I missed it because I no smart. At what time is it?
At 2M15 to 2:20, about fanfic:
The writers pair their favorites
Voicing charming little quips
And although they face some critics
They will go down with their ships
About 25 seconds in. “Plots were hardly very weighty”, with the picture of the Gen 1 toys all facing away from the camera. It surprised me a little, but not half so much as the clop-bomb they dropped in later.
The shipping bit amused me, too.
Bronies exist so that even furries and otherkin can feel less-pathetic than somebody. 
Please no.
The Brony Doc was the biggest spaghetti avalanche I’ve seen in quite some time. All copies of it should be burned. Granted, adult fans of animation who actually attend cons are going to trend nerdy as hell, and that’s cool, but this was full of literally autistic people and the painfully social awkward, the bottom of the barrel. So much for not portraying the fandom as a bunch of freaks.
The Hunger Games series seems to be aimed at young women, but has plenty of crossover appeal.
(And no, it is not just having a female protagonist that makes it seem aimed at young women. It’s also the fact that it follows the tween girl formula of having a female protagonist torn between two handsome suitors.)
What are you talking about? It’s a cartoon. Nobody looks autistic. It’s a cartoon. Everybody looks cutesy. It’s a cartoon. Did you follow the link? It’s a cartoon. It features cartoony ponies singing about what the hell the deal is with Bronies. I thought it did a pretty good job making it sound like the show is actually well-written and fans are responding to that, not falling into some vortex of improbably misdirected nerd herd behavior.
It’s only remarkable because “aimed at girls” has generally been short-hand for “poorly-made crap”. The new ponies is a good show first, and a market-pandering and toy-selling vehicle second. That a good show finds a broad fan base isn’t all that surprising, especially when it gets the bottled lightning of an internet meme behind it.
What I find more interesting isn’t a supposed shifting of gender norms, because those have been getting bucked (heh) for a long time, but that a show that has optimism as its central theme is making such inroads on the generation that was responsible for a big wave of grim and cynical media. It just happened to strike the right chords at the right time? There’s some interesting anthropology papers there.
The animated segment linked in this thread is just one part of a larger documentary that, presumably, uses a lot of con footage. I haven’t seen it myself, but even when it’s not intending to mock, the odds of it turning out as marshmallow says are pretty good.
The sociological aspects fascinate me as well. Memetic subcultures are great for that, because the culture and dialect evolve fast enough for easy observation.
As to your specific point, I’m sure that part of the popularity is a function of backlash against a general atmosphere of cynicism. It’s also a sort of counterpoint to the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. Anonymity often allows you to get away with acting like a jerk, it also allows you to get away with openly appreciating something, or expressing positive views, that might damage the image you normally try to project. The mirror image of the Internet Tough Guy (who’s often a wimp in physical space) is a person who presents a hard, cynical front to their physical acquaintances, but likes cartoon ponies and cute cat pictures on the internet.
I suspect that the reason the GIFT pattern arose first is related to the character of the early adopters of the web, once it spread beyond academia. The first people to really immerse themselves into web culture were mostly young, and tended to be somewhat socially isolated in the physical world. That translates to a lot of immaturity and insecurity, which makes for a relatively angry, defensive environment. Once that atmosphere was established, it tended to self-perpetuate, because people who went against it became targets of that anger.
Many of those early adopters have since had time to grow up, and many more people are integrating the web into their lives. They have the numbers to form stable communities that reject the free-floating anger and cynicism, if something provides a focus for such a community. The Brony community formed around such a hub (no pun intended).
Why bronies, in particular? I’m sure part of it is simply that the show appeared at the right time to catalyze it. However, I suspect part of it is also the logical metaphor bronies developed for the community: the Herd. It’s a powerful concept, one which we often look at in a negative light–it speaks to us of a conformist, lockstep community. It has a positive side, though; the Herd supports and protects its own. It finds strength in numbers and community bonds. Since that aspect is strongly emphasized by the show itself, it’s not unexpected that it should be the dominant metaphor of the community.
Didn’t the Brony phenomenon start on 4chan? Isn’t 4chan to the Internet what Internet is to life? I.e.: 4chan is a concentrated, almost caricatural version of Internet. It seems that it would mainly be composed of exactly the kind of people Balance talks about in his second paragraph; Young, tending to be socially isolated in the physical world. As for immaturity, I don’t think many places can beat 4chan for immaturity. I go to an INTJ forum and the Brony thread is the most popular art/culture content-specific thread.
Like Mekh and Bal, I do think there is an element of backlash against grimness and cynicism. Perhaps an additional element is that light & bright optimistic media content tends to be on the simplistic side and that just cannot be abided by some personality types. Grimness and cynicism tend to have some complexity to them whereas optimistic stuff is often one-dimensional. MLP is both more than one-dimensional and light & bright optimism.
I can’t help but think this discussion would be better suited in the Pony thread. I think we’re starting to hijack Columbia’s thread.
I’m not saying this is wrong for its broad all ages and cross gender appeal, but FiM’s online fandom began on 4chan’s /co/ and /b/ boards, and then a couple months later, Something Awful. Not exactly bastions of optimism and kindheartedness. Also, violent and cynical reinterpretations of the series in art/fanfics are common.
I’ve seen people try to make parallels between grimdark '90s comics and animation trying to shallowly copy the success of edgy or post modern shows like Ren and Stimpy and/or South Park and FiM arriving as a breath of fresh air. If you look at other popular cartoons of this gen there are some that are kinda similar to MLP in its outlook, like Adventure Time or maybe Gravity Falls. Could be a new cycle of the zeitgeist, or a niche that was just sitting there waiting to be filled.
People have weaved socio-economics into it too, e.g. it’s easy to be cynical in the happy go lucky '90s but now the West sees itself in decline, there’s terrorism and uncertainty about the future of our basic institutions, and so now we gravitate to something more escapist than usual.
I think those theories are over analyzing it. Personally, my two favorite current shows involve angry bald men cooking up meth and murdering people and melting their bodies in barrels of acid and crazy but well characterized pastel equines fighting evil and having cute slice of life stories in a weird schizo tech fantasy world where trains and hydras exist side by side. Good shows are good shows. If something unlike anything else comes out it’ll draw attention.
Spongebob has an all ages appeal but it’s neither gay or girly. It’s your standard slapstick pseudo-sitcom cartoon, like a slightly more childish Rocko’s Modern Life. Pretty sure the only people who seriously think it’s gay were the same people saying Harry Potter is turning our precious children to witchcraft and Satanism.
With that datum, I rescind my galling at his mysterious outrage and apologize. The clip I saw seemed to gin up sympathy for the fanbase.
Cartoons haven’t been mindless for a long time. My Little Pony is typical of modern kid’s shows.
For other Western media, what about Carebears? Certainly girly, and I’ve met lots of adult women who liked the shows and had lots of nostalgia towards them, but was there any crossover appeal back in the day? I could see guys wanting to collect them all maybe. I know the Hub tried to promote the new Carebears show like it was an FiM-style reboot but the collective community response seemed to be “lolno.”
I’m a 33 year old male and growing up My Little Pony was one of my guilty pleasures. It aired in a cartoon block with Transformers every day and I liked it just as much as the giant robots. The stories were fantasy based adventures–or at least those are the ones that stick with me. For example–a picnic is ruined by rain and one of the ponies wishes it would never rain again–and it doesn’t. The rest of the story arc (it was a multi-episode story) dealt with the ponies going on a quest to find the magic that will make it rain again. That could basically be the plot of any number of adventure toons.
I wonder if She-Ra counts? It was a spinoff of Masters of the Universe but the toys straddled the line between action figures and dolls. I think it wouldn’t have been weird for boys to watch the cartoon or play with She-Ra toys mixed in with the He-Man figures.
Here’s a relevant data point:
‘Tron: Uprising’ Likely Aired Its Last Episode Last Night, Thanks To Disney’s Fear Of Bronies
Seems like a curious premise, that an adult fan base isn’t a desired thing for corporate media, but it’s not entirely unfounded. Hasbro certainly has no idea whatsoever on how to respond to the bronies.
I should check it out
Well, the show aims to sell toys, and twenty-something guys aren’t really into unicorn playsets. Then again, it raises the profile of the show, which will bring more of the target demographic in.
Are today’s teenagers considered overly grim and cynical? Because they’re the ones who are watching it. I’d think that’s more important than the Boomers/Xers that are running the production company.
The Hunger Games is the story of 24 teenagers fighting to the death while being chased by sadistic gamemakers who release poisonous bees and mutated wolves into the arena. It was never aimed at girls.