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Given that the guild is dead along with my interest in the show, this is probably a wasted effort, but I figure that it's, at least, a decent capstone.

I'll start by saying there's nothing wrong with liking a kid's show when you're older. I watched MLP for a while, and I'm an avid fan of Adventure Time and Arthur used to be my show even when I was in high school way back when.

I have noticed a trend, and this is not an accusation leveled at anyone in this guild, for bronies to argue that they are the targeted demographic. Naturally, this is problematic considering the show already had a key demographic and was being designed for their benefit.

By appropriating and trying to commandeer the show, they steal it from the original audience. Little girls have very little in terms of positive female role models in early entertainment, so MLPFIM is a great show for a young girl to find several role models to help her navigate through her childhood.

Bronies pushing for the show to be more geared towards them (see the Equestria Girls or Dos Equis ads) as opposed to the target audience robs them of their show.

I would prefer not have to explain cultural appropriation, so I'll just give a brief example of another instance of appropriation. Look at American Indians. Victims of extreme genocide, and guess what their culture is now. Costumes for white people to wear.

This show? The key demographic is being pushed away to make room for another show for twenty-something white men, who already are the main demographic targeted by damned near everything.

At this point, I don't see much that can be done short of policing the bronies who do it, but considering the perception that only the diehard fans, ie the ones most likely to appropriate, are the only ones still really interest in the show, I absolutely see no way to solve the issue.

But the show was already immensely popular with bronies before the show could have even been designed for them; the first season was extremely well received even before they did all their fan service.

I think the show was already in the direction it was before their involvement and thus they don't detract from the show.


From my experience it has degraded somewhat, in that it has become more simplistic and dumbed down, and the episodes aren't as good, but then again that's probably not for the fan service of older viewers to decrease the complexity of the plot.

I'm not too heavily involved in the brony community, but in my experience their impact has been pretty subtle on the show, like actually calling derpy derpy, having 15-20 seconds of show time, at the most, which was controversial in it's own right, and things like that.

Otherwise there is not much; I mean equestria girls was probably the most brony thing out there and most bronies hated it.


What specifically do you think the bronies added that made the show worse?

Not necessarily the show, since I haven't watched it since S2 to be able to speak on it. More of how bronies behave at toy stores or conventions and stuff like that. Muscling out the primary demographic really bugs me; there's very little positive media for little girls and getting kicked out of it by grown men is pretty ******** shitty. I've encountered a good number of anecdotes of poor treatment of little girls by bronies at conventions. Gaslighting and harassing little girls into giving up their seats at MLP panels and stuff like that.

Well that's going to happen at any convention; Disneyland sucks, and it's mostly parents doing this stuff so a kid's little dream can be crushed by some parent who mindlessly wants their child there instead. Idk, people can be crazy, especially about silly stuff.

Since usually people's parents go out and buy toys for them and little girls don't go to conventions like we see with anime stuff, I'm not too concerned. Maybe if they were older and still liked it, but weirdo men never really treat anyone right.

I don't think it's ruining the show since lots of these bronies are typically just quite types who stay at home and privately enjoy it with the crazy people I guess actually going to these things.

I went to an anime convention with my brother once, and that was about it, since I never really was into these things (but he's like, a total nerd. xp )


I think the show is still geared towards little girls, as is the toy line and such, so in so far as the convention goes, maybe there's a lot more bronies there than little girls, but that can be expected with any fandom; Harry Potter was for kids but the crazy a** people there were adults, it's just the way it goes, but those aren't necessarily even the hard core fans per say, just the crazy ones. If the adult fans become enough of a problem to illicit serious concern imo it's probably not entirely the result of the brony fandom since that can be expected with practically anything that's popular, although it may magnify it somewhat.