On Brony Freak outs

Anyone who has been part of the herd long enough has probably got the feeling that the brony fandom is in many ways unique from others. I am and have been a fan of many other shows like Star Trek, Stargate, The Simpsons, Avatar (the real Avatar, not James Cameron's blue rabbit, nature porn), Adventure Time, and more anime than I care to mention. While all of these fandoms and many more will inevitably produce works of fan labor the brony community stands out due to the large amount of high quality music, fan art, and fan fiction. Simply put this is a fandom which attracts many creative and talented people for some reason. There is however another aspect of the fandom which stands out to me and that is that we seem to have a greater tendency to go nuts over anything unexpected and/or undesirable in the show.

I first became a brony during season 2, just before Derpygate happened. I got into the hype and even signed the petition but I can't really say I was upset over it. After all everything we love about that character originated completely within the fandom, even if they had permanently removed her from the show it wouldn't have ‘killed' her. The next event that seemed to freak everyone out was learning that Season 3 would only be a half-season. Many pessimistic bronies feared that this meant the end of the show. I was a little worried when I heard of this but logically it wouldn't make sense for the Hub to suddenly end its most popular show, short of some financial difficulty of Hasbro but that's not happening. Any concern I may have had was assuaged when I did a little digging and found that season 4 was all but confirmed. Then there's the most recent and most extreme freak out to date, Twilicorn. Everybody went nuts over this, many are still going nuts over it. Given the extreme nature of the change I wouldn't be surprised if there are some who are going to have a chip on their shoulder for the rest of the series (I can almost see the ‘Unicorn Twilight is Better' T-shirts now). I'd be lying if I said I wasn't really bummed out when I heard the news and frankly I'm still not totally sold on it. Which isn't to say I think it will ruin the show, I'm sure it will be just as good as it has been and it still has the potential to get even better. I just think seeing Twilight with wings from now on will be kind of awkward, but I digress. After finally confirming that this was happening and I was sitting around feeling depressed about it I had to ask myself ‘why am I getting this worked up over cartoon ponies'.

Like I said, I have been and still am a fan of many other shows but none of them have ever affected me like MLP:FIM does at times. I'm willing to guess that this is the same for many other bronies as well but why is it so? For just about every other show I'm a fan of I think I could easily shrug it off if it were it to go downhill. For example, when I was a kid one of the Saturday morning cartoons I liked to watch was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, not the original (I'm not that old) the one 4Kids did. I enjoyed the show when it started out and they were fighting street gangs, and the Shredder but when it got around to aliens, time traveling dinosaurs, and alternate dimensions I stopped liking it so I stopped watching it, and that was it. I didn't get depressed thinking about what a wonderful experience the show was to me. And that's because it wasn't, it was just a fun show and not something really affected me. So what's different about this show?

A lot of people say that they like the show because of the interesting, lovable, and compelling characters but other shows have interesting, lovable, and compelling characters too. Others will give reasons like great animation or great story but again this isn't the only show that has those things. Based on my experience with the show and the kind people who become bronies I have concluded that it is the kind of world in which the show takes place that draws people to it. I don't mean a world where everyone is a pony, although admittedly there are some odd ones among our ranks, but what I'm getting at is that we like the idea of a world where everybody values such ethics as friendship, kindness, generosity, loyalty, and honesty. This is in stark contrast with the world we live in which is greedy, hateful, deceitful, selfish, and so on. Consider that in our world we have a society which forces use to constantly be at odds with one another. We don't just go out and get a job that we can do well we have to compete against each other for it and for every one person that gets a job there are several others that are out of one. We're all competing against one another for our own personal benefit. While this competitiveness is theoretically good for the economy it comes at a significant social cost. While supposedly creating a more prosperous world this world is nevertheless based on fighting each other, not being able to trust one another, and always trying to gain at somebody else's expense to succeed. This kind of environment makes it very easy to become cynical, pessimistic, and extremely jaded because any sane person will realize that we shouldn't have to do this to each other. Then there comes along a show about friendship and being kind to one another that is actually a very entertaining and enjoyable show that doesn't talk down to its audience.

The show presents a universe radically different from our own. In Equestria the ponies who know what they want and are best suited to do, i.e. have their cutie marks, have a job. The focus of the society isn't necessarily economic efficiency but the general happiness and well-being of all the members of that society. Which is probably for the best, there have been studies to show that greater happiness among workers leads to greater productivity (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1526075##). The point I'm getting at is that the MLP universe is one where it isn't necessary to be in a perpetual state of conflict with each other to succeed.

It is very easy to become cynical, pessimistic, and extremely jaded in the kind of environment we live in because any sane person realizes that we shouldn't have to do this to each other. My Little Pony stands out from other shows because it presents a world we would like to have in a non-patronizing way. Most other shows portray worlds which are either ridiculous non-sense or not much different from the one we have to live in. This is why MLP:FIM can generate such emotional outbursts from many fans. It's not just another escapist fantasy, it's an escape to the kind of universe we naturally want to have as our own.

Yes, My Little Pony is an escape for us but on some level it can also serve as a model, or rather a rough draft, for a potentially better ‘real' world. We can embrace friendship instead of hatred, generosity instead of greed, honesty instead of deceit, and loyalty instead of selfishness.