Just a few questions here out of curiousity Right, as your all know labelling yourself as a ''Brony'' often doesn't go down well with other people, some people may call you names, bully you, laugh at you, and make hateful comments but how does that make you feel? Also, do any of you believe that if the Brony tag did not exist (which it doesn't have to since what we are doing is just watching a show) then would you get hated on? Other communities such as Dragon ball Z, Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon etc are all ids shows, yet they don't identify under a name and are not very often hated upon. Do you think bronies get hated on because they take the show to far? What would you react like to a hater, do you think hating on them back resolves anything or makes it worse? Why do you think people watching the show should be labelled as a brony?
>DBZ doesn't get hate You need to get out more. :| As for my thoughts on haters, well, they hate us because they don't get it. They seem to think it's all mindless girliness, when they haven't even seen it. But that's just me. Try to ignore them, and if you can't, tell them to get lost. The only thing we should hate is hatred itself. As for the brony label, it's really up to the individual. Whether they want to be referred to as a brony is their business.
Assuming I don't get out because I say a show doesn't get hate, nice conclusion (P.S, been part of that fandom for over 2 years) As for the other answers I pretty much agree
Used to find it annoying, but now I get kind of a sick kick out of knowing that some people are so pathetic that our mere act of liking something they don't like honestly keeps them up at night. Call me a sadist, but that just tickles me in a twisted sort of way. I wouldn't say a fandom label necessarily generates the hate, but giving people a blanket label does seem to give outsiders something they can stereotype and direct their hate toward, if that makes any sense. Kinda like painting a target on your chest. Seems you're a lot less likely to be a target of vitriol if you say you "play video games" instead of calling yourself a "gamer"; be a "fan of Star Trek" as opposed to being a "Trekkie"; be someone who "enjoys anthro art" as opposed to being a "furry", etc. Even applies politically - a "moderate with some liberal leanings" typically won't have quite as many turds flung at them as a "liberal" will. What exactly constitutes "taking the show too far", though? Seems like a really subjective thing; someone might tell me I'm taking the show too far/seriously because I happen to buy a lot of MLP merch, but I would be one to accuse the "brony analyst" community of taking the show too seriously by nitpicking every inconsequential point. No, the real reason is quite simple: We're a fandom of largely college-aged men surrounding a cartoon primarily intended for young girls. And for whatever reason, some people can't seem to grasp the extraordinarily simple concept of personal autonomy - the idea that people are free to think for themselves, make their own decisions and pursue their own interests in life, independent of what society may or may not 'expect' of us. I have no qualms about informing them just how moronic and empty their contention really is. I don't really buy into the idea of "ignore the A-holes and they'll go away"; my life's philosophy revolves around the idea that ignorance should never go unchallenged. And really, what's more ignorant than judging a person's entire quality of character based on nothing more than what TV shows they happen to watch? It's simply insane, and the insanity of it needs to be pointed out to these people. (Note: The above mostly applies to people who genuinely hate us, not obvious trolls. The real challenge comes from telling apart one from the other.) I don't, personally. Always thought it was a facepalm-inducingly silly pun, and still do. If people want to self-identify as bronies, be my guest, but I feel no burning need to carry that label myself. I'm kinda just here to enjoy pones, not forge a personal identity that's tied to this fandom.
I've never really gotten any hassle from being a fan of the show, but that's mostly because I can pretty much tell what someone's reaction to my interest is going to be beforehand, and if it's going to be negative, I just won't mention it. I'm not the type to go around wearing the merchandise, so it's not hard to do; it's not like it's a subject that naturally comes up in most situations. You could argue that I shouldn't have to hide my interest, but realistically, you're not going to change the mind of the type of person who would mock you for such a thing, so why bother? What would arguing your point to them really achieve? As for the term 'Brony'... I hate the word, as I hate Hell, all Montagues, and thee. x3
If the person is unreasonable, there's not much point talking to them about it. I ignore those people. If the person can be reasonable in the context of that conversation, then I'd usually just try to explain the the concept of a "community" in terms of a category really just refers to a group of people who have a number of traits in common that can be counted on one hand. I'm not like most bronies. No brony is like most bronies. There are great examples in mainstream culture to showcase this; sometimes I use christians, sports fans or even video game players as examples. People generally realize in that moment that stereotypes are dumb. It can also help to explain that lots of what we see as being feminine or masculine is the product of social constructs.
I'm not one of those die-hard Bronies that like to wear the clothes and show off merchandise. I've told some of my close friends about it, but things didn't end so well for me. Until they started telling everyone else. Some people didn't care, while some others hated me for it. Believe me, that was a huge mistake. I try to ignore the haters and such. But, damn, some people always tease me about me watching "a show meant for little girls." It gets really annoying as hell after awhile. So, I just try to talk back at them and say mean things back. Heck, they deserve what's good for them. If they something mean to me, I say something mean about them. I know it sounds rude of me, like I said, I've at least try to ignore them, it works sometimes though. Things can get worse at times. I just basically rub it off and get a move on. Yeah, I can be quite an aggressive person. Don't judge me. I always disliked the word 'Bronies' in general. (Almost sounds like the 'brownies' to me, IMO.) It just sounds bad to me, just like the word 'Pegasister' does too.
On the internet, I don't really give a crap. Their opinion is exactly that; an opinion. In real life, I also don't give a crap. I don't advertise that I'm a Brony, but I don't go out of my way to hide it, either.
I perosnally don't really deal with hate that much in everyday life though I do see it happen a lot to others. It's sad really. Though I really keep quiet and to myself a lot since I don't trust a lot of people in this world. As for being called a brony, I could care less. It's a label, nothing more. Some like the label, others don't. It's not really an issue. Though I share RD9000's sentiment on it though. lol Brownies for everyone! But yeah. I'll agree that it does sound pretty close to brownies, which is funny~
I don't really care what they say about me, I just say, "Thank you", and move on. I'm just a normal person like everybody else, I love living outside the social norms, It's exciting to see what lies in store for me. I always just put my YT videos on "Approve only" so I can filter out their comments completely. I've been called brony trash, autistic(ironic considering I am), Pedo, etc. They say these things because they don't understand, this leads many misconceptions.
I always find it to be a fresh challenge when I run across haters. I don't seek them out by any means, but I have run across my fair share. Its always fun to challenge them to find why they want to hate, because they usually get flustered and then just move on. The biggest thing to remember was stated before- Personal Autonomy. Be who you want to be. If someone else doesn't like that, that's their problem! On the plus side, I have definitely seen a decline in the hating community. There may always be haters, but the numbers have reduced, as has their intensity.
I think some people just hated to be cool (15 yr olds and under mostly). But honestly a lot of hate is not entirely undeserved. Bronies are often kind of annoying, if only because they post about ponies outside of pony-related areas and get upset when people don't like it. What did you expect? But yeah. I think the blame goes both ways. Not all bronies are annoying, but not all haters are brainless neanderthals either.
Is having to see ponies really that annoying, though? I never understood the "ugh, why do you gotta advertise it?" mentality. People throw that BS at gay people all the time to soften the blow of their homophobia ("You can be gay if you want, just don't do that gay *squee!* around ME!"), and now they're extending their narrow-minded outlook to include people's hobbies? Imagine how inane that would sound if they said "ugh, why you gotta advertise the fact that you're a Trekkie? You can be into that, but god, I don't want to see Star Trek." I dunno, man, at the end of the day I still gotta lay the blame on them for being self-entitled children who think the world ought cater to their sensibilities, as opposed to bronies who just want to display what they're interested in for the sake of finding others with like interests. I think this macro says it better than I ever could:
I'm not sure why you think it's so terrible to not want to see something you dislike. Whether it's Ponies, Homosexuality, or Star Trek, people have just as much a right to dislike these things and express their dislike appropriately as anyone has to express how much they like it. If someone expresses that they don't want to see or hear about something, and you keep flaunting it, who is being obnoxious?
The person who doesn't want to hear/see something is the obnoxious one. Sorry, but there exists no right that I'm aware of that entitles people to never be offended by anything they see or hear. If someone really dislikes ponies, the burden lies upon them to ignore it. If they can't even exercise that basic level of autonomy, then they're positively useless to society, I'm sorry to say.
I might charge them $5 to have a go at me, only for them to fail miserably. It's just pathetic to see all these people calling us these insulting things and not have a thing done about it.
You really have no good reason to be confused at why they might be annoyed with you if you think that them asking you to stop is somehow wrong. I mean, someone does something that annoys you, you get annoyed. It's that simple. When people annoy you, do you ask them to stop? Would you get more annoyed if they didn't? If it were me, I would just stop doing it out of common courtesy. Now, if they are rude asking you to stop, then the lines may be fuzzy. But I would still default towards making a donkey out of them rather than myself, personally.
I do that one almost every time it happens, the rudeness never ceases to amaze me. Other times I just say "Thank you" or Sorry you feel that way".
There are the haters who mock anyone that watches the show at all. I write them off as stupid and not worth paying attention to. Then there's "haters" who only make fun of or pick on those that are more hardcore bronies, the ones that mainly only have a personality of being a brony and end up being flamboyant and otherwise obnoxious in nature. I don't dislike these haters as much, so long as they never do any physical harm to anyone.
