Bronies Revisited - The Arizona Relevancy

The day before yesterday I stopped by a bookstore to pick something up for work (and was pleasantly surprised to be reminded that they still exist) and was somewhat surprised to see a display of shrinky-dinks by the front entrance.

For those unfamiliar - Shrinky-Dinks are sheets of plastic that you can draw on, cut into whatever shape you want and color - and then bake in the oven, wherein the plastic shrinks, thickens, and fails to become usable jewelery. 

Back in my day the sheets of plastic were blank and one could draw/color anything they damn well wanted on them, rules be damned.  These days they are all pre-printed with officially licensed picture from one franchise or another because we've decided as a culture that we would hate for kids to ever be encouraged to be creative.

One of the several franchise brands available at the display was 'My Little Pony: Friendship is magic' which (as previous readers will be aware) is a subject of enjoyment by a group called 'The Bronies'- who are adult males who band together based on their mutual love of a cartoon intended for pre-teen girls.

I tried to imagine, for a moment, the kind of sack that it would require to pick up one of the  My Little Pony Shrinky Dinks and - holding your head high - walk up to the register and purchase it for yourself.

And the thing is, I kind of respect that.  I still think it's creepy and a little weird to be into, but I wouldn't ever stop someone for doing it.  I respect the willingness to be who you are and like what you like, even if I don't, per-se, respect what you like. If that makes sense.

Which brings me to Arizona.

For those who are not among the 50% of my Facebook friends who've been discussing this non-stop, Arizona just passed a new law that allows anyone - Individual, business or government entity (yes, it specifies this) - to refuse to do business with anyone they choose if it conflicts with their 'deeply held religious beliefs'.

This is all obviously code for 'I don't want to bake a cake for gay weddings', because republicans have never been overly fond of anti-discrimination laws because at the end of the day most republicans still really, really want to be able to discriminate against anyone who's different from them.

And here's the point.  There is a profound difference between not really approving of how someone else lives their lives and actively preventing them from doing so.  I think that being a brony is, at the end of the day, a silly thing to do.  But I wouldn't stop them from buying their shrinky-dinks (even if I thought that at the end of the day they'd be better off buying blank sheets and drawing things themselves.)

So for what it's worth - Boo Arizona.  Yay Bronies.  Mixed feelings on Shrinky-Dinks.

Who knew that the Bronies were the rational ones?

I apologize in advance for where this is going to go.  Just know that going in.

There are Two main immutable laws of the Internet.  (Well... three actually, if you count Godwin's Law*, but that's really just about chatboards, not the Internet itself, so it's not really relevant here)

*Given enough time, any Internet comment board argument will eventually mention Hitler or the Nazi's.

The two immutable laws are -

1:  There is nothing so horrible that you can't find it on the internet somewhere.

-It was actually a casual discussion of this fact that let directly to the film Hostel being made.  Take that as either a plus or a minus, depending on personal taste.

2:  If a thing exists, there exists a pornographic variant of it as well. 

At this point I should give credit/blame to one James T. Cornish - a contributing writer at both WhatCulture.com and Den of Geek.  I'm a fan of his articles - primarily because they tend to be amusingly written and because he's yet to make any statements that I disagree with too strenuously.

In his recently published discussion of things certain subsets of fandom do that make the rest of us look insane by association (which you can find here) he introduced me to a term with which I was hitherto unfamiliar.  Ah, those were happy, innocent times.

The term in question.... no, let me build up to it a bit.  After discussing a variety of fandoms, Doctor Who included (which - let's face it - is what brought me to the article in the first place) he turns his attention to The Bronies.

For those who may have missed my earlier discussion of The Bronies (helpfully found here) these are the adult male fans of the cartoon My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

Processed that?  K, we'll move on.

My earlier missive about the Bronies was largely concerned with their habit of declaring online fatwahs against perceived insults against their group (or not so perceived.  To be fair, they do get trash talked a lot).

I was, therefore, somewhat surprised when I reached Page 8 of Mr. Cornish's article and discovered that there was in fact an offshoot subgroup of The Bronies that is damaging their reputation.  A feat that I personally would not have imagined possible.

And yet, after reading the infamous Page 8, I have to admit that the Bronies would appear to have a legitimate complaint.

Before I scar you emotionally, I'd like to add that early on in the article Mr. Cornish states,  "I’m friends with several Bronies and they are all friendly and well adjusted people who just happen to be fans of a cartoon about magic ponies." which might be my favorite sentence that I've ever read.

The subgroup in question - exemplifying both of the immutable rules of the Internet listed above - are known as 'Cloppers'

Gentle Reader, I feel that we've known each other long enough now that I can be blunt here and dance around the issue no further. 

The Cloppers are into My Little Pony Pornography.

Cartoon Ponies.

Having sex with (one imagines) one another.

I'm going to defer to Mr. Cornish's summation of this, because he sums up my thoughts nicely-

"If you masturbate to cartoon ponies and think that it somehow makes you superior to those who don’t, then you are in serious need of some form of psychiatric treatment."

 The really chilling thing - That there are people who need to be told that.

We have Internet search filters for a reason, people.

Seriously dude, Do NOT mess with the Bronies

So, a while back I saw a Facebook post from an old friend of mine commenting on the fact that a sketch he wrote for Key and Peele had caused him to become the target of an internet-fatwah.

The interesting point here is that the group targeting him for holy war was in fact The Bronies.

For those not in the know - and I was myself totally unaware of them prior to this... ah such happy times... - The Bronies are a (primarily internet based) group of hard core fans of the show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.  And who are also grown men.

That's right.  Bro + Pony(, My Little) = 'Bronies'

I apologize in advance for the following photo, 

which a simple Google search of 'Brony' images turned up.  

But I kind of feel like if I can't unsee it then it's only fair 

that the rest of you share in the emotional damage...

Once you've wiped the blood from your eyeballs, I will continue.  I would also like to mention that this definitely confirms the findings of a previous column.  Unicorns are freakin' terrifying.

Further web searching failed to turn up a link to video of the sketch in question (Although, Colton - if you're reading this and have a link, send it to me and I will TOTALLY add it here)

What the nice folks at Google DID turn up for me was a site that described Bronies thusly- 

"Though initially seen as a cult phenomenon outside of the show’s traditional demographic of young girls, the Bronies have since grown into a widely recognized fandom subculture and continued to retain their presence and influence on Internet culture and its hub sites."

Now the obvious response to this is "Are you high?", however we should try to remember that in terms of online fan communities, the term 'influence' is fairly malleable.  We should probably interpret it here as 'Has a lot of free time to post douchey comments on other peoples' youtube videos.'

I should of course issue a disclaimer.  I have a side gig where I do literally nothing but write about Doctor Who.  So it isn't as if I'm claiming higher ground here. 

Please begin the Brony Fatwah in the comment section below.

Vizsla out.