Response to City Paper Article · 4:29pm Aug 5th, 2014
Those of you who frequent Equestria Daily have surely seen the post on a rather inflammatory news article published about the recent Balimore BronyCon. If not, here it is.
http://www.equestriadaily.com/2014/08/crazy-city-paper-article-rips-into-pony.html
http://www.citypaper.com/blogs/noise/bcp-the-problem-with-bronies-20140801,0,1667255.story
I was going to comment on the article, but realized my thoughts were too long and in-depth for a comment box, so I'm doing a blog about it. Before you read further, be aware there is going to be frank and open discussion about sexuality in this post, no NSFW content and no cursing, but if that isn't your bag then you may want to close the tab now.
Obviously, the article is just plain badly written, the author has a clear and obvious bias and wrote an article to further it with token hand waves "yeah they aren't all bad" before lumping us together as sexually deviant perverts. I will not pretend to be an authority on journalistic integrity, but I have studied journalism and news in college and believe above all else that journalism's soul interest should be the truth. Not propaganda, not furthering an agenda, not getting hits so ad revenue goes up. This author obviously has no interest in in being fair or truthful and is just slandering the fandom. I won't presume to understand why, perhaps she misunderstands it, perhaps she finds us all sickos, perhaps a brony left her at the altar and she has sworn a blood vendetta against us, who knows?
Now, on the one hand, the author makes what I consider a fair point. I am entirely comfortable with homosexuals, and if you happen to be a gay brony, good for you, be proud of both aspects of your life. However, I do draw the line at bestiality and furry. If you happen to be into those things, okay, just please keep it from me. That is really my take on all life, believe what you want to believe and be into what you want to be into. As long as you do not physically or psychologically harm anyone else, go ahead. Just recognize that others may not be comfortable with such things and do not want to be exposed to it.
I am a member of an IRC chat where some time ago a member frequented us that was a homosexual and into furry. We didn't care he was that way, what concerned us and made us uncomfortable was that he openly discussed his sexual attraction to anthropomorphic animals and would link explicit art of them, and when we asked him to tone it down, he became pretentious and played the victim card. Also keep in mind the chat channel is home to underage visitors, not little kids but not everyone there is 18+. Regardless of your sexual taste, you need to be aware that some people may not want to be exposed to it and don't force it upon them. I think we can find a parallel here - if you know someone that doesn't hate MLP but it just isn't their thing, they have the right to be annoyed if you continually talk about it to them and link them fanfics and fanart of it. Their annoyance is probably not with the fandom but with you for forcing that fandom on them. And they are right to feel that way, no one should try to cram their beliefs down the throat of someone who does not agree with them. If you're agnostic and your Christian friend is constantly preaching the Bible at you, you'd eventually tell them to shut up.
Now, being that I have said I draw the line at bestiality and furry, I will also state I am not into clop fics. I'm just not. I do not however automatically presume that everyone who writes or reads clop is into bestiality and gets their rocks off looking at fanfics and fanart of their favorite ponies having sex. I have written sexually explicit fanfics for other fandoms, and have further read my share too, both fanfics focusing on sex and fanfics that feature sex as part of a larger creative narrative. So I know firsthand that interest in sexual fanart and fanfics is not always borne of sexual desire. I personally write my sexfics to express myself creatively, writing is a form of creative expression and sometimes that creativity goes to sexual places. Of course, I'm sure there are people out there who are into this type of medium because they are in pursuit of sexual arousal, I know there are. There are some fanfics I've read that are obviously self-insert fics where the author just wants to write out their sexual fantasies about them boinking their favorite character. And you know what, that's fine too, a little shameless but fine. Sometimes the author instead is just interested in writing a good story, and sex happens to be part of it.
The point is that there are many reasons a person might write a sexual fanfic or draw sexual fanart, and it is not fair to immediately presume anyone who creates them or looks for them is seeking sexual arousal. Some of course are, but not all. I explain all this to draw back to the article's flaw in declaring that bronies are sick perverts for creating sexual materials about the show. Of course not every brony wants to boink ponies, duh. To be perfectly straightforward I am sure such fans do exist, I do not name names or point fingers to anyone I know here, but let's all be honest with ourselves, they're out there somewhere. As some others have commented, every fandom has its sex fringe. Simpsons, Family Guy, Final Fantasy, comics, anime, they all have a portion of the fandom that is into sexualizing the medium for whatever reason. And yes of course, that includes Friendship is Magic.
The difference is that if you want to find places where groups of Simpson fans or Final Fantasy fans share sexual material with each other, you usually have to go to dedicated websites for it, or to general websites for sexual materials and find a group for that franchise there. MLP however, you just have to go to the main page of this site. Sexual fics are often in the featured box on this site, as of the time of this posting there isn't one but you know they show up there all the time. The sexual side of MLP's fandom is right out in the open for anyone who casually visits this site. I am not saying we should hide this side of the fandom or be ashamed of these fans, Fimfiction specifically could spin off a dedicated site for clopfics and remove them from here, but I'm sure a lot of people would be upset and I would entirely understand why. I am not saying we *should* do this, I am just saying it's something that could be done and perhaps could help dispel the public image of us as sexual deviants.
While we correctly cry out in protest when we are all lumped together as perverts, we need to recognize that there are reasons people could jump to that conclusion. If your friend who is not a brony visits this site and the feature box contains, say, a Rainbow Dash and Applejack fic where they engage in bondage and domination and it has hundreds of up-votes and thousands of views, well, what are they to think? They may have some questions for you too, and while you are right to be offended, if they explained to you why they are asking them I think you might understand why they're asking. I again restate this is not the majority of the fandom, I know that of course, but it is a part of the fandom that we leave bare to those that may not understand us or the process of creative expression enough to understand why we create such materials. The key is that both outsiders and bronies need to be able to have mature conversations about these sorts of things to come to an understanding with each other, and maturity is something that is the responsibility of both parties on an individual level.
The author of the article also claims that some vendors at Bronycon had websites that contained sexually explicit material or linked to websites that do. That I can't touch on one way or the other, that's a business model now, how you choose to represent yourself and what type of clientele you want to attract is your decision. Just like any business though, be aware of how others see you and how it affects you.
The author notes that there is a panel where bronies talk about their experiences confessing to parents and friends they like the show, and criticizes this, comparing it to homosexuals coming out of the closet and that we dramatize it. To quote, "You’re not oppressed for being a brony, you baby." Well, when articles like this are the type of publicity we get, yes we are. It can be hard to admit to being a brony if you're afraid that people will see you as a pedophile or into bestiality, and if you are open with being a brony those are the prejudices you're going to have to struggle against. The author says we burden ourselves with a victim complex; this may have some truth to it, but I think more we'd stop playing victims when those who do not understand the fandom stop writing articles accusing us of being sexual deviants. And on a minor note, while there is some room to talk about the misconception that all bronies are furries, there is no foundation in declaring us pedophiles. No, shut up, pick up your ball and go home, we're not playing that game. Frankly it just confuses me how anyone could make that connection.
The author begins the penultimate paragraph with "If bronies were to actually embrace the ideas of the show, they would vilify these outliers of the fandom." This confuses me too. MLP's canon has never touched on sexual attraction in way. It has touched on romantic love infrequently, but never sex. I think the closest it's ever gotten is the Cakes, because Baby Cakes starts with Mr. Cake in a hospital maternity ward and foals have to come from somewhere. Or maybe Equestria runs on a stork system, or pegasi perhaps. So really no one can say how sex factors into the canon one way or the other. Personally I think there's a great comedy fic in the matter of Spike's crush to Rarity implying a physical attraction. I can just picture Rainbow ribbing Spike about how a dragon would get it on with a mare and Spike, too young to understand, is just confused over what she's saying. Heck, maybe that fic already exists, I might go looking once I post this. But nowhere in the show do I find any sort of moral aesop about casting out ponies with sexual tastes we disagree with or make us uncomfortable. Maybe I missed that episode, or it was in a comic I've yet to read. But I doubt it.
So in conclusion, of course the article's author is wrong in sexually condemning all bronies, and is further wrong in holding us accountable as a group when of course we are so large and diverse that we cannot all be accused at once. However, admittedly we do not do as much as we could to help our case. When we do not hide the sexual side of our fandom and celebrate it alongside the non-sexual side, even if the former is a minority, we bring that sexual side to the light and make it seem more prevalent than it may be. The author rather obviously twists things to make it seem like sex is everywhere you look in the fandom, and it isn't. To restate, I do not believe anyone who writes clopfics or draws sexualized pony art is a furry or a pervert, and we should not cast them out from the group for it. But you do not always have to look very hard to find those fans compared to other fandoms, and that is something I think we can admit may not give us the good image we want to have.
I just....
How could they!?
But I completely agree with you.
What confuses me is that this article was written for a paper that exists in Baltimore, a city that has a pretty large convention center that has had multiple anime, games, and other geek-like events, so it's not like the newspapers there aren't familiar with all the different fandoms that show up. Yet, it's the Brony community that gets singled out. I'm guessing that the Brony fandom is "the new thing" and gets headlines and clicks, whereas anime is too commonplace to write about anymore. I'm sure if I look hard enough, I'll find articles that state the same thing as this one did towards those freaky tentacle-loving Japanimation kids.
Anyway, the best way I've found to deal with articles like this is to ignore it. If the article doesn't get the hits and comments expected, the paper will stop writing them. However, with as much attention as this is getting, I'm sure more will be posted. There's no such thing as bad publicity.
Another thing I wish the Brony community would try harder at is not overreact to things like this. We are our own worst enemy and leaving angry comments and generally being dicks doesn't help our image any either.
Our biggest ally is time. At some point, the media will stop caring about us, just like they stopped caring about anime, Sci-Fi, comics, and video game fans (well, video game fans still get flack, but for different reasons). If we can just stick it out, then we'll all just assimilate into the greater herd.
Good post!
2345502 Yeah, a lot of commenters on that article are raging and it really does not help.
2345475 *bows*
Don't read clop myself, but what ever happened to letting people jerk off to what they want to?
Personally I don't get the clopper hate.
2345667 I don't hate, it's just not for me. I agree, those who like it, sure.
2345676
I wasn't implying that you hate, just saying it to those who do.
I will say though that being part of other fandoms, the brony fandom is more obsessed with sexual stuff than most (not that there's anything wrong with that). That doesn't mean that ALL or even MOST fans are like that, it's just an observation. Most of my friends and family think guys only watch MLP to jerk off
2345683 Fair enough, my bad, misunderstood.
The writer is an unpaid intern trying to get noticed. Sensationalism is an obvious choice.
2348055 I would define furry as a sexual interest in anthropomorphized animals. My problem is that I feel it creeps too much on bestiality. Bestiality is another "just no" for me, but if you're into furry that's fine. Just please keep it away from me.
2348251 Meh, that's my definition, you said yourself it varies.
While I don't agree w/ you 100% about things, you are more erudite, professional, and show more sense, than the article author ever did or probably ever will.