You probably could, but I feel like the absurdity, the ubiquity and the fall-off in popularity of bronydom makes it slightly weirder than superwholock or otakus.
But it could be a fun exercise to just explain internet subcultures from a detached perspective and see how weird it gets, as you just did.
(This comment is completely improvised pulling-out-my-ass-ery)
So to understand bronies we first need to lay the groundwork of the cultural significance of the pony in Western culture circa 1980, when the first generation of MLP started. This cultural significance is rooted in the broad obsolescence of the horse as a working animal as a result of mechanization, specializing equestrianism more into a sport and a hobby. Several factors contributed to equestrianism becoming a comparatively feminine-perceived activity, related to the increasing accessibility of equestrianism to the petty bourgeoisie and increasing freedom of petty bourgeois women. It goes without saying that the gender aspect was always a major part of brony culture, offering for many a space to explore their genders. In this capacity FiM was “lightning in a bottle”, arriving at precisely the right moment in history when advances in LGBT+ rights and recognition had left many people needing exactly such a space, and girls’ cartoons had generally been neglected by networks for many years. The species of the “nazi brony” should be understood in the same manner as nazis who engage in any other feminine-perceived interest, e.g. nazi K-On fans or nazi crossdressers.
To understand bronies we also need a firm understanding of the contradictions of anthropocentrism: this will help us understand why fictional stories about talking animals, and cases of humans roleplaying as animals, has been such a common trope throughout much of human history, expressing the deep-seated anxieties and instabilities around humans’ exploitation of animals. Brony culture in particular is in many regards a “fusion” of furry and anime otaku cultures, so understanding the roots of both these subcultures will help us understand the origins of bronies, too, as will understanding 4chan culture circa 2010 more broadly.
Escapism and capitalist alienation are also vital concepts here: Even if workers cannot express it consciously, they are often led to fixations on “childish” interests out of a desire to return to an age before they felt the boot of capitalist exploitation on their necks, out of a desire to “catch children in the rye” or even out of an envy of children. The Land of Equestria in particular offers a fixed and familiar, yet flexible, world for workers to escape into, with its own norms and rules. The cartoon itself, Friendship is Magic, has many episodes focused almost entirely on side characters, so we could refer to FiM as a “setting-focused work” as opposed to a “character-focused work”: FiM’s format is particularly welcoming to original characters and fan fiction. See also Harry Potter, Star Wars and Touhou Project among others for other examples of setting-focused works with large fandoms. Fan fiction oftentimes satisfies to some extent a proletarian desire for control over our own culture, free from the shackles of copyright; however Hasbro more than Team Shanghai Alice has certainly proven to be more antagonistic to fan labor.
The fall-off in bronies’ popularity happened in two stages, the first stage occurring in 2013 (Twilicorn + Equestria Girls scandals) and the second occurring in 2019 (end of FiM). In the simplest terms, bronies were in many ways a “fad”, no different from any other fad: people got into it because the fandom gave them opportunities for connection, if not people to market to. Alternatively, those who had a use for what bronydom offered them, in many cases simply found other ways to satisfy their needs, whether that be through their own worldbuilding, through furries and animanga, or through just taking some damn estradiol, etc.
…Also, I cannot overstate, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic actually just kicks ass for real. Like I think a pretty significant part of people’s enjoyment of it is just that it’s really good. I’ve nearly finished my first ever full rewatch of the series since it ended, and I’m kinda surprised to find that I like it almost as much as I liked it six years ago. It’s got a lot of liberal brainworms but it genuinely holds up really well.
Edit: Oh and there’s also the autism angle that might talk about the legibility of facial expressions, the color palette etc.
Contributing to that perfect storm is that FiM was one of the first notable examples of a girl-oriented show having a budget and being well made. Creator Lauren Faust lamented that her girly childhood interests always felt neglected by producers and companies in her childhood and she resolved to create something with more depth and cogency.
Setting up the success of MLP was Powerpuff Girls a few years eariler, which took very feminine protags and put them into traditionally masculine roles, which got a lot of male fans onboard with feminine aesthetics and themes.
And going back further from there, the entire magical girl genre got popular Sailor Moon, which was marketed as shounen (boys) anime (despite being a shoujo - girls - manga first) - a trend that was carried forward into today. While that designation was not shared or understood by western audiences, it was nonetheless recognized by people who worked in and followed animation closely
I think this is a pretty cogent analysis and I don’t have much to add. Except I think that the fact that the show was good almost stopped mattering after a while, with the fandom being self perpetuating through its in group dynamics.
Actually, I could mention now that MLP:FiM had a very interesting “conversation” with the brony fandom: fans developed in-jokes based on the show, and the show incorporated the fandom in-jokes into itself. For instance, there’s a river serpent called Steven Magnet who was unnamed in his first appearance (S1E2), but was referred to by name as Steven Magnet in episode 100 (S5E9). The name “Steven Magnet” was coined by fans because back in the earliest days of the show, you could find pirated uploads of it on YouTube, and YouTube’s auto-caption feature mangled the scene with the river serpent such that the words “steven magnet” were included in one of the lines. Fans thought it was funny and ran with it, and now you have actual licensed merchandise with the Pirated YouTube Auto-Caption Fail Name on it.
There’s also the ship of Lyra and Bon Bon, two background characters whose personalities and interests were pretty much entirely made up by fans based on random details. As the show goes on, you see these two ponies next to each other in the background increasingly frequently, episode 100 also strongly implies they’re gay for each other, and then in the last episode before the three-part series finale, keen eyes might notice for a split second…
Spoiler for ''The Big Mac Question'' (MLP:FiM S9E23)
…They’re proposing to each other!! The lesbian horses are gonna get married!!
And these are just two of MANY examples of the show’s “fanservice”. I remember that this “fanservice” was a bit of a point of contention, because some people took it as a sign that the show had been “couped” and was aiming itself at adult fans rather than children. I don’t know if I’d go that far, but it was definitely an interesting thing that I haven’t really seen anywhere else — I mean, the word “fanservice” in the context of any other show refers near-exclusively to just showing boobs, right?
I would also honestly say that MLP:FiM matured and kinda got better with time, and ended at the exact right moment. This isn’t to say that the early seasons are “worse” really, so much as they just have a different feel; for that matter, this isn’t to say that the quality of FiM is at all consistent, it can be very up and down.
Originally I stopped watching regularly after S2 but then got into later seasons more recently (thanks to you), and I have to agree that the later seasons are better in some ways. I especially love the focus on characters other than the Mane 6.
I only watched like first 3 seasons back when it aired but have been wanting to do a full rewatch of the entire show for a while now. Its not high art but its certainly comfort food for me.
You probably could, but I feel like the absurdity, the ubiquity and the fall-off in popularity of bronydom makes it slightly weirder than superwholock or otakus.
But it could be a fun exercise to just explain internet subcultures from a detached perspective and see how weird it gets, as you just did.
(This comment is completely improvised pulling-out-my-ass-ery)
So to understand bronies we first need to lay the groundwork of the cultural significance of the pony in Western culture circa 1980, when the first generation of MLP started. This cultural significance is rooted in the broad obsolescence of the horse as a working animal as a result of mechanization, specializing equestrianism more into a sport and a hobby. Several factors contributed to equestrianism becoming a comparatively feminine-perceived activity, related to the increasing accessibility of equestrianism to the petty bourgeoisie and increasing freedom of petty bourgeois women. It goes without saying that the gender aspect was always a major part of brony culture, offering for many a space to explore their genders. In this capacity FiM was “lightning in a bottle”, arriving at precisely the right moment in history when advances in LGBT+ rights and recognition had left many people needing exactly such a space, and girls’ cartoons had generally been neglected by networks for many years. The species of the “nazi brony” should be understood in the same manner as nazis who engage in any other feminine-perceived interest, e.g. nazi K-On fans or nazi crossdressers.
To understand bronies we also need a firm understanding of the contradictions of anthropocentrism: this will help us understand why fictional stories about talking animals, and cases of humans roleplaying as animals, has been such a common trope throughout much of human history, expressing the deep-seated anxieties and instabilities around humans’ exploitation of animals. Brony culture in particular is in many regards a “fusion” of furry and anime otaku cultures, so understanding the roots of both these subcultures will help us understand the origins of bronies, too, as will understanding 4chan culture circa 2010 more broadly.
Escapism and capitalist alienation are also vital concepts here: Even if workers cannot express it consciously, they are often led to fixations on “childish” interests out of a desire to return to an age before they felt the boot of capitalist exploitation on their necks, out of a desire to “catch children in the rye” or even out of an envy of children. The Land of Equestria in particular offers a fixed and familiar, yet flexible, world for workers to escape into, with its own norms and rules. The cartoon itself, Friendship is Magic, has many episodes focused almost entirely on side characters, so we could refer to FiM as a “setting-focused work” as opposed to a “character-focused work”: FiM’s format is particularly welcoming to original characters and fan fiction. See also Harry Potter, Star Wars and Touhou Project among others for other examples of setting-focused works with large fandoms. Fan fiction oftentimes satisfies to some extent a proletarian desire for control over our own culture, free from the shackles of copyright; however Hasbro more than Team Shanghai Alice has certainly proven to be more antagonistic to fan labor.
The fall-off in bronies’ popularity happened in two stages, the first stage occurring in 2013 (Twilicorn + Equestria Girls scandals) and the second occurring in 2019 (end of FiM). In the simplest terms, bronies were in many ways a “fad”, no different from any other fad: people got into it because the fandom gave them opportunities for connection, if not people to market to. Alternatively, those who had a use for what bronydom offered them, in many cases simply found other ways to satisfy their needs, whether that be through their own worldbuilding, through furries and animanga, or through just taking some damn estradiol, etc.
…Also, I cannot overstate, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic actually just kicks ass for real. Like I think a pretty significant part of people’s enjoyment of it is just that it’s really good. I’ve nearly finished my first ever full rewatch of the series since it ended, and I’m kinda surprised to find that I like it almost as much as I liked it six years ago. It’s got a lot of liberal brainworms but it genuinely holds up really well.
Edit: Oh and there’s also the autism angle that might talk about the legibility of facial expressions, the color palette etc.
Contributing to that perfect storm is that FiM was one of the first notable examples of a girl-oriented show having a budget and being well made. Creator Lauren Faust lamented that her girly childhood interests always felt neglected by producers and companies in her childhood and she resolved to create something with more depth and cogency.
Setting up the success of MLP was Powerpuff Girls a few years eariler, which took very feminine protags and put them into traditionally masculine roles, which got a lot of male fans onboard with feminine aesthetics and themes.
And going back further from there, the entire magical girl genre got popular Sailor Moon, which was marketed as shounen (boys) anime (despite being a shoujo - girls - manga first) - a trend that was carried forward into today. While that designation was not shared or understood by western audiences, it was nonetheless recognized by people who worked in and followed animation closely
Absolutely, FiM very clearly has the blood of PPG and Sailor Moon in its veins.
I think this is a pretty cogent analysis and I don’t have much to add. Except I think that the fact that the show was good almost stopped mattering after a while, with the fandom being self perpetuating through its in group dynamics.
Actually, I could mention now that MLP:FiM had a very interesting “conversation” with the brony fandom: fans developed in-jokes based on the show, and the show incorporated the fandom in-jokes into itself. For instance, there’s a river serpent called Steven Magnet who was unnamed in his first appearance (S1E2), but was referred to by name as Steven Magnet in episode 100 (S5E9). The name “Steven Magnet” was coined by fans because back in the earliest days of the show, you could find pirated uploads of it on YouTube, and YouTube’s auto-caption feature mangled the scene with the river serpent such that the words “steven magnet” were included in one of the lines. Fans thought it was funny and ran with it, and now you have actual licensed merchandise with the Pirated YouTube Auto-Caption Fail Name on it.
There’s also the ship of Lyra and Bon Bon, two background characters whose personalities and interests were pretty much entirely made up by fans based on random details. As the show goes on, you see these two ponies next to each other in the background increasingly frequently, episode 100 also strongly implies they’re gay for each other, and then in the last episode before the three-part series finale, keen eyes might notice for a split second…
Spoiler for ''The Big Mac Question'' (MLP:FiM S9E23)
…They’re proposing to each other!! The lesbian horses are gonna get married!!
And these are just two of MANY examples of the show’s “fanservice”. I remember that this “fanservice” was a bit of a point of contention, because some people took it as a sign that the show had been “couped” and was aiming itself at adult fans rather than children. I don’t know if I’d go that far, but it was definitely an interesting thing that I haven’t really seen anywhere else — I mean, the word “fanservice” in the context of any other show refers near-exclusively to just showing boobs, right?
I would also honestly say that MLP:FiM matured and kinda got better with time, and ended at the exact right moment. This isn’t to say that the early seasons are “worse” really, so much as they just have a different feel; for that matter, this isn’t to say that the quality of FiM is at all consistent, it can be very up and down.
Youre the first person I’ve seen to say that the show improved with age
It does feel like a minority opinion, but I’m still surprised that I’d be the very first.
Originally I stopped watching regularly after S2 but then got into later seasons more recently (thanks to you), and I have to agree that the later seasons are better in some ways. I especially love the focus on characters other than the Mane 6.
I only watched like first 3 seasons back when it aired but have been wanting to do a full rewatch of the entire show for a while now. Its not high art but its certainly comfort food for me.
Theres a blorptube rewatch happening
Yeah but it’s ending next week