Thomas W wrote an article about the MLP subculture with a list of points which is borrowed from and added to in this post.
also see the articles on Otaku, SJW/anti-fandom/Trolls, anti-furby subculture.
1. Bronyism is a gargantuan meme AKA a chain letter/viral, and a cult all in one. They don't just really like a kid show, this is a collectivist movement of militant man/womanchildren using a kid show as a platform to fix what they believe is wrong with society. They call it "The New Sincerety."
The perceived principle of "Friendship Is Magic" looks nice when packaged up in the form of a kids' show, but in the world of fandumbs, all bets are off when Derpyhooves forbid, anyone not think bronyism and FIM is the greatest thing on earth. As for this so-called "love and tolerance" stuff they keep on about, that's a farce. Bronyism is a fandom/ subculture, with the same problems and hypocrisy as any other. New sincerity? Try New Insincerity. Although the blog has the unfortunate name of "Anti-Brony Truth". It is not actually anti-brony, but an ex-brony.
The movement is a 4chan-originated meme.
The anti-bronies go ape, trying, yet failing to oppose MLP and bronyism so that it is difficult to tell them apart from the most obsessive, off-putting bronies. Anti-Bronies act as if it's some kind of sin to merely watch and like a kiddy show. The whole anti-brony movement is just another subculture of fandom idiots and trolls so is no better than bronies. Worse, since they think bronies are autistic, and they hate autistics more than they hate MLP and its fandom. They are exactly like the anti-theists who whinge and moan on about "religious memes/chain letters" but think their own memes are cool as all heck, they actually hate Christianity, not chain letters.
2. Bronyism originated as a joke on the net by trolls at 4chan, one of the biggest troll dens and meme factories on the net.
Anti-bronies, a troll subculture, counter with their own stupid memes, usually involving liberal use of the words "faggot" "gay" any and all swear words, the discriminatory "bronies are autistic/have autism" thing and of course, the overkilled "MLP gave me cancer" thing.
3. MLP has lost its innocence in the following ways.
Anthropomorphism. This holds especially true when it comes to this Equestria Girls thing. Sure, that appears to be all innocent fun and games on the surface, and for a lot of people, that's all it is. And that's all it should be.
but anthropomorphism is a very powerful propaganda tool in the animal rights arsenal, and they are not above using kiddy media to preach their religion to impressionable young minds.
Sexualization. In Brony vocabulary, this is known as "clop". Apologies/warning about the one f-bomb in the Howard Stern interview link. 4chan and ilk have not only made a humungous meme out of MLP, but they have also corrupted MLP in some of the most vile ways apparently conceivable to the human mind. There are gore-fest and porn MLP images and fan fiction stories, with and without violent sex acts. Neither sex nor sadism should be in MLP, where it is publicly accessible. It's distasteful to many adults and certainly not fit for small children to be exposed to.
Liz Cooper on Bronies - Throwback Or Creepy
OOPH, Mom Alarmed By Obsessive Bronies
Triumph Of The Bronies, Hasbro Turning My Little Pony Into Sexy Human Characters
I'm no fan of Slate Mag or Amanda Marcotte, but the article was brought to my attention by a pegasister who threw a fit over it.
Bronyism takes a little kids' show and corrupts it with fanaticism, fan-art and fan fictions ranging from annoying for getting spammed everywhere, to MLP porn (they call it "porny") to perverse, and fawning over plushy collectables which range from the real kiddy toys to twisted life-sized versions of the ponies made especially for certain disturbing activities exactly like the furries.
Bronies and anti-bronies wage cyber-terrorism, involving community infiltration, invasion, hacking, trolling, spamming, harassment, and both sides are chummy with the troll subculture and cyber-criminal underbelly of the internet, 4chan and associated sites. To avoid discovery before launching their attacks, they use the part of the internet known as the deep web. to find cyber criminals they pay to hack and infest the communities of their opposition, and mess with individuals and their internet accounts.
Even one person who claims to oppose bronyism but is still with any of that is one too many. Because then, they aren't true opposition to the fandom, but just anti-bronies/trolls. And there are a lot of them.
4. Because of this horrid trend, not even kiddy communities can be guaranteed safe on the net, and being an adult who merely likes a kiddy show could cast you into suspicion by some, and outright derision by trolls.
5. Their site Equestria Daily prides itself on corrupting the minds of little girls.
6. Bronies make far too much of some kiddy show that probably never should have been made, decades after the original 80s stuff, and whose content is high in annoyance and far less engaging than many other kiddy shows.
Here is a conversation between a brony and someone who prefers another family-friendly show.
Found among the comments on this video.
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The SarcasticKat: "Read below for an actual argument I had with a brony👇👇👇
Me: *comments on random mlp*
Me: I just think that its not a good show, at all
bronie: At least its a better show than what you watch
Me: well I like transformers
bronie: wow, are you gay or something? Transformers are for little girls!!
Me:°-°
Bronie: yeah that's what I f***ing thought p****
Me: did you seriously just call transformers a little girls show?"
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7. They just won't go away, they've ruined the Internet by filling it with ponies and more obsessive fandom collectivist mindset crap. This subculture is just as guilty of bullying and peer pressure as any other out of control fandom, including their so-called opposition, a fandom called the anti-bronies.
8. Bronies and the anti-brony fandom do people with autism a terrible disservice. This Youtube playlist is called "Autism Is Magic" *Scowl* Autism is neither an excuse or should be blamed for bronyism!
Look at the otaku, Pewdiepie bros, Twi-hards etc. They share all the nasty fandom traits with bronies except what it is they are fans of. While certainly a number of fans in any fandom are autistic, they do not make up a majority of any fandom.
The danger about MLP is that truly autistic, innocent people could get attracted into this seedy fandom by the show, and not have any idea what darkness lurks behind all those rainbows and cutesy ponies with the big shining eyes.
If they run up against that dark side, they could go one of two ways.
A person could get right into it along with the rest and become a hard-core brony, which would not only worsen any obsessive tendencies they might have, but isolate them from their family. There are situations where various obsessions have some surprisingly positive outcomes between parents and autistic children, but I just don't see it happening with bronyism, especially given the troublesome stuff that goes with it.
The person could also be rightly scared off it, traumatized and disillusioned.
Another problem with people linking bronyism and autism is the troll factor. Those comments that flame someone for being autistic rather than being a brony is nothing less than discrimination. And there are trolls around who would fake it, claim to be autistic when they really aren't, in order to try getting sympathy and a free pass on their bad behaviour.
Finally, peer pressure. Even among their own cult, there is peer pressure for particularly popular ponies, and Derpy Hooves help anyone who goes against the prevailing mindset and have a less popular pony as their favourite.
Top Ten has a list on why bronies are disliked, and one of them generated a response from a netizen whose sister committed suicide because she felt she didn't belong anywhere. Bronies must have offered her the promise of belonging, only to reject her later because she didn't conform to the ways of the opinions of the fandom's elite.
Is it any wonder at least some sensible people are turned off MLP altogether, but refuse to stoop down to the level of association with the so-called anti-brony contingent?
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1. You think MLP:FIM is the best thing to ever happen in world history.
2. You never shut up about how much you love MLP. Especially "Friendship Is Magic" or "Friendship Is Witchcraft"
3. You believe MLP holds some profound truth about such things as the meaning of life.
4. You think everyone should love MLP and that it should be a major religion
5. You think anyone who doesn't share your view of MLP is, A: an idiot, B: judgemental, C: a "hater", D: a bully, E: a troll, F: should be made to watch all episodes of MLP before being allowed to express an opinion, and even then, they demn well better love it!
6. You hate it when people say they don't like MLP.
7. You go absolutely whinging foaming bat-crap crazy Rambo on anyone who doesn't like the MLP fandom, especially when they point out how perverted it gets.
8. You gripe about the bad behaviour of other fandoms when that of your own fandom is just as bad or worse.
9. You force MLP on the rest of the internet by inserting pony-related anything, anywhere, including where it expressly doesn't belong.
10. You get on sites that oppose the spread of memes, and then you make a rant defending the internet's biggest meme of them all.
11. You spam ponies everywhere on web sites, including using ponies in your avatar or ponified nicknames.
12. You have this pathological urge to ponify every character and add ponies to every form of media ever made
13. Then you accuse people who dislike MLP and the fandom of whining, hate, rudeness, and you wonder what's wrong with us.
14. You think MLP FIM shouldn't be considered a kiddy show.
15. You actually believe MLP FIM is not and was never meant to be a kids' show.
16. You make sexual comments and take the show out of context for no reason
17. You crossover MLP with adult material, especially sexual topics
18. You want the ponies to be lesbians and in lust with one another, and you call it true love.
19. You remix the show into all kinds of retarded, unwatchable video crap
20. You make horrifying, nauseating, utterly immoral 4chan/creepy pasta fanfiction that's as far away from kiddy fare as one can get:
"Cupcakes", about pony Pinkie Pie chopping up and eating her fellow filly friend Rainbow Dash alive, and probably others as well. These are links to the summaries and info on meme origination from KnowYourMeme, I'm not linking to the actual gory stories themselves.
"Sweet Apple Massacre", about Big Macintosh, a colt who rapes and otherwise tortures girl ponies to death, including his own younger sister Apple Bloom. Yes, rape and incest… Committed by a colt. An MLP story.
It's that sick, folks!
And it's not right.
21. Your brilliant idea of annihilating some evil character is to zap him/her with purity wands and rainbow lights.
22. 4chan and Fanfiction.net aren't enough for you, so you get FIMFiction.net, Equestria Daily, ponyville.net, mlpforums.com and heck knows what else. That's not enough for you either, so you, along with the rest of the 4chan contingent, otaku, and creepy pasta fan-brats among them, invade Quotev.com and Wattpad.com.
23. You dress up in fake hooves and mane in public, on any other day but Halloween, and you call that changing the world with your "new sincerity"
24. Your idea of bliss is stroking or doing whatever with plushy ponies.
25. You get screaming mad when sensible people compare bronies with furries.
26. You have somehow managed to convince yourself that what you do in your horseplay is different from what the furries do, when the only real difference is that furries aren't basing all of their crap off a kids' show.
27. You think you know and are showing love with all this MLP overload as you scream in its defence, but your fanaticism causes you to be very arrogant, whiny, self-righteous, obnoxious, hypocritical and immature.
28. You gripe about the original MLP just because it "isn't manly enough" or because it's so ancient and FIM is much cooler.
29. You think the creators love you, and you constantly demand fanservice
30. When you get fanservice (Derpy Hooves) you gripe and cry incessantly about it
32. You have only friends who are into MLP, and you lose real friends who you've driven away because of your obsession.
33. You are either mad at them (more for their disinterest in MLP than for backing away from you,) or you just don't care. And why would you? Hey, you've got your saccharin kiddy show, your eye-killing art, your horribly nauseating fanfics, your cringe-worthy pics, your silly little plushies etc to keep you company!
34. You feel an overpowering need to dispute, argue, lash out in defence of yourself, the show, or the fandom. "You have no right to judge anybody by what they watch!" "Not all bronies do this&that." "I'm a bronie and I don't do that." "I love MLP but you're being unfair, you're as bad as the fan brats!" "If you'd watch the show, you'd learn something." "The fandom isn't all like that, the people who like the 80s series aren't that way." Etc. etc. etc.
35. For every expressed opposition you find, you post something reactionary. A video rant against bronyism causes you to make a tantrum video in response, bashing the person as some kind of wicked ignorant fool for daring to oppose the fandom. For every forum post, you post a caustic reaction, trying to make yourself and the fandom out to look like supreme victims of "hate". For every blog post or site rant against bronyism, you post at least one of your own whiny reaction hissies, probably more.
36. you infiltrate communities that oppose bronyism and MLP in order to spam them with ponies, rant, troll, or hack them.
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Good opposition to bronyism is extremely hard to find. Here are a couple of comments that stand out because they are not your typical anti-fandom crap.
anthony waddell: Masturbating to adolescent ponies. Wonder if there is a small group of pathetic human beings that call themselves Ruggies and jerk off to Rugrats. If you admit to jerking off to my little pony characters you should be immediately jailed.
Kari Wanska I've never cringed so hard in my life.
Jesus Sanchez: Why bronies think people hate them: they watch a TV show marketed at little girls
Why people actually hate bronies: they sexualize technicolor horses, they're misogynistic despite the show's feminist messages, they harass people, they think "coming out of the stable" is a big deal, rape jokes, they make everything about them, do i even need to go on
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Despite the reference of "antibrony" in the url, this blog is an excellent example of true opposition to the fandom.
If it is ever unavailable, you can read it all on one page here.
1. The internet experienced a massive cringe when this fandom started. MLP, Fandom Is Madness.
2. Your MLP cult was started by trolls. So your "new sincerity" is utter crap.
3. 'Brony' 'Pegasister' Oh, really, how can anyone with an ounce of self-respect refer to themselves that way? It's as bad as 'Directioner' and 'Belieber'. You're just as dorky as all other fandoms that give themselves a stupid label that, anyone who doesn't know what it is goes "Huh what's that?" and sensible people who have been exposed to the subculture/fandom find it nearly impossible not to shudder, cringe, roll their eyes or sneer. 'Pegasister' is corny and 'brony' is downright creepy.
4. MLP, from the 80s as well as FIM and all the merchandise Hasbro has put out, are meant for kids. Nothing at all wrong with adults liking them and being sensible about it, but the target demographic is kids.
5. There is nothing super deep and profound about MLp, and whatever you decide to read into it can be found everywhere else already.
6. The world always has and will have elements of love and friendship as well as those of cruelty and hate, so MLP has brought nothing of value to the table when it comes to adult truths and adult peace. Rainbow-squirting ponies can't teach us anything we haven't already learned for ourselves.
7. If you really think the world is so full of badness that needs to be fixed, leave America and try your luck in the Middle East or North Korea.
8. Cosplay isn't cute or world-changing, it's an embarrassing spectacle except on Halloween.
9. It's one thing to collect stuff. It's another to brag about it as if that would make you seem cool to the rest of the world, (it doesn't.) and put on shameless public displays of love to some plushy.
10. Anthropomorphic ponies+sex = beastiality.
11. You're creepy, not full of love and profoundness.
12. The only difference between bronies and furries is that one subculture is based off a kids' show and the other isn't, and the virality of the fandom. At least the furries generally keep themselves to themselves. Bronyism has spread like otakuism and Twi-hard-ness.
13. No, the ponies are not in love.
14. No, the ponies are not gay.
15. All shipping/slashing is unoriginal, no substitute for an actual plot and always sucks.
16. Porn is sick and stupid. Erotica is just a fancy name for porn.
17. No, the ponies are not sadistic psychos.
18. Your MLP gore/porn fic such as "Cupcakes" "Sweet Apple Massacre "Rainbow factory" etc. etc. completely mangles, twists characters from a kiddy show and turns them into some nightmarish thing that is unrecognizable from who they are.
19. Maybe MLP FIM should be re-classified. Not a kiddy show, not an adult show, but one for a creepy new demographic, man/womanchildren!
21. Your fan-art sucks.
22. Your videos suck.
23. Your handles suck.
24. Your avatars suck.
25. Your comments suck.
26. Your rants suck.
27. Your posts suck.
28. The reason everything about bronyism and MLP sucks is because some of us have become so creeped out by your particularly inane obsession and so sick of anything MLP that we don't want to be exposed to another pro-MLP thing for the rest of our lives. If we liked the old 80s series, you have ruined it by taking away our blissful and honest innocence, and we can never look at MLP the same way again. If we were indifferent or didn't like the series before bronyism, congratulations! You have absolutely succeeded in making us loath it and cringe at anything that reminds us of it!
29. Nobody cares who made the dang pictures. If they are of established characters (canon) in any MLP series, they are in the public domain, you don't own them so stop whining.
30. Sonic was here long before FIM, and if you want to go further back, the original MLP was here around or before Sonic, so don't expect anyone with any sense to join you in your stupid anti-Sonic fandom war.
31. By engaging in the anti-Sonic fandom warfare, you are completely tossing all this "Friendship Is Magic" stuff you claim to believe in, right out the window.
32. Every time you yell about some fandom that ticks you off, your claim to sympathy is ridiculous since you are part of a fandom that's just as idiotic or worse than the one you hate.
33. Your rants against the so-called "haters" "anti-bronies" suck, and there is a lot more on the pro-brony side than there is opposition to your crazy fandom. So you're crying a lot harder than you should have a right to.
34. Stop with the "Everypony" "anypony" "somepony" "nopony" business! It's as irritating as nails on a chalkboard!
35. Ponifying stuff that isn't from MLP is tacky, obnoxious, and very, very annoying!
36. You have managed to turn at least some of us off ponies and rainbows altogether, in some cases probably for good.
37. We don't care if it's MLP FIM or Equestria Girls or from the 80s show. We just don't freaking care which rainbow stripe of the MLP franchise it is, just, ewww, get away! Let the little kids and those who were into MLP in the 80s and have fond memories of that, have their show and memorabilia. Let those respectable, sensible fans and their stuff be.. Otherwise, down with MLP!
38. Spare us the rants in defence of this obnoxious MLP fandom stupidity! We've heard it all many times before and we're just sick of it and of you.
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Thomas W says: "they have their own massive website, their own lingo, their own pony conventions, their own Internet groups, and tons of other crazy stuff which helps make them incredibly overexposed. They are just asking for hate as they think they are the kings of the Internet. They are arrogant, cocky, obnoxious and obsessive. Bronies make me sick. The worst fanbase to ever exist."
Conclusion? My Little Pony should've been left back in the 80s. Hasbro should've left well enough alone. Too late now.
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OVER - AND - OUT!
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