Adults and ponies - how come? :)

[pixachii]

oh so you only want to know about bronies?
why doesnt anyone care about adult WOMEN who like MLP?
Just sayin' why isnt the adult demographic that is scrutinised?
Why generalise the 'oddness' only to males?
seems a bit hypocritical really.

Because the adult women don't tend to be the people who invade and infringe on the safe-space this show intended to be for little girls. I have a serious problem with the bronies (who do tend to be adult males) who have appropriated the characters and messages for their own use. These adult men tend to be the ones who make the horrible rape jokes with MLP characters ("Princess Molestia") and fill the MLP tags on the internet with violence and/or porn (the infamously violent "Cupcakes" story came up for me when I was Googling "Pinkie Pie" for a 4 year old girl I was babysitting). A loud portion of bronies push little girls out of the safe space MLP was supposed to be for them.

The problem isn't that adults like MLP. I don't find fault with adult fans of children franchises in general, and I love it when a TV show caters to both parents and children. The problem is that a vocal portion of the MLP fanbase, including the bronies I have met in person, use public fan channels to bully little girls out of their "territory." I find that the issue many people, including myself, have with bronies has less to do with boys liking "girly" things, and more about them twisting this particular girly thing into something self-serving and hateful.

As an aside, if anyone is interested in an insider's perspective on creating a cartoon for little girls, I highly recommend reading Lauren Faust's article on her intent in creating MLP FIM: http://msmagazine.com/blog/2010/12/24/my...-rebuttal/

[prettypuppet]

ok so on a slightly related topic I had to look up that cupcakes video seeing as its "infamous". I love Rd but I laughed my a** off I am a horror fan first and foremost though

[pixachii]

ok so on a slightly related topic I had to look up that cupcakes video seeing as its "infamous". I love Rd but I laughed my a** off I am a horror fan first and foremost though

The Cupcakes i was referring to was actually a written story. It's very gory and disturbing. I'm not sure what cupcakes video you saw, but I'm glad you weren't disturbed and you thought it was hilarious!! :p

[Severity]

Has anyone seen the bronie documentary? It's on netflix and quite interesting.
I'm an 80s kid who LOVED the MLP revival that came out when I was in college (somewhere between 2003-2005, I remember the dorm room I had but not the year!) my best friend and I used to go pony shopping after exams! Lol. I had three or four. They had magnetic hooves and I had them stuck like magnets on my mini fridge and had one that I liked to stick to the outside of my bestie's door when I tried to visit and she was out, to let her know I'd been there. My favorites were Rainbow Dash and Sunny Daze. Somewhere along the line I got a little rainbow dash keychain.

A couple years ago I found the keychain in a drawer and stuck it on my purse, because it matched and was cute. About a week later, I was riding the bus, and this college guy saw my keychain, came to sit with me, and struck up a (mostly one sided) conversation about the new mlp reboot and being a proud bronie. I was very out of touch with pop culture at the time and was completely floored by the whole eerience!

I've since tried to watch the new mlp series but I just don't get the appeal. And I'm still floored by the fact that if you want to search my little pony art you'd better have safe search on because...x-rated ponies. My mom's a librarian and they learnt that lesson at the library the hard way!

Oh dear, I've just written a novel about ponies. Eep. ^.^

[prettypuppet]

oh ! when I looked I got a crazy u tube vid where pinkie pie cuts open rd n rips her guts out slow n insane to epic music over cupcakes lol so demented :p

ok so on a slightly related topic I had to look up that cupcakes video seeing as its "infamous". I love Rd but I laughed my a** off I am a horror fan first and foremost though

The Cupcakes i was referring to was actually a written story. It's very gory and disturbing. I'm not sure what cupcakes video you saw, but I'm glad you weren't disturbed and you thought it was hilarious!! :p

[KiraKira]

oh ! when I looked I got a crazy u tube vid where pinkie pie cuts open rd n rips her guts out slow n insane to epic music over cupcakes lol so demented :p

ok so on a slightly related topic I had to look up that cupcakes video seeing as its "infamous". I love Rd but I laughed my a** off I am a horror fan first and foremost though

The Cupcakes i was referring to was actually a written story. It's very gory and disturbing. I'm not sure what cupcakes video you saw, but I'm glad you weren't disturbed and you thought it was hilarious!! :p

It sounds like the video goes with the story. The story is very graphic and detailed...ugh. I like horror and all that but I really did not appreciate that the innocence of MLP was twisted into something that disturbed me.

[pixachii]

oh ! when I looked I got a crazy u tube vid where pinkie pie cuts open rd n rips her guts out slow n insane to epic music over cupcakes lol so demented :p

ok so on a slightly related topic I had to look up that cupcakes video seeing as its "infamous". I love Rd but I laughed my a** off I am a horror fan first and foremost though

The Cupcakes i was referring to was actually a written story. It's very gory and disturbing. I'm not sure what cupcakes video you saw, but I'm glad you weren't disturbed and you thought it was hilarious!! :p

It sounds like the video goes with the story. The story is very graphic and detailed...ugh. I like horror and all that but I really did not appreciate that the innocence of MLP was twisted into something that disturbed me.

Exactly! The reason I brought that story up in the first place was because it turned up on Google when I was looking at MLP stuff online with a 4 year old. Yeah, I did not appreciate that!

[Buzzingbumblebee]

Gah, it's so disturbing these people make stuff like that.. I didn't read the story because I'm in no way a horror fan.. I love Fim and I have lots of the G4 ponies, I even have t-shirts. I only consider myself a pony collector though as I collect G1 ponies more than any other. Over at the mlp arena it's completely forbidden to mention the cupcake story at all, and any threads with people bashing bronies and the other way round are quickly shut down.. The mods there are busy bees in general as it's such a big community, so they have to be really strict about people flaming others. I don't bother reading any posts there about bronies.. Anyways, bronies are girls as well, the name just make it sound like it's mostly guys. And most bronies are ok people. But like anything the mean ones get the most attention...

[tasuke]

Adults and ponies - how come?

well, for my part, i'm a guy, and yet my mom bought me a bunch of the original G1 MLPs in my childhood back in the 80's.
she bought me Rainbow Brite, Pound Puppies/Purries and some other similar stuff as well, toys all nominally strictly relegated to the female persuasion.
little wonder at all why i grew up to be a man in my early 30's with a soft spot for cuteness,
often obsessed by my hobby of making scale clothing for my collection of 11in. Anime dolls.

i would imagine there are many others out there who had similar childhood eeriences,
and i'd wager many of them are now among the key driving force behind today's MLP-driven "Brony" phenomenon.
guys much like me, finally coming on out of the proverbial closet... in a BIG way...

[Severity]

Your story is interesting! Because I'm also an 80's kid, and the new style of pony artwork just looks so "wrong" to me because they're all thin and not chubby like 80's ponies! (What can I say, I prefer chubby ponies and chubby people :3 ) but some of my friends my own age say the same thing about the G4 ponies. Yet my good friend who was only an infant in the 80s LOVES the new MLP. Anyway, you've busted my theory on 80s kids and G4 ponies!

(Pound puppies though, they were my absolute favorite, after Teddy Ruin.))

[tasuke]

yeah, born in 1982, i was kind of a spoiled, only child until my sister came along in 1993.
i was still often spoiled, though i now had to share in it.

in addition to all those girly toys, my mom also got me a bunch of G1 G.I. JOE and TRANSFORMERS,
so i suppose she not only enjoyed soiling the crap out of me, bit i suppose she was also attempting to instill
a gender-neutral frame of mind, at least so far as toys were concerned.

well, i suppose you could say that the "behavioral engineering" has worked rather well,, since the mindset has seemed to have stuck quite fastly to this day...

[Laspyra]

I'm not a male, but I'm 32 (turning 33 this month). I loved My Little Pony when I was little. I remember my mom would record it for me while I was at school so that I could watch it when I got home. My sisters and I loved playing with My Little Ponies when we were kids. They were probably our favorite toys to play with. At first, I wasn't all that thrilled with the way the new ponies looked. I remember seeing them in the store and thinking, "ugh, they look terrible". Now I look at G3 Ponyville ones and think the same thing. I don't know why, I remember thinking they were cute at one point but not anymore for some reason.

I think my daughter started watching the show a lot on Netflix. I purchased a couple ponies for her. I also purchased the first movie, not realizing it was the first two episodes which are already on Netflix. I remember her watching the Canterlot Wedding episodes a lot and she would sing the song "This Day". I've always been a fan of musicals and kids movies. Labyrinth is my favorite movie to this day. I think that song was what really got me interested in the new My Little Ponies. It's a really touching, beautiful song in my opinion, and I love the way it is sung.

I had heard they were coming out with a My Little Pony comic book, so I decided to buy that when it came out. I personally love the comics. They always have David Bowie references in them <3 (plus a lot of other references that I get and love too). So along with the comics, I then heard they were coming out with an actual My Little Pony card game. We ended up getting that when it came out. It was a little difficult to learn at first, but we figured it out and have a lot of fun playing it. That's what finally got me to watch the show with my daughter. She didn't mind watching it from the beginning with me. I've seen the first three seasons on Netflix. I am still waiting for more to show up. I liked it though.

Now I love the characters, and have started collecting the dolls too. Fluttershy is my favorite. I also love the "Cutie Mark Crusaders". I am not trying to collect every pony there is, because it would be too eensive, but I am definitely trying to collect all the "baby ponies" or "fillies" I guess they call them now. I think they are so adorable! Spike is also so stinking cute. I love his character. =)

As far as bronies go. I've gone to a couple of the card game "tournaments" I guess you could call them or "events". It is mostly guys that show up, but they all seem nice enough.

I have a tumblr page and I don't really follow many people, but sometimes I see "brony hate" I guess you would call it. Saying how disgusting and repulsive bronies are. How they are always jerks, sexualize ponies, etc, etc. Anyway, I don't mind care what age/gender you are. I personally haven't had personal eerience with anyone that sexualizes MLP before and hope that I never do meet someone who does.

I haven't watched the Netflix thing about bronies. I was kind of worried about watching it, for some reason. I didn't realize girls could be bronies too. I guess that would probably make me one. Although I'm not 100% sure of the definition, so I'm not calling myself one yet. lol

Edit: I just wanted to say a couple more things.

@Duskkodesh thanks for sharing that quote. I have never heard that before and it helps me feel a lot better about liking things that would be considered "childish".
@pixachii Thanks for sharing Lauren Faust's article. I enjoyed reading it and I definitely think she has accomplished her goal. My only hope is that her bosses continue to allow her to do it the way she has been doing it.

[Severity]

Haha, my parents tried to do the gender neutral thing with me too. I remember an endless parade of totally boring matchbox cars. (The "boy toys" I really wanted were Thundercats but no one ever got me any.)
The funny thing is that I really wasn't that into dolls when I was a kid, I much preferred animal toys. Stuffed animals and plastic animals and Breyer horses. I had Barbie dolls, but there were only three I really liked: my Princess Jasmine doll, my African doll (she was one of the Barbies of the World, I don't remember what country, but she had the greatest "ethnic" outfit and the softest flocked hair) and a western Barbie in cowgirl attire with pale skin and black hair just like me, and she was the lucky owner of all my horses. :3

My niece is 3 1/2 and I think she's got the gender neutral thing down. She got a baby doll for Christmas that I've never seen her play with! She has stuffed animals and plastic animals. She really loves Princess Sofia. And yes, she has some ponies: little g3 hand me down ponies and each one comes in a little tin so they can all have beds to sleep in.

EDIT:
The Brony documentary is really cute, it's definitely "pro-Brony".