in the introduction, in the past there have been discussions that really got out of control. Nowadays there are still Anti-Bronies, but they do not form themselves in big communities. They are found in small groups on forums and social media. The community was the biggest in the year that the Brony fandom emerged.
The Anti-Bronies confront the Bronies with questions like “why do you like a little girls show?”, in a very pejorative way. There even is a wikihow on how to deal with Anti-Bronies as a Brony. The best way to deal with Anti-Bronies is to remain passive and nonchalant. There can be found many Anti-Brony comments beneath Youtube videos, but one really caught my attention. Isaac Roberts mentions beneath a anti-Brony video on Youtube the following: "if I had a choice between cutting my own eye out and helping bronys I would rather lose my right eye." For the Bronies, the Anti-Bronies can be seen as outsiders. They hate My Litte Pony and that is in full contradiction with what being a Brony is.
Back to topIf I had a choice between cutting my own eye out and helping bronys I would rather lose my right eye
The Bronies can be seen as outsiders by the mainstream. However, within the Brony community, one can also find mainstream and deviant Bronies. The mainstream Bronies are the ones that enjoy watching the show, talking on forums about it and do not do anything that might offend someone. There are also deviant Bronies, they do not obey by the unwritten rule of handling My Little Pony content like the mainstream Bronies do. The deviant Bronies use the content that is offending to the mainstream Bronies and to the non-Bronies, the mainstream of society.
Back to topDon't judge a book by its cover
By writing this article I wanted to explain the Brony fandom in a way that they see themselves. I came across weird and disturbing content made by Cloppers and Guronies, but also made by Anti-Bronies. I cannot exclude the fact that there are some Bronies who keep the stereotypical view alive, but most of them just really enjoy the show and love going to these Bronycons. This fandom is a typical "Don't judge a book by its cover" fandom, altough they might look weird, they really enjoy the show. Sometimes it is difficult for the Bronies to tell people that they are fan of My Little Pony, because it is not a typical show to be a fan of. Some people are big music fans, go to concerts, buy merchandise and have posters in their room from their favorite artists, and so have the Bronies!
Back to topReferences
Varis, P. (201). Digital Ethnohraphy.
Becker, H. (1963). Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. New York: The Free Press
Maly, I. & Varis, P. (2016). The 21st-Century Hipster. On Micro-Populations in Times of Superdiversity. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 19, 637-653
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