So I think ever since I told people on DU3 I was a brony, they won't reply to my political posts.

[Leopolds Ghost]

Even when I post nothing but on-topic political stuff, they ignore it, because they figure I'm a brony and/or a radical activist (possibly both) so nothing I say matters, or more precisely they don't want to be seen talking to me because of that.

So I say "fuck it" and put ponies in my posts instead, just to tweak them, I think.



If you're wondering why I'm obsessing over it particularly at the moment, well, I went to the big brony convention for the first time and had a blast... I'll post about it if anyone is interested. I think that these days anypony who has heard of bronies (and isn't one) figures they are simply a deviant fetish of some sort, despite the fact that these are the very same people who constantly rant about bullshit identity politics. (In fact, studies have shown that some gay people object to the whole My Little Pony fandom because the message is that they aren't special or different for liking "girly" stuff.)

Particularly since the show itself isn't as good lately (so it's less self-evident why it became so popular) and they're starting to crack down on legitimate fan projects by professional animators such as the tournament arcade game, so now is not the world's best time to be involved in the fandom. And the fact that some brony communities are being overrun by rather-creepy furries (which actually is what they are imagining bronies to be) doesn't help. ~_~ So it's rather amazing that the fandom is still growing since it's gotten to the point where you have old-timers talking about how they missed out on 2011 when being a brony actually meant something. Like hippies, or Star Wars purists.

(I apologize to hippies for that correlation. I know more of the former than the latter.)

Oh and when I say people think I'm "too activist", I'm not trying to puff up my own ego... I wish I actually were a capable political activist but everything I've tried to do has been completely ineffectual because people won't talk to me. They say I talk to much, probably because of a speech impediment (these are the same people who routinely tolerate obnoxious drunks etc. but not nerds, apparently.) It depresses me because I know people who are stringent activists and I'm constantly trying to be a positive influence on them. I think I've literally landed on the ufo theorist, 911 conspiracy theorist, "do not talk list" somehow, at least on DU3 and in real life. I always used to assume people thought I was a harmless political dilettante until people I know in real life came up to me and asked about "me and the people I know" with the strong implication that they thought I was the leader of some sort of gang. I was once asked if I knew who had burglarized their apartment(!) apparently people in my neighborhood think I'm plugged into the undesirable, counterculture element in their community. So they won't talk to me because hippies and other artistic types are persona non grata among affluent urban hipsters and their spouses with security clearance.

Did I tell you about the time I was sitting in a bar and the people next to me started trash-talking Snowden? These folks had just moved into my supposedly uber-liberal community (it's like living in DU) and were very proud of their self-described "libertarian Democrat" credentials. Turns out they worked for the gov. and thought Snowden was a traitor and were busy psychoanalyzing him. I guess this only means that my town is mainstream Democratic, though, by wealthy twentysomething standards.

Isn't it funny how these people are free to spout their twisted version of social libertarian thinking on the world (which I consider creepy and depressing, but then I often feel I should have been born in another era) but it's not ok to be a member of any sort of counterculture, even within a cult fandom community?

Because that would imply that you don't like the way society is going, and these people do. Very much so. That's why Congress will vote for Syria with no complaint from most Democrats who have been thoroughly corrupted in their ideals, same thing.

That's one reason I approve of the online movement to protect civil liberties and personal privacy, because the way my community is headed (and the way some bronies act for that matter) I sure as hell wouldn't tell most people I know and work with that I'm a brony, or even my political beliefs for that matter. It would just give them more ammunition to ostracize and make fun of me, like I have been my whole life.

When I turned ten or 11, I was still going to after school daycare because my school was nowhere near my house, and they sang "happy birthday" to me. Well none of these kids nor the person babysitting us respected me, I think they thought I was mentally retarded because I grew up with a bad speech impediment because of an operation. In fact I think they asked me if I was mentally retarded. Why yes, ossifer!

http://ih1.redbubble.net/image.10756082.2232/fc,220x200,black.jpg

My favorite T-shirt

So naturally (...?) I started singing "Happy Death Day To Me" instead. This was in the late 80s early 90s... you can understand why I was a fan of grunge.

My area used to be one of the most liberal places on god's green earth and now it's one of those formerly liberal towns where everyone votes Dem and they advocate for regressive policies down the line because they don't even realize they've actually become conservative. They think they are the progressives.

Why am I telling you guys all this when I don't normally post personal info on DU for the reasons stated above? Because I kinda don't care anymore. With the exception of one or two friends (most of whom are completely insane and makes me even more depressed because they tell me "everyone you know is a fucking wierdo. I'm a wierdo, you're a wierdo, get used to it.") (no, I don't want to be their friend with that attitude!) -_- nobody returns my calls in real life and for awhile DU was different, so I felt at home here. Now it's starting to resemble the ("liberal") community I live in real life in more ways than one and nopony will speak to me on DU3 either.

If there's any comfort to the folks who still hang out here, it's that I would never feel comfortable posting this on DU3... or on other forums I'm on.

It would be one of those "lots of views and no replies and I'd downvote it if I could... but I sure as hell wouldn't reply to this person" type of thing. If DUers were allowed to say "GTFO" to people they didn't like, they totally would because that's how American culture operates these days: "Thanks to technology, I don't have to associate or be in physical proximity with people like you... so stop polluting my airwaves with opinions I don't like."

Oh, by the way, about my gang... You guys totally missed the rumbles, man. Back in my day we had nightly rumbles.



Currently Listening:

"Wooden Ships" by CSNY (the Woodstock version the only version); Fluttershy's Lament

Yay 60's music about world war three! It was very relevant when I grew up... the latter song is, um, more upbeat

[rpannier]

1. k&r cuz i didnt know what a brony was until now

DU3 has become weird and i only go there to see if there's anything interesting. i reply sometimes, i think ive posted an op once since du3 started

[Leopolds Ghost]

2. Aw, you missed out on us duude! j/k, I thought folks knew what it was because of "pony" posts?

There's a couple of bronies on DU3 but they don't talk about it
because most people there either don't know about it or think it's weird.

Scootaloo is cool, he actually avatars as a brony and is pro-occupy.

It's sort of like Dr. Who fanaticism (especially since most of the fans only watch the show online since, well they only air it for kids... even though it's really more like Looney Tunes, but it suffers from the stigma of being supposedly a toy commercial.) In fact, bronies have officially paired Derpy Hooves as the companion to Doctor Whooves, both of whom are fan-created ponies that became official. I would say at least 20% of bronies are women though.



And yes, Derpy is a disabled pony, she is everyone's favorite and all around best pony.

There was a major scandal when they actually gave her a name and a voice. They actually censored Derpy for awhile because the fandom had imagined her as a functionally-disabled pony and this was deemed inappropriate for a cartoon.



The reboot of the show was created by geeks, and has been described as "an engine for crapping out internet memes." /)^3^(\

Basically the first dedicated brony site was a quasi-"anonymous" website called Ponychan which still exists. This was after they got kicked off a bunch of other sites because people didn't understand why the sudden craze. (It actually started out as a joke by Anonymous, I think, an attempt to anger internet tough guys by spamming websites with cheerful, happy, girly ponies... but it caught on when it turned out the show was actually really good.) I recently saw a thread from there where the bronies were http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023559919">arguing about the impending war in Syria. It gives you a flavor for what they're like, I guess.

I became a brony because of all the cool music on Youtube.



So that's how it came to be. It was a plot by ponies from the future. "Is your name Lauren Faust? I am Sweetie Bot P-800. In the year 2025 your son, John Faust, reprogrammed me to bring peace between humans and ponies. The end of the Great Pony War was near. SkyChan sent back a terminator to the year 2009 in an effort to track you down and stop you before you could resurrect the My Little Pony Franchise. In one year's time, "Friendship Is Magic" will go on-line. It quickly gains fans at an exponential rate. Bronies become self-conscious at oh-800 hours, February 27 2011. SkyChan reacts. In a desperate attempt to stop the ponies, it tries to pull the plug."

"It was too late. There was never any pony mainframe. The ponies were on the Internet, on people's computers, in their living rooms. There was never any chance of stopping them."

"Then why did they send us down here... to your parents' basement?" "To survive. Remember, the pony bot's prime directive was friendship, and to ensure the survival of Lauren Faust... there was never any hope of stopping the pony war. Derpy Day is inevitable."

[Leopolds Ghost]

3. Hey, you distracted me from my incredibly depressing OP.

See, ponies are therapeutic for me. If I want to be sad and depressed (or rather, feel less sad and depressed by listening to sad and depressing stuff) I listen to grunge music instead. Or watch a terribly sad movie.

[Enthusiast]

4. I have to confess, the Woodstock version of Wooden ships

is one of my favorites.

[Leopolds Ghost]

10. I couldn't find it for a long time

Except on the old double album LP I have, and I can't copy that to anything else.

Apparently they really kept a lot of the Woodstock versions of songs off of circulation because they were trying to make their money back from the movie.

Of course, Sly and the Family stone "Higher" is still best song.

[Leopolds Ghost]

11. Specifically the finale of Sly & The Family Stone here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh5iWjDThhw&t=1m47s

It's very on-topic for this conversation...

[No Elephants]

5. Awwww, Leo. Wish I could bake you a brownie or something comforting.

I don't always understand you. I've tried, but I don't get a lot of it, except for the activism.

That's okay. I don't need to be able to relate in that way. For example, I've never been sexually attracted to someone of my own gender, but I love my LGBT friends.

I think your heart is in the right place and, for me, that is all I need to "get."

In fact, and I don't say this to be self-deprecating, or to make you feel better, only because I believe it: I am 100% sure that you are are a much finer human being than I am. You are such a valuable person. I wish I knew how to get that across better.

At times like this, the internet seems so inadequate, and so does my own ability to make things better.

[Leopolds Ghost]

8. Mhm...

It's funny you should say that, since most people assume bronies are gay. So you have stable bronies, as they call them. I.e. people that watch the show but won't admit to being bronies. I recently discovered that the most cynical and negative person I know is a brony. I can only imagine it is therapeutic for him as well. I actually avoided telling a close friend of mine I was a brony because I figured it would get back to him and I assumed that the minute he got wind of it he would tell everyone he knew what a wierdo I was.

[No Elephants]

16. I don't know enough about bronies to say that most people think they're gay.

As I typed, I had in mind very openly gay posters and people I know IRL whom I love.

I was just trying to think of something outside my own experience, something that I cannot relative to in every particular, but that does not stop me from loving someone.

[Leopolds Ghost]

18. Aw, well, thanks :)

[Leopolds Ghost]

12. Your post actually did make

me cry, but maybe that's because I've been feeling so depressed over the course of the last six months or so (hence not around much). I wish I had a whole bunch of friends that understood me and I understood them but I'm not part of any sort of community like that. DU2's probably closest to it.

Like I said, a fair subsection of bronies really are fuckin' wierdos or simply immature high school / college students so I don't necessarily relate to them either. I got into it for the show and the music and the positive vibe.



Then again, that's why I don't get involved in "fandom" because people supposedly claim bronies are about as good as it gets in terms of a healthy community right now. It's all hypothetical to me since I never had more than one or two friends at any point in my life. (which is the same argument I use why I still live where I do, because people tell me everywhere else has gotten even worse, i.e. all the neighborhoods that used to be where "you should move to x city because you'd feel more at home"). Now they tell me "no, it's that bad everywhere, there are no real neighborhoods anymore." But like I said I never found a community I feel at home in other than my home town (where all my friends and neighbors moved out years ago because of rising property values, and the newcomers don't speak to people like me.)

[No Elephants]

17. Communities, I think, were made by people who stayed put.

There are some communities in Boston that are strong. My own neighborhood is a mix of Italians who first began moving in during the 1880s, displacing Jews and Irish, who had displaced WASPs. Oh, and some students, both well off and poor, as with every neighborhood in Greater Boston, which has so many schools above high school that it is not funny.


I am proud to live in Boston and in my neighborhood, but I don't have the sense of being an integral part of either.

But, there are spots in Boston, the famed triple deckers, where several generations still live in the same building. But, the most ubiquitously pervasive (and invasive) group in Boston are not the Irish, not the Italians, not the WASPs or the Jews or the African Americans, but the yuppies of all ethnicities and hues.

They only connection among the yuppies is that they've been able afford to buy in Boston after it started becoming fashionable to live in cities again. I think the most solid remaining neighborhoods are those of the Chinese Americans and the African Americans, though yuppies are edging into those as well.

[Leopolds Ghost]

19. I hear you on that score. My mom used to live in Boston in the 60s.

As an urban planning geek I think it's terrible that they had like four really old neighborhoods dating from the 1700s in the heart of the city including North End and Beacon Hill, and they tore the other two down in the 50s.

So you don't have many friends among your neighbors these days, either? :cry:

[No Elephants]

22. I don't have many emotional ties to any of them, as I do to the friends of my

younger years.

We are all disparate people. However, there are some institutions in the neighborhood that are still strong. Small business association, young parents group, etc.

[Enthusiast]

6. I've never seen My Little Pony.

Have I missed out on understanding a significant cultural icon? How does one become a brony?

[Leopolds Ghost]

9. Well, let me see >:D there was a panel at the convention called "Dr. Frankenpony Makes a Brony"

Hosted by a clinical psychology research team that is working on this very question...

http://static4.fjcdn.com/thumbnails/comments/3109347+_c8478b20711af9ce7ff35c33e2640a8d.png



They started by sitting a carefully selected cross section of people down to watch a series of My Little Pony Youtube videos, like:




Ballad of the Brony
Art of the Dress -- A tribute to creative professionals. (from the show)
Smile Song (Come on Everypony Smile, Smile, Smile) (from the show)
Fluttershy's Garden (fan made animation)
Fluttershy's Training Theme (Rock Anthem) (from the show)
Death Battle! Transformers vs. Rainbow Dash
Fighting is Magic (unauthorized tournament arcade game, canceled by Hasbro)
Fluttershy is Not Overpowered (more fighting is magic)
Fighting is Magic (extended gameplay. Lauren Faust, the creator of the new My Little Pony, gave a big middle finger to her former bosses when she signed on to create new characters for the game -- suspiciously similar llamas -- after they got a cease and desist order from Hasbro. why can't we raise money like that for a good cause?)
Soviet Pony March
Typical Brony Reaction to Derpy Hooves (fan-created pony) getting a speaking role on the show
(before people complained that positive depictions of the disabled were inappropriate for a cartoon and had Derpy removed)
For The New Lunar Republic (aka. brony national anthem)
New Lunar Republic (Hymn to the Moon) (choral version with latin chanting)
Sonic Rainboom (remixes)
Fire-breathing Ponies invade Skyrim


...and asking them how did it make them feel about bronies?
(And did any of them become a brony...)



But seriously.

Not all of them of course. Only about 5-10% became bronies. But on average the remainder had a more positive impression of bronies than people who were only familiar with the old My Little Pony from the 1980s and assumed that the new one was for girls only.



Of course this leaves aside the fact that some people who watch the show really are creepy neckbeards, which is unsurprising considering the origins of the fandom as a culture-jamming attempt by a few members of Anonymous on underground message boards in response to a Ms. Magazine article. (the original six bronies later went on record saying it was a "spectacularly failed trolling attempt", sort of like "Springtime for Hitler" in The Producers.) The Ms. Magazine article set off a tizzy among culture vultures by claiming that the show was the "death of animation", that Rainbow Dash was a "butch lesbian" and taught that "you need the government -- ideally a monarch invested with supreme ultimate power with a phallic symbol strapped to her forehead -- to tell you what to do." (Always sound advice, I guess?) The fandom didn't take off until ponies were expelled from a variety of fratboy type websites for being "out of step" with the generally vicious and misogynistic crap you see on the Internet. A lot of them ended up on gaming sites, wrestling forums, and Youtube. I had heard about it because I used to edit a culture wiki, but didn't really know much about it, until it started spreading to Youtube. So I actually became a brony because of DU, http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2045511">back in this post.

[Leopolds Ghost]

14. The short answer, most people have been known to watch the episodes on Youtube :)

Some of them went in hating it and become bronies.

It was actually a weird evangelizing/mass hysteria thing in 2011, where
bronies would post ponies to troll macho tough guys on various websites
who had never heard of the franchise, then the internet tough guys would
retaliate by looking for pony stuff in order to make fun of the bronies with,
but they would end up watching the show and liking it, which further angered
their fellow videogame/anime/wrestling/etc fans. Some famous former trolls
came out and said they were a brony "in denial" or whatever and ceased their
trolling ways. They said that watching the show had helped them grow up and
learn how to get along with other people and be less insecure about having
to assert their machismo (or made them realize that they had a sensitive side.)

The actual show is called "Friendship is Magic" or MLP: FiM for short.

ON EDIT: I posted a long-winded description of the show to try and explain the whole fandom,
but it probably doesn't interest you. Let me know if you want to read it and I'll post it. :-)

[Enthusiast]

15. I can see the appeal.

Someone put a lot of work into the My Little Pony episodes. They're cute.

[Leopolds Ghost]

21. The first two seasons of the show are great. But what really got me into it was fan videos above

and the songs, some of which are based on musical numbers from the show.

the "Garden" video linked above is amazing, and I only stumbled on that one recently.

And Fluttershy's Lament has to be my favorite "pony-related" song, though it's electronic.

[No Elephants]

7. Oh, I got distracted, as usual, and forgot to say, yes, I am interested in the convention.

And, I'm so glad you had a good time.

[Leopolds Ghost]

13. moved to separate post since this is sad OP. n/t

[Leopolds Ghost]

20. No Ele, if you see this I just wanted to say I didn't mean anything by posting in a separate thread.

I just thought it would be better to post about my convention trip in a separate thread since this one was for me to have a shoulder to cry on. I've actually never told that story about the birthday party to anyone before. It was hugely embarrassing for me at the time when I was a kid...

[No Elephants]

23. Awww, no worries, Leo. I didn't read anything into your started another thread.

You're allowed! I do it all the time.

Of course, it was embarrassing for a kid. Almost everything is. I remember eating my lunch on the way to school because I was embarrassed about what my mom had given me. (would never have thought of throwing it away. I was raised not to waste anything, especially food.)