Saturday, February 28, 2015

your probably sick of hearing about it, but heres my broney post

Bronies. Kim Kardashian said she was going to break the internet, but if there was something that could break the internet it would be the Bronies when season 5 finally arrives. Bronies are an interesting sub-culture for several reasons. The Internet is a buzz with all things Pony and it will stay like that if the Bronies have anything to do with it.
For those who don't know, Bronies are a group formed around the fandom for the latest reboot of the cartoon series “My little Pony: Friendship is Magic”. To begin with I will tell you about my first experience with this show and Bronies. I am part of internet sub-culture and as I said the internet is alive with Bronies. It started as a huge fad and I am not the type who jumps on bandwagons, in fact I avoid them like the plague. So I avoided the craze figuring it would be gone soon, it wasn't. Finally a website I do frequent, the fail-blog network, got a new section dedicated to Bronies. This made me decided to check this site and see all the ways the show was being made fun of so I would have a working knowledge of the show and an actual reason to not like this stupid bandwagon fad show. The site was not about knocking the show, like most Brony content it is very positive. This is when I decided that I had to actually watch an episode, I may avoid bandwagons but I do not hate something for no reason. I went out of my way to watch one episode and wasn't oppose to it. Then I realized getting ready for classes in the morning that the show was on every day while I was up, so I saw another, and another, long story short, I still don't consider myself a Brony but I have seen every episode and own merchandise. I have found in my time as a fan that many started out this same way. But before becoming a fan there were other opinions of the show that I became familiar with too.
To clarify one thing, I am not a freak in the community for being a grown male, many Bronies are grown males and females, average age over 20. Of course young girls are also fans but much merchandise is now being marketed to the goldmines of nerds with their own money to spend. The fact that a show about colorful ponies being appealing to men has been polarizing in the media, and framed in different ways it can be seen very differently. One good way to see how big culture is right now that there are currently 2 different documentaries on Netflix dedicate to analyzing the culture and its effect on society. This being the case many are going to cover it in different ways. Negative coverage of the show can be seen on just about any major news provider, particularly the more conservative ones. The issues discussed as to why the culture is bad is wide. It turns out that Ponies is particularly adored amongst the gay community, there for some have framed that as meaning that the show is causing the spread of gayness. An especially  destructive frame which is almost the implicit reaction is that if a grown man is watching a show and dressing in cloths meant for little girls then the must have an unnatural attraction to little girls. These points of view, in my opinion, must come from people very insecure in their masculinity or who are scared of change. This is because they frame the issue in a very small way only used to push people towards following their own view on it.
If the Bronies could frame the show and their sub-culture the way they wanted it would be much more inclusive of what the show is about. The show is about friendship, and all the good things that we learn from having friends that love us. I don’t know about you but I don’t think that message is just for kids.

1 comment:

  1. Dude, I can totally relate to this post. I would say I fell into the franchise in the same way as you did: avoiding at all costs, then watch an episode, then watch all of them, then watch all of them a 4th time with pajamas a fluttershy tee-shirt on (maybe not that exactly). I can definitely see where the ideas about the people (adult males in particular) within the fandom become twisted and misrepresented as something that it's not or is not representative of the whole. However, what some the examples that portray the fandom in these certain ways? I think that the idea of "framing" that you discuss is really more focused on the people that watch the show than on the show itself. Although it can be taken that way, it would be nice to see some more articles or videos or whatever that collectively show a variety of frames in which the bronies are represented.

    Good Post, I dig it.

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