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

[Leopolds Ghost]

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.