Is "Brony" A Bad Word? · 11:39pm Aug 3rd, 2014
Is "Brony" A Bad Word?
So I was reading an article on Kotaku-bad idea, I know-on my lunch break at work. The article was about the My Little Pony Collectible Card Game. I was sucked into reading the article since I am a big fan and player of the game. (Top 8 player at Everfree Northwest, and in Top 8 at one of my local stores when they ran their tournaments.)
Now, the Kotaku article wasn't the start of me having this question, it's just the latest in the series of events.
Kotaku is a fairly caustic place as far as comment sections go. Maybe that's just the internet in general now, I don't know. I guess I am in a fairly tight bubble. Regardless, I went down to the comment section, and the very first comment was from a brony, though I don't know if he likes being called that, with a picture of Rainbow Dash. It said "In before 'Pedophile' and 'Man-child' along with other crap we've all heard before."
I'm not saying that without that comment the hate wouldn't have come, but come it did. It seems like the people who hate on bronies are getting a lot more intelligent about it, though. It's strange to see arguments that aren't just slurs and cussing. There was an awful lot of people trying to justify the pedo comments in particular, linking to the BABScon incident with the underage girl who was apparently creeped out. She also later admitted that she may have embellished the story. Even if it was true, it's still judging an entire group of people based on one individual. There was a second article about another underage girl who had been harassed, I didn't look at it, but from what I can gather she ended up posting about it online to try and get revenge on the bronies who supposedly harassed her, and she ended up having an intrusion into her privacy, including threats being sent to her and other things. It sounds like the sort of thing that would happen on 4chan, so I can imagine that it happened there.
Coming full circle, back to my question in the title here, there were a lot of bronies and non-bronies in the article that were saying that the name "brony" is now tainted. Tainted by R34, tainted by that one Lyra plushie, tainted by loud and obnoxious fans, tainted by what people who (mostly on 4chan) seem to refer to as "autism"... Someone even went as far as to say (praphrasing here) "Call yourself a fan of the show, a friendship fan, pony guy, whatever, but don't use the word brony because it's got too much baggage."
Has this separation really happened? I have friends who are... I want to say bronies, but they don't like it... so we'll go with "fans of the show, and even of the fandom itself" who hate the term brony. One guy I know even gets mad, like actually mad, if he's called a brony... and yet he watches the show, enjoys it for the most part, and is even into what some people would consider the "bad part" of the fandom, namely into the saucier artwork, even R34. So what's so bad about it to him? And is it different from what's bad about it to someone else? I think definitely.
I don't think many people who hate the term can even put their finger on why. I think many people who hate the term would even disagree on why it's so bad. One person in the comments section on the Kotaku article said we had to separate ourselves from "bro culture." I guess he means, like, macho dudes with red solo cups of cheap beer oggling sorority girls? Am I reading that right? I seriously don't get it.
It's frustrating to me.
When I first found the show, it took me a bit to get into it, but when I did, I got into it heavily. I really identified with "brony". To me, someone who is being a "bro" is being a good guy. A friend. A total bro. You know. It meant a lot to me. I was in a dark place in my life, honestly, and the show along with bronies really dug me out of there. To me, brony just meant someone else who was a fan of the show that didn't fit the target demo, and that was it. I furthermore don't have an issue with people liking R34, so that's not really tainting in my mind. I was and am still pretty socially awkward, which is a lot of what gets referred to as "autism" (which is honestly a term I think our fandom could do without more so than "brony"), so I have no real issue with the fedora-tipping neckbeards who have trouble speaking in complete sentences in the presence of others. So what's left? The pedo remarks are obviously based on logical fallacies, and the man-child thing, well, I wear it proudly. I don't wanna freaking grow up.
So, is brony no good anymore? Or what?
Seriously, let me know, because I'm just confused. Until I come to understand the reason so many want the term ditched, like really understand, I'll continue to:
A) Respect the wishes of anyone who doesn't wanna be called a brony. That's fine, but refer to B.
B) Continue to internally call anyone who's a fan of the show and outside the target demo as a brony. That's just the easy label for that subcategory of human. It's how I internalize it, and honestly, out of every person I've ever met in my life, there's probably more good bronies than non-bronies. Take it as a compliment, because you're in that group of awesome people inside my head.
Among meanings, the word "brony" somehow appears to include "the person who is pulled around by Hasbro's propaganda", "one who can't but love and tolerate obviously bad things". Those actually do take roots in its original definition.
The words "love and tolerate" that were in the definition of "bronies", became a vulnerability. While the culture absorbed and fused with everything else, people forgot its definition altogether. Without a visible way back.
as a result of community's essential attempt to appear by spreading the word about MLP
community was misguided to appreciate and spread escapism instead of using their knowledge in real world.
Some claims of those people are right. Some parts of the community fell into a vicious circle of dreaming about good things but simultaneously corrupting themselves with R34 and gore.
Pegasister sounds better. Too bad I'm a guy.
I almost never use the word 'brony' to outsiders, because they have no idea what that means. (I guess it's because I don't live in the USA)
To me, it's just the name of the fandom. Pic for example.
1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZMrxkTNigEI/UTNWvZog9mI/AAAAAAAABM8/ssssSQ1soLc/s1600/Fandoms.png
The thing is about all these people trying to claim it's bad, I guess depends on the reason. If people simply don't like the name then I can respect that. You think the name sounds stupid then don't use it.
If people don't use it because it associates with all the 'wrong' ideas. I understand where they're coming from but I disagree. In the end it's the name of the fandom, nothing more. This is the same as people who associate other negatives with the other fandoms. It happens to all fandoms and this is the big thing people never seem to realize.
All fandoms have these people. The pedophiles, the stalkers, the extremists. Every. Single. Fandom.
The only issue with the pony fandom is when some kind of 'event' happens to us people freak out and use it against us to try and hurt people. The thing that sucks is it works. Our fandom is no different than any other. We're not special, we don't have some moral high ground. We're people who simply like a show/game/fandom, same as all the others. We're just easier to target and some people have a hard time associating with it.
The idea that we shouldn't use brony or it's 'bad' I hugely disagree with but if people don't like it don't use it. It's simple. The thing that comes next worries me. If people don't use brony than some other name will most likely be applied and may even get popular. However, if there are people that are extremely against 'Brony' it may split the fandom with Bronies Vs 'Gbronies'. As in the darker side are bronies and the Gbronies are the 'G'ood Bronies. The name was a (bad) joke but the fact remains it could happen and I would really would hate to see that.
I think the main thing is people get too easily upset over things don't matter. Let people say whatever the hell they want, ignore them and move on. Sometimes, people take the internet way to seriously with getting offended and everything else. :/
Not you, just saying in general.
-Reader Out-