The phenomenon of bronies

Posted by tedmark on February 5th, 2013

“My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” is a television series animation that knows high popularity, but not only by little girls, as you might expect. Actually, the cartoon is admired and watched nowadays by a lot of young adult men, who like to call themselves bronies. And there is a place where they can all meet, share and celebrate their unique passion towards the cartoon: the New York Comic Con. There are definitely many opinions and psychological profiles assimilated to the term “brony”.

The cartoon series is based on the franchise “My Little Pony” and since it had its debut in 2010, the cartoons gained immense popularity, lots of reactions, including image macros released all over the internet. Brony comes actually from two terms gathered together: bro and pony. The term is so widely used that it made its entrance in the Urban Dictionary and it describes bronies as being a group of people who enjoy watching “My Little Pony”. All the rage has had a great impact within people, as now there is a special language that fans use, there are conventions and more.

The jargon applies to both male and females, whereas the female fans of the cartoons are known as “pegasisters” and those who post images with ponies online and on various platforms are known as “colts”. Of course, there are additional slang terms that have been developed throughout the years by the Brony community. Some of the words are taken directly from the show, from the dialogues and some other phrases have been modified by the fans. Not to mention that are many fan sites where one can find out more about the bronies and get more familiar with their slang.

Several local meetings have been organized due to the recognition of the fan groups. There are small conventions, but also participations of the big fans at important events, like the New York BroNYCon, which was held in 2011 in June. At the event, 100 people attended, including the supervising director of the show, Jayson Thiessen. There was also a second convention that took place in September 2011, where more people attended, around 300. Afterwards, in January 2012, the event was organized for fans and fan artists as well and this time, 800 people showed up.

It was in July 2012 when over 4000 people went to the BroNYCon convention and this time members of the show and voice stars were there as well. Michael Brockhoff, the documentary producer, created a documentary about the bronies. A lot of studies were made and it resulted that the average brony had around 21 years. The majority of the fans were males and more than half of them have a college degree. The evolution of the culture is being analyzed by several psychology professors. One of the highlights of the phenomenon is the constant media generated. The majority of the media comes from the show illustrations, but some of them it is generated by the fans as well.

What is certain is that there is a lot of fuss around the bronies and their presence can be sensed everywhere. Many people classifies a brony as being a non-violent person, passionate about meaning of true things.