At the time of writing this, I have been a brony for 9 years. I felt compelled to write this article for whatever reason because of MLP's importance in my life.
Origins
The origins of how I became a brony start back in 2013. Back then I was into creepypasta and was one day recommended this video. It's a shitty, provably wrong theory about how the Mane 6 are based on 6 dead girls that died on the same day. However, when I first listened to this video, there was something about it that enthralled me. For some reason I wanted more My Little Pony creepypasta. Up until this point I had actually not known anything about My Little Pony at all possibly not even knowing it was a thing that existed but for some reason after listening to a bad creepypasta theory, I needed more. I had even listened to plenty of other cartoon creepypasta by this point but none of them had me interested like this one MLP story. So next I listened to this video, another dark MLP story. After this I'm pretty sure I looked up more MLP creepypasta but I don't remember much. Eventually my interest waned and for the next couple months I didn't listen to or watch anything MLP related.
Sometime around April 2014, I somehow got into MLP creepypasta again I think but eventually around this time I learned about bronies. This may not be how I initially learned about bronies but during this time I watched Good Mythical Morning a lot and they had an episode about bronies you can watch here. This episode then led me to this video by Saberspark which is a documentary about bronies. Around this point, I also started watching MLP YouTube Poops a lot. For months I would watch a bunch of MLP-related things but never actually got around to watching the show itself. I clearly had an interest in the show but I kept denying myself the act of watching it. Then one day I decided I was going to watch the series premiere. On some day in the middle of September 2014 I finally watched the first episodes of the show. It was fucking great. After watching the first two episodes I decided I was a brony.
The next day it was like I was a whole new person. I remember telling people I was a brony that day and they were very surprised that I, a misanthropic edgelord with a history of violence of all people would love a show about cute little ponies learning about friendship.
My Chronological History
After watching the first episodes, I began to watch the rest when I could. By this point, the show had concluded season 4 and Rainbow Rocks had just been released. Sometime in mid-late December, I had watched all official MLP media by that point.
After I first became a brony, I finally went all-in on watching pony stuff. I remember listening to brony music, listening to actually somewhat good fanfiction, watching those really shitty analysis videos made almost exclusively by self-righteous losers that think they're hot shit for being horse famous, and some other miscellaneous things like animations, parodies, and critiques of other bronies.
Before I was a brony, I did not care at all about any type of music but when I started listening to music made by bronies I realized the art that music is and to this day listen mostly to brony-made music. By the time I was at this point, I think I was mostly over the whole creepypasta thing but I still listened to dark MLP fanfiction frequently.
In 2015 during my Kamcord saga, I made plenty of videos related to MLP and talked about MLP a lot and people on there knew me as the brony.
I also remember watching a livestream of the season 5 premiere when the time came and that was the first episode I watched as it premiered.
In summer 2015, I was at a place for a couple days and met some people that were bronies and fandom types. We hung out a few times at that place before we left. The people of the group shipped me and one of the girls because we both got along the most and she's who invited me to the group after seeing I was loner with no friends. We initially met because I think it was her who made a comment about the mislabeling of pegasi, unicorns, and alicorns and then I think I also commented agreeing with her and learned she also liked MLP. The next day she invited me to the group. Never got any of their contact info so I never talked to any of them again after I left the place. Also fun fact somewhat unrelated: at this place there was a dance on the final day and I didn't want to dance so I just hung out in the back. A solo girl and two different groups of two girls came up to me asking to dance and I rejected every single one of them. Later the girl I was shipped with asked me to dance and I rejected even her. I do not want to dance.
Eventually I met another person in real life that was also a brony. We sort of became friends but not entirely. We mostly just brohoofed when we saw each other and other than talking about MLP a little bit when we first found out we were both bronies, the only sort of friendship thing we did was group up in class sometimes. He was kind of creepy and admitted to me that I was like 4th or 5th on his list of people he either wanted to date or have sex with. I don't remember which one exactly; probably both. I also remember him once talking about how the Equestria Girls characters were "so hot".
So in 2015 or 2016, there was a class project. What we had to do was teach the class about something or how to do something. What I did doesn't matter but what my 'friend' chose does pertain to this article. Buddy over here decided his project was going to be about 'How To Enjoy A Fandom' and was going to use MLP and bronies as an example. So what he planned to do was make a Google Slides presentation about MLP then discuss 'How To Enjoy A Fandom'. People were allowed to help each other during this project and I decided to help him with his project. I was going to review and edit his Google Slides presentation. Instead of just reviewing and editing the presentation, I basically had to make an entirely new one myself because his was utter garbage and I didn't want bronies portrayed as complete morons. What I did was make a presentation showing a few facts about the show then at the end, a few facts about bronies only two of which I remember and only one of which was actually true that being bronies originated on 4Chan. So eventually the day of his presentation came and I was going to help by controlling the slides then talking a little bit about MLP and bronies myself along with him from the presentation I made. While it was his project, I made pretty much the whole MLP/brony presentation and am one of those people that has done a class project in front of other students talking about MLP and bronies. After my work was completed he had to get to what his presentation was actually about: How To Enjoy A Fandom. Let's just say my presentation was the best part. I think he got a 'C' for the project. And no, it was not recorded nor were we ever bullied over this.
There were also two other people I remember I watched MLP with one time with each person but they weren't really bronies, they just sort of knew about MLP/bronies and understood references.
After my Kamcord saga, I was on another platform which I became infamous for my trolling and this included some MLP stuff. Read about it Here (90s Kids Wannabes section). Then after this was the next section of that article. This saga lasted for about 5 years. A lot of stuff happened on that platform that relates to being a brony since I had brony accounts and almost everyone I interacted with was a brony. Maybe someday later I'll discuss that whole saga in a separate article beyond my basic trolling descriptions but not yet.
In 2017 the My Little Pony movie came out and I went to watch it in a movie theater. I expected there to be other bronies watching the showing too but the only other people were like three groups of a parent and child. I was the only grown, alone person at the showing. The movie was great. After the movie when I walked out of the movie theater, there was a double rainbow. This was some meaningful stuff. A double rainbow after watching the My Little Pony movie when MLP means so much to me could be some kind of synchronicity. Here are some photos of it:
Not much of significance happened in 2018 that I remember.
2019 was the final year of Friendship is Magic. I watched the final episodes on a livestream. When the epilogue was over, I just sat there. I and who knows how many others had all watched the end of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. It was an empty feeling. I took a photo of my screen at this moment.
Simplicity And Fullness
I think My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is amazing. The reasons are subjective but here is a reason that I haven't seen others discuss. That reason being its simplicity yet fullness in multiple aspects. One is characters. The characters are very easy to understand but well developed. Characters in stories can be simple to understand but dull and forgettable or well developed but hard to understand fully their personality, relationships, wants, and whatever. MLP characters are simple and well developed. You can assign easily understandable archetypes to the characters of MLP and their relationships, desires, and faults are very easy to understand and are interesting to learn about. In terms of setting, MLP takes place in a sort of fantasy world. There's magic, monsters, and many different sapient races. There's so many places in MLP too that have their own lore as MLP goes on. The world of MLP:FiM is full of life and lore but is very easy to understand. This is possibly the main reason why I think MLP is so great. Obviously a children's show is going to be easy to understand but MLP is so well executed and full of life that the simplicity isn't a fault.
Because MLP:FiM is simple but has so much to it, this makes fan works easier to make too. When the world is very easy to understand, it's probably easier to make fan works that can further expand on the world and its characters.
Fanaticism
You may be reading at this point and think I'm obsessed with My Little Pony to which yeah, I kinda probably am. However, it doesn't consume my life. The only MLP merch I have at the time of writing this is a shirt, a Rainbow Dash plush, and a mug which was gifted to me. I care about the show and the creative works that bronies make. I'm against consoomerism. I like ponies sort of as an aesthetic too but that's about as far as I go in terms of obsession.
Fandom
Years ago if you asked me if I was part of the brony fandom, I would've said yes but nowadays I would say no. I love MLP and I love the work that bronies do in terms of art but it's the ponies that are most important to me, not my relation to others like me. By some people's definitions, maybe I'm part of the fandom but due to my anticollectivist philosophy, I don't claim myself as a member of communities. I am a brony but I am not part of the brony fandom.
I see a lot that people just want a fandom to be a part of due to the desire to be accepted by a community. When the brony fandom died down, many people left for other fandoms because of this. This shows that these kind of people care more about being accepted in a community than what a community stands for. I see people often will stop being a brony and then go and become a furry since that fandom is alive and active. I'm not saying this is good or bad, I just notice this sort of collectivist behavior in people.
Furries Vs. Bronies
People have compared bronies and furries as being similar. Some even consider nonfurry-identified bronies as closeted furries. I don't think this is true. While bronies are similar if not the most similar group of people to furries, the differences are big enough that I think they are fully separate from each other.
The main difference being that furries are based around a concept that being anthropomorphic animals while bronies are based around a central medium being the show. Furries are what I would call a decentralised fandom while bronies are a centralised fandom. While someone can obviously be a brony and furry, simply being a brony I don't think is compatible with what makes a furry. If all bronies are furries then people who like other things about anthropomorphic animals would also be furries even if it's only the centralised fandom they partake in. Does liking something like Sonic or some other franchise about anthropomorphic animals make you a furry even if you only care about said single franchise? I don't think so.
Gen 5
I watch Gen 5. I like Gen 5 but it is nowhere near as great as FiM and without the context of FiM, Gen 5 would not be worth watching. The problem with Gen 5 is that it lacks the magic of FiM both literally and figuratively. As I stated previously, FiM is a world full of magic, creatures, sapient races, unique locations, whatever. Gen 5 on the other hand is severely lacking in the fullness that FiM had. In FiM, we have a map of Equestria. We can see that Equestria is a land full of unique locations and we see many of those locations as the show goes on. In Gen 5, early on, pretty much everything took place in 1 of 3 locations with only like 3 more being shown since then at the time of writing. In FiM, the world is full of mystical creatures while in Gen 5 there's almost no mystical creatures at all while there's only been shown two other sapient races as of writing this.
The decision to take the magic from Equestria I think is what prevents Gen 5 from being great. Gen 5 has the simplicity but lacks the fullness like I've referenced before. Gen 5 also has some inaccuracies to stuff established in FiM like dragon biology. There's also the problem that the ending of FiM is incompatible with the existence of Gen 5. However I just assume there's a multiple endings thing going on where the epilogue of FiM is the good ending while Gen 5 takes place after the implied bad ending of FiM. If the epilogue of FiM is just supposed to be completely disregarded, I feel that would just be disrespectful to FiM.
The ending of FiM was beautiful. We see what friendship is like in the future where the Mane 6 have responsibilities and are limited in their relationships with each other but still maintain friendship regardless. We see a new character is learning about friendship to carry on the legacy of those before her. We see that friendship is magic and is what got Equestria through all its threats. Gen 5 throws that away.
My Brony Archive Project
Because of my love of MLP, I have created a personal archive project for brony-made works. It's not public so it's more like hoard but exists regardless. Because of internet ephemerality, I have taken it upon myself to archive these works. It's done with a mix of manual downloads and software automation. I check for deleted stuff too on other archives so I try to be as thorough as I can. It's also done solo so my efforts are slow compared to a community driven archive project but I still get it done. The saying "Once it's on the internet, it's there forever." is one of the biggest myths perpetuated and without people actively archiving things, so much stuff is lost. I don't want to lose all the stuff made by bronies someday.
I keep my archives on multiple local backups and I can buy more drives when needed so resources and funding is not an issue. I try to archive as much as I can but obviously I can't get all of it. I focus mostly on YouTube media so I also may miss other platforms and websites. If there are any brony-made things you know of you want archived, please contact me with the names of whatever thing be it the people, projects, series, websites, whatever especially if there's any elevated risk of loss of that media. If there's something that is lost, you can also ask me to try to find it if I don't possess it already; I have found stuff declared lost before. I can also use help with account-required stuff on websites that require being logged in and have no functioning third-party client so if you are able to help in that regard, you can assist me.
Final
I was probably going to end up a brony regardless of what events occurred. From the first exposure, MLP was pulling me in and if I wasn't exposed to it back then, I certainly would've been later. A lot of people have stopped being bronies and bronies have been dying out for awhile. There's still quite a few places were bronies are very active but the infamy and greater activity is gone. I don't see myself ever stopping being a brony. I'm sure I will die a brony.
Written 2023-12-12 Published 2024-1-1