“They’re standing there and telling Rainbow Dash she’s awesome,” calls out a college-age male wearing a camouflage shirt.
He is one of about a dozen college students, over half of them male, watching a marathon of “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” (MLP) in the Science Fiction Forum located in the basement of the Stony Brook Union.
These adult fans, known as Bronies (a mix of bro and ponies), were not the original targeted audience for the 2010 remake of the 1983 animated television series.
“My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic,” airing on The Hub, follows eight adorable main characters – Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rarity, Spike the dragon and Princess Celestia – on their adventures through the magical land of Equestria.
Originating on 4chan, the most popular image board on the Internet, the MLP fandom has moved mainly onto pony-centered internet message boards like Equestria Daily or Ponychan. On Reddit alone, there are over 7,000 registered bronies.
Bronies at Stony Brook University and across the nation are moving to bring the fandom to an offline setting. Events like BroNYCon, where adult fans of the show are gathering to celebrate all things pony, have happened in “Manehattan” several times and are planned for the future.
Jesse Kremen, standing at just under six foot with his facial hair neatly trimmed into a chinstrap, is a huge MLP fan. He plans on attending BroNYCon in September with some close friends.
He also posted a number of fliers in the Union hoping to meet more bronies in person.
As giggles pour from the flat-screen TV mounted on the wall next to a small mural of a green dragon and a painting of MLP’s main character Twilight Sparkle hanging in a gold frame, Kremen works diligently on his black Toshiba laptop creating an original pony on Inkscape.
Kremen says he finds the show “refreshing,” stepping away from the usual “dark media” he is exposed to. “You don’t have to revert to being a child to enjoy it,” he added.
Anne Marie “Ri” Greco, a female brony (known by the Internet community as a pegasister), also loves how heartwarming MLP can be. Even though it’s labeled as a children’s show, she says, “The plot lines are still interesting,” and the show is “still funny for people our age.” Ri also added that “It’s about friends, which people lose sight of as they get older.”
David Spector, like many bronies, is a fan of what Lauren Faust, the creator of “MLP: Friendship is Magic”, has done for the program. “I really respect her,” said the president of the Science Fiction Forum. “She did a girls’ show that’s not really a girls’ show.” He also added that Faust has “brought new life into the show, adding more intense characteristics.”
Not everyone supports the bronies in their love of these pastel cartoon characters targeted at 7-year-old girls. There are many online “trolls” and even face-to-face bullies who wish to separate the MLP followers from their fandom, which is clearly stepping away from many gender and age stereotypes.
Following the positive theme of the show, bronies are known for remaining non-confrontational when provoked. There are tons of macros, or captioned images, floating around the Internet spreading the message of “love and tolerance,” which is a main theme of MLP.
Kremen has one of these macros saved on his computer. The brony-famous picture is of the unicorn Twilight Sparkle standing in front of apple trees with white lettering across the top and bottom reading “I’m Gonna Tolerate & Love The SHIT Outta You.”
Because of these pony-haters, not all bronies are so comfortable with taking their love of the ponies offline. A brony who wishes to remain anonymous was surprised when he fell in love with the ponies after seeing them on the front page of the Know Your Meme website.
He recalled thinking, “It can’t be that good,” but after watching the first few episodes he couldn’t stop. “I love them all too much – I love them like sisters,” he smiled, admiring Kremen’s pony artwork.
Disclaimer: The bronies in this article have not taken credit for the chalk drawings that have appeared around campus.
Alyssa Carroll
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Pegasister? What?
Brony is a unisex term. No one calls female bronies pegasisters…
Depends on who you ask, but the term “pegasister” is definitely used by many in the MLP community for older female fans of the show.
Regardless, whenever I see an article on bronies now, people seem to think Pegasister is the accepted term. From what I’ve seen, everypony has their own opinion of what it should be.
Well, this is a nice article. I like it.
Nice article, but I am getting really tired of one thing.
I am getting really sick of being shoved aside in a community that is suppose to not care what gender you are, because I don’t have a penis. Everyone is raving that the bronys are only the older male audience and only focusing on that. Sure there are some older female fans I guess, but who gives a fuck about them? It’s like the bronies are a group just for the guys, and us females can maybe have a dumbass name for ourselves because of course the males and female should be divided again. I proudly called myself a brony, but now I’m being told its only for guys, or that I can’t call myself that, and I didn’t mind it at first but this is the 30th time I’ve seen this.
Sorry for the rant. I thought I was equal in this community, but obviously I am really a “second class brony” to say. If I can even use “brony” …
Like I said, awesome article! I don’t want to be seen as a bitchy pony fan, it just gets tiring being shoved aside. I know it wasn’t suppose to be like that, but its how I’m beginning to feel. *sigh*
Okay, honestly tearing up a bit from that rant. Although I’m not in the same situation, I see what you mean and I feel you on this. I have friends on campus who prefer to use gender neutral pronouns like “they” as opposed to he or she. I don’t think your outrage is unwarranted. Some people use the term, but it’s not at all official. Just like with preferred pronouns, if you’re a brony, I will, and the rest of the community will call you brony as you desire.
With love and tolerance,
Jesse/Trancey/Hoity
Personally, despite being mael, the term ‘pegasister’ both annoys, and even disgusts me too no end, I have the same gripes that even considering a female term, much less one that stupid, is just a plan bad idea. I for one, refuse to refer to bronys as the older ‘male’ audience, but rather anybody outside the target, I also will never use that term ‘pegasister’ for sure. I guess I can make an exception for the rare girl who feels uncomfortable being called brony of course, but I won’t like doing so.
i simply hate our lack of gender neutral terms over here :/
As far as I can tell, the only shoving aside of female fans that’s going on is from the news media, and that’s because it’s not news. Sorry ladies.
I can sympathize with the female segment to some degree, but I think there is also some misplaced frustration. Regardless of how insiders may use it, “brony” is unquestionably a male-specific term in its make-up and origin, so it should be no surprise to anyone that there is some confusion—especially from the news media—about females “me too”-ing themselves into the label of “brony.” As a male, can I share MLP:FIM fandom with females? Yes of course, gladly,
but I will never share what I share with other male fans due to the inherent male issues here, so why in the world do females want the term that embodies this?
“Pegasister” sounds stupid and so does “brony” for the same exact reason. I’ll call you whatever makes you happy. Brony, female pega-brony, whatever. It’s just a label and who cares. I’m not mad. I’ve never been eager to label myself anyway; that’s other peoples’ job. I’ll call you a brony if you insist; but I’m going to reciprocally insist that you me a “gamer girl” to demonstrate how it makes me insensitive to feminine issues and to show how it bastardizes the meaning of the term and cheapens the comaradarie the term embodies… or just to show the utter ridiculousness of it, whichever applies. After all, I don’t go around calling my female friends “bro,” and frankly I would draw the line if one of them insisted I did, for whatever reason.
Now anypony feel free to misunderstand everything I just said, lash back and call me sexist. But if you’re a true brony you’ll just brony up and tolerate the shit out of me regardless.
Oh stop being so trite, the only people who are of the attitude you described are outside the community. The brony (I use the term as unisex) community was born and raised on the internet and on the internet were all the same bloody gender, human. The point being that since it is not immediately evident what is the sex of someone on the internet (since people mostly communicate using text) any community that was born there is probably not going to give a crap what sex its members are. Unless of course its some crackpot male only anti feminist society. Besides even if you do eventually meet in person with other bronies I honestly doubt any of them will care about you being female, since some of the communities founding principles are love and tolerance.
P.S. The people who write public articles not know everything (and who gives a crap what they think anyway), while the actual community is split on whether bronies is unisex or not no one denies the existence of female fans. Hell Phoe is female and she helps run the biggest pony blog evah; EQD!
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I need you all to die. Now.