Bronies The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony

I’ve watched Bronies The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony, I’ve watched a few episodes of Friendship is Magic, and I have to say – I don’t know how I feel about Bronies! Part of me wants to hate them because I have an  instant dislike of anything ‘bro’; Part of me wants to embrace them because hey, I like cartoons too!; Another part of me wants to run screaming ever since Jon Spengler suggested I google ‘clop’. PRO TIP: If you don’t know what ‘Clop’ is, DON’T GOOGLE IT. And if you’re going to ignore my advice and do it anyways, DON’T DO IT ON A WORK COMPUTER.

I swear I am on the internet as much as the next guy, but I totally missed the world exploding over My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic a few years back. My friend, Nikki , I knew was a fan, but I never really dug any deeper than that until last year when I pulled up a couple episodes of My Little Pony on Netflix – I wanted to see what some of the creeping jokes and references were about. Which promptly led to Jon Spengler texting me laughing at my viewing choice, as we can see each others viewing history. Bear with me, I am getting to the movie!

I watched a couple of episodes, and really, I could get a little of why people would watch the show. The animation is okay, the humor had some sarcasm and other notes that little kids wouldn’t pick up… I could get a hint of the creator who had also worked on Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends.  I wrote it off, because it wasn’t a show I was super excited about. At that point, I didn’t really get what all the big deal about Bronies was because I am a huge fan of some cartoon shows that were aimed at children (I’ll talk to you for days about Avatar: The Last Airbender)! So what was the big deal about guys who liked a kid show, much like I liked Avatar?

Here is the story where when having this exact above conversation with Jon, and he jokingly told me to google Clop. I’ll tell you now, if you didn’t look at it before, it’s My Little Pony porn. Fan art of many varieties of NSFW pictures of ponies. I couldn’t scrub my eyeballs fast enough and thankfully was smart enough to surf away so it didn’t pop up the next time I opened my phone browser. The conversation turned to this being why people don’t like Bronies, and that the rest of us not caring that guys like a kid show.

SO! I walked into watching Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony, ready to laugh at creepy dudes who create pony porn. I was totally wrong about the direction of this movie. Another trip back, in doing research for the article that makes me question my own brain, the movie Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony, was the 2nd highest funded kickstarter for a movie! Apparently inquiring minds want to know about Bronies! I queued up the movie, ready for a laugh.

I was somewhat surprised to find John de Lancie narrating the film, and individuals that they follow explaining why they like the show, and why they are excited for this convention. Not trying to be judgmental, but these guys do fit what profile I would think of a Brony (not knowing any personally) – post teen boys, one wears a fedora, mostly man children looking. And then they bring in the back stories. One of them is a young man with Asperger’s syndrome, another is a young man who had been run off the road and hit for his decals on his car of My Little Ponies… all sorts of terrible things. And then de Lancie starts his narrative songs about the show and why people want to go to Bronycon to share a community of friendship and Magic!

I started feeling ashamed for blindly joining the group of people making fun of Bronies – we all want more friendship and magic in our lives. I have a dark shadow on my brain though because I know someone somewhere out there made some ‘clop’ that has forever scarred my mind meats, and I still wasn’t getting the super fandom over the show! Watching the movie isn’t going to make your mind up one way or the other about Bronies. Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans gave me some unexpected feelings about people who just want more magic, friendship, and good feelings in their lives – especially the guys they paraded in the movie (including the dad who super didn’t understand, but was willing to go for his son to go), the transgendered creator of BronyCon who probably needs a lot more friendship and magic in her life for outside reasons other than watching a cartoon show, and John de Lancie narrating and making me laugh.

I’d have much warmer feelings for Bronies if I didn’t google clop, but i’m betting a lot of people felt the same way looking up Sailor Moon when I was a kid and finding all the fan art of that as well. Soooo… Fans can be kinda strange, huh? Check out the movie, and let me know what you think!