this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2025
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I remember being a young lad when that Brony shit was going around and some people on the random, niche forum I was on would chat about it like it was peak cinema lmao
I finally bit the bullet and watched one episode, realized it was exactly what I thought it was, and promptly never thought about it again.
Good times
dysphoria can manifest in unexpected ways,,,,
Eggs definitely drove a big part of it, especially given how "haha I'm just doing it ironically but also it's actually good if you give it a chance haha" fits so cleanly into the sort of irony poisoned plausible-deniability-even-from-yourself thing that's such a seemingly common facet of repression and that defined that circa 2010 heavily queer/repressed queer internet counterculture in a lot of ways.
That's basically why the joke is that everyone who was into it back then went on to either transition or become a nazi, because that's largely how that counterculture split: the queer outcasts went left and formed healthier spaces, while the cishet chauvinist libertines turned into bloodthirsty tradcath fash and continued innovating new depths of misery to wallow in and attempt to spread to others.
i haven't really been interested in the show in almost a decade, but during my time as a fan there was definitely an element of "there's something magical here that i can't explain but a few people out of the many i've talked to online about it can see it too so i know it's real somehow 🥲"
Ugh, Bronies were THIS close to being memory-holed!
Kinda feel bad for both the developers and the young kids the show should have been for because some dipshits wanted to turn the whole fandom into an ironic meme
Can confirm as someone who was the intended target audience that grown ass men made it nearly impossible to search for anything mlp related without being bombarded with shit a kid shouldn't see.
This was a vanishingly small number of "bronies". Most of them were people who were nostalgic for a show with writing in the style of Cartoon Network's golden age, and who really liked watching a show that was earnest in an era when every single tv show and movie was extremely ironic.
Wasn't this during the early 2010s? I seem to remember plenty of sincerity in tv and movies.
It's worse now, but I at least remember having this general feeling at the time /shrug
For me, one thing it was was an antidote to a sort of South Park caring-about-things-is-for-losers outlook
I never understood the Brony thing simply because the show was mid at best (to me)
I don't mean to offend, but I ~~always~~ at the time thought it was a weird pedo thing if I'm being perfectly honest. I'm sure there are genuine adult fans for whatever reason, but it is a kid's show for kids.
Not trying to start anything but you are aware that there are a metric fuckton of adults that watch kids shows for kids. Like for example dexters lab, powerpuff girls and frankly to many to name. Mind you I would assume a large section of the brony community probably were teenagers and young adults when the show aired but thats a whole other discussion.
Coming from someone who watched the MLP show when it aired in my late teenage years.
Yeah, but there was WAY more NSFW art of MLP than of any other kids property popular with adult that I can recall. I mean some of that is probably do to the fact Bronies tended to orbit in other communities that had a lot NSFW artists in them (big overlap with Weebs for example).
You're good, you can slap me if I'm totally out of line. I probably internalized the cultural response to Bronies and, really, haven't thought about MLP for 15 years.
I mean, a good friend of mine watches MLP because it allows her to live through a tiny bit of the childhood as a girl she wasn't allowed to have due to ... well, being trans and being traumatized out of liking girly stuff when she was a kid, so it's kinda harsh to come here and hear some dude make a connection to a "weird pedo thing". Especially given that whole groomer discourse the fash keep harping on about. I get that's not your intention, but bruh.
Completely valid, and as I said I'm sure there are genuine adult fans as well. I'm surely tainted by my exposure to the Brony internet and the fact that everyyyything that comes with it is not always especially savory.
Having said that, please don't quote things I didn't say. I'll self-crit.
I don't remember multiple subreddits dedicated to rule 34 of Dexter's lab or adventure time.
There are probably for Pokemon. My point is that being a fan of a kids cartoon as an adult doesnt really tell you anything about that person beyond that and consuming kids cartoons as an adult is a harmless past time. The fact that the Brony community got a bad rep due to some people is unfortunate but you could say the same about the anime community, the gaming communty and the furry community etc.
not when pokemon was new. that fandom grew up with the series and hit puberty and got into weird shit. the sus 2010s MLP fans were not 40 year olds who grew up with the 80s one.
I dunno about that, man. But I watched like two episodes to see what the hype was about and just found it boring. No hate to anyone who liked it though.
Same here, it's just not for me. Probably shouldn't have mentioned it, just the vibe I got at the time and never examined seriously beyond that.
Somebody wrote a kind of condescending article about animators "selling out" or something and listed MLP as an example and contrarian 4Channers decided to go watch it as a bit and a decent chunk of them ended up kinda getting into it, and since 4Chan was still the nexus of internet culture back then it spread through memes and became a bigger thing.
The End of the Creator-Driven Era in TV Animation. which was crazy because this was like the beginning of it lol
Anyone who was a Brony in 2011 is either a NeoNazi or a Trans woman
I gave mlp a shot because a buddy of mine showed me one funny clip; the rest of the show wasn't that funny or entertaining
Nothing against it, just that it was a show about talking ponies and targeted to young girls and I'm a big strong manly man who likes Man Stuff™️