In a nutshell, “bronies” are male (many of them adult) fans of the TV show “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic”, the reboot of the MLP franchise which was historically considered a show for little girls. Some people consider the phenomenon of adult men loving a story intended for little girls to be amusing, interesting, or potentially perverted.
Are there any other “girls’” media that have or have had similar phenomena where there was a significant fandom of boys or adult men?
I seem to remember that there was a fairly large male fandom of the show Sailor Moon back in the day, but I don’t hear much of it anymore.
I remember that it has been revealed in South Park that several male characters, including Eric Cartman, read Nancy Drew, but I don’t remember there ever being a significant male following in RL that received any sort of notoriety. Was there a large underground fandom of males “borrowing” their sister’s or daughter’s Nancy Drew books?
This thread is not intended for debating what it is that makes bronies into who they are.
They are very much a real thing. They even have a convention: Bronycon. One of my son’s friends went last year. I’m trying to figure out if we can some how make it this year.
My mom taught 3rd grade for many years, and found that the American Girl books (from the company that makes the dolls) were quite popular among her students of both genders. Though admittedly that’s not adult men.
I believe that there was a certain degree of this phenomenon when it came to Barbie dolls. It was parodied in The Simpsons with Smithers’s Malibu Stacy obsession.
Sailor Moon is the only specific example I can think of off the top of my head, but it’s my impression that among Western anime/manga fans it’s fairly common for guys to like things that are considered “girl shows” or “girl comics” in Japan.
It’s an interesting question, and off the top my head I can’t think of anything that comes close to the Brony phenomenon.
Oddly enough, we watched the Nancy Drew movie tonight. My wife referred to the entire back shelf I still have that has all of the books, but I only bought them after I ran out of Hardy Boys and Three Investigators to read. And as far as I know, none of my other friends read them…
I liked the Powerpuff girls. I watched them with my kids and they weren’t all home runs, but in the better ones the writing and characters were deliciously subverted. In truth it was a fairly brutal show at times.
Honestly not really getting the Sailormoon or MLP fanboy love if you are a adult, heterosexual male as they to seem to be very deliberately tuned to adolescent female sensibilities, but opinions are like bellybuttons.
What about Kim Possible? That wasn’t so much aimed at just girls, but with a female hero it seemed more focused on girls than boys. I know a lot of adult men (including my own spouse) who like it.
Pretty Cure also comes to mind, but at least a few series of that were done with a deliberate dual demographic of young girls and older guys. It seems to be really common thing for magical girl series to pick up a male audience, and some of the PreCure creators decided to run with it deliberately. (Holy cow, the shippy subtext!)
Disney owes a lot of its fortune to quality “girly” media being popular for all ages. Most of its classic movies revolve around princesses and singing about love and other touchy feely stuff. I remember back in middle school there was a rift among boys on whether The Little Mermaid was awesome or gay as hell.
The Last Unicorn movie has lots of male fans. I don’t think it’s particularly girly beyond superficial appearances though.
Is Sailor Moon actually girly? I’ve never seen it (and I should considering how iconic it is) but isn’t that about girls in fetishistic outfits fighting aliens and demons?
The original '80s MLP (G1) started off with good cross gender appeal. The pilot episode was about a demon lord who kidnapped the ponies, turned them into dragons, and used them to pull his chariot of doom across the sky so as to bring about the apocalypse. Its artstyle was probably grittier than maybe 90% of what FiM has done so far, but then it started to go downhill rapidly and then it developed the “tea parties and pillow fight” stereotype that stuck until Faust rebooted it in 2010.
It was the most popular show on Cartoon Network for several years and I don’t think it was aimed at girls hardly at all. It was originally pitched as Whoopass Stew and it’s fairly violent. There were also lots of pop culture references and under the radar jokes that little girls might not understand.
Of course, some people think anything with a mostly female cast or female protagonist = girly. The PPG movie had a bit of a backlash because ignorant mothers took their kids to see it and were shocked it was full of fighting.
I’m a adult-male MLP fan, the current series wasn’t just targeting young girls, it seems to go for a similar demographic to the Simpsons.
What about Spongebob Squarepants? I haven’t seen much of it, but it used to have a huge following. Maybe trending a lot more Gay than bronies but men are men.
I haven’t been watching My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, because the title makes me want to stab a singing nun, but apparently it really is different from the typical mindless girly cartoon.
Likewise. I knew it was going to be a treat when they deftly inserted a “plot” joke in the intro. DeLancie had no idea what he was getting into when he signed on to voice Discord.
