Bronies! Are you ashamed of yourself? - UPDATED

[DracoSuave]

Nope :3

I even wear G1 MLP t-shirts! >:3

FUCK YA VISIONARIES.

There's a T-shirt BEGGING to be made.

 

[repeating integers]

Good god, my thread appears to have run rampantly out of control. I will, I promise, try to get around to answering people (who have said many interesting things both agreeing and disagreeing with my OP) when I get back from work later. And do the washing up. And do the ironing. And clean my room. And finish Fable III.

So yeah - soon!

This is probably gonna get you some badge or other. Brony threads always do well (ahem).

That's stretching the definition of "Do Well" Pretty far. They get a lot of replies sure but they always descend into the thread equivalent of an open sewer full of shouting lunatics.

Hence the "ahem". Yeah, these threads are at least entertaining.

Some people are so easily trolled.

 

[Tiger Sora]

Fuel to the fire! My Dash tattoo.
I'm very proud of it. No shame here.

Spoiler: Spoilered for large image

Poor camera quality. But it's still awesome.

 

[gravian]

No.

The same way I'm not ashamed of gaming or liking bacon in the presence of vegetarians. I do what I want because I enjoy it.

And other people's opinions don't matter to you at all?

Well... no. If I cared what other people think I wouldn't go walking round my local city wearing my Doctor Who trenchcoat and an 8-bit tie. I wouldn't sit in a McDonalds playing Pokemon on my 3DS. I wouldn't have gone to America for an Internet gaming expo.

Would you wander about with your dick out? Not trolling, serious question - if you really don't care what others think then why does it matter if they see your junk?

No, that would be stupid because I'd get arrested.

Let's say you have friends over at your house, where you (probably, I haven't done huge amounts of research) can't get nicked for being naked. You decide to whip off your keks and bare it all to the world. Would you consider, even for a second, how these friends might judge you or would you just go ahead and do it?

This, to me, is the crux of the "I do what I want and I don't care what people think" issue - it always seems to be within certain mental boundaries which, once crossed, the person stating that they don't care dismisses by saying "well of course not that, don't be stupid". It's more of an "I do what I want, within certain socially defined parameters", and in this case my question is what parameters have defined that MLP is something to be kept quiet and what exactly has made it so.

Well of course it's going to be within certain socially defined parameters. But the examples I used in my first post were all gaming or geek examples. Which is exactly my point. I'm not ashamed to admit and show that I'm a geek, to my friends or complete strangers. Because I don't care if they disapprove because I enjoy being a geek.

Yes, but the point here is that even within "I'm a geek", we appear to be stratifying and saying "Yeah, I'm a geek, but that guy is more of geek, because what he likes is pathetic"

This really struck me. The idea that being a nerd is about turning away from the mainstream by saying "I don't care that you consider (x) unacceptable, I gonna like it anyway. Deal with it", and creating an identity based around your and others' views of that subject and other relatively nerdy ones, as long as those others aren't "too strange" or looked down upon too much by the community.

Because of this the nerd or geek "community" always seems to end up very divided over issues like MLP, based on "at least I'm not as nerdy as THAT guy", and it leads to almost a ranking of nerdiness based on how acceptable something is to the mainstream and thus how much nerds can be looked down on by other nerds because of (x) reasons despite all being relative cultural outcasts. (Pretty much what Sonic Waffle was getting at.)

It smacks of hypocrisy that nerds see themselves as nerds by saying "Deal with it, I don't care what you think" to the cultural mainstream, while still comparing themselves to it in deciding which nerd topics are OK or not according to how culturally acceptable they are!

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

Hm, i'm a big fan but i guess i wouldn't walk around with a t-shirt of the show. But to be honest i wouldn't to this with any game/band/movie.

Not because i'm afraid someone would give me smack for it. No, it's because i know some idiot will and it's just not worth my time bothering with that.

On the otherhand i'm not actually hiding it. I could convince 3 friends of mine watching it, i'm usually listening to MLP-related music and if someone would ask me on the street if i'd like MLP, i'd answer yes.

Sorry, but as long as people listen to Tokio Hotel, JB and call the Transformer movies super-duper awesome i'm not ashamed to like cute & colorful ponies.

 

[badpun]

I'm not ashamed i occasionally talk about it to other people but i don't try and force it on them and i just enjoy the show. I don't see the point in being completely obsessive about it and shoving it people faces at every chance i get.

That's not being a "true" fan its just being a bit of a dick and plain rude.

But yeah if someone were to come up and ask me if I liked it I'd have no problem with saying yes.

 

[DoomyMcDoom]

I'm a brony and I don't talk about MLP all day every day.

Really? Because i've never met you before now & the first thing out of your mouth was about you being a brony.

Could it be that instead of everyone talking about it all the time, you are wandering into distinctly pony-themed areas of the internet, and complaining when people talk about ponies?

Not unless TF2, Deviantart & DCUO have been reclassified as "pony themed"

Secondly, if people want to talk about stuff that interests them, that is frankly none of your business.

Sure it is... We have to listen to them.

If it really bothers you that much (which I don't see why it should) then you could always just exit the conversation.

Or bronies could just you know shut the fuck up. No offense, but when its two bronies incessently talking about MLP in a room or server of 48 people, the 48 people shouldn't have to leave to accomodate the bronies, who won't shut up about a kids show for girls.

An thats the problem with this "pony themed" concept: Any place with two bronies in it becomes a bronie themed area of the internet... Because they just won't shut up about it.

Seriously, bronies need a filter between brain and mouth that filters out shit about a cartoon for 7 year old girls, that the people around them don't care about. Because frankly the obsessiveness of bronies borders on creepy & starts moving into pedo-bear territory of creepy.

Enjoy the show, but please imderstand that to the rest of us, who want to hold a conversation that isn't about a tv show for pre pubescent girls, its both creepy and annoying. Kind of like if i sat here expounding at length my love of school girl romance anime. Its creepy.

I can see that you don't like people talking about it near you, but I must state that we live in a society which tends to allow free speech, and until you become wold emperor or something, and decide to outlaw certain topics of speech, then you'll just have to make due with the amazing human capability of developing "selective hearing" and ignore it outright like everyone else... That or I could say the same about people who speak obsessively about sports statistics near me... I watch hockey a bit, I play soccer or rugby when I can, but I couldn't care less about how many goals, assists, passes, and penalties a random player on a team I don't follow accrued during last years season, and sometimes it gets downright annoying, but I'm not beating them with a hockey stick and telling them that a sport is about sport, not about statistics, and that statistics, although giving you a way to measure previous performance, I've seen great players bomb out due to stresses in life outside a game, so overall until that player is an all star recognized legend who has retired, we shouldn't give a shit about stats.

Or people yammering on about NASCAR, I hate how people glorify a sport that is entirely made from turning left a TON OF TIMES, it's boring, it's a waste of resources(Gas, money, rubber, to name a few), but I just ignore them, why? BECAUSE I CAN.

Now I usually don't bother correcting people in ways like this because I usually ignore such willful ignorance of the way civilized people deal with things, but I feel that my current critisism may be helpful in dealing with your life, because if you hate this, you will hate other things too, it will be a constant stress/irritation in your life you will never escape... At least until you learn the art of not giving a shit, and ignoring stuff.

 

[longboardfan]

Nah, not really. I find it far more entertaining trolling the people that are offended by the show by telling them that I'm a brony and start in about the show and the characters. Even though I like the show, I don't really care enough about it to worry what other people think. The people that hate the show are so reactionary that my inner troll can't help but push all the buttons when provided with such a target rich environment.

I don't mind it if you don't like the show, but when these people take things so far as to actually hate the people that watch or have watched the show, then the inner troll comes out to play.

 

[hoboman29]

I don't watch MLP but there's a reason for this. My friend showed me some clips and I liked them, BUT I know the reputation of bronies and my worries are being associated with people who draw porn of them,are obsessive about the show, and I'm going to be put into the crosshairs of every hater on the particular forum/server/conversation. With all that stuff going on with the average brony I just feel its a better idea not to get involved in the shitstorm.

As to geek culture splitting up, it's mainstream now so of course we all can't be friends if it means one of us can't be king. (philosophy right there)

captcha: comma,comma

 

[Appleshy]

It is just a cartoon but overanalyzed.

 

[Dtox333]

I don't watch MLP but there's a reason for this. My friend showed me some clips and I liked them, BUT I know the reputation of bronies and my worries are being associated with people who draw porn of them,are obsessive about the show, and I'm going to be put into the crosshairs of every hater on the particular forum/server/conversation. With all that stuff going on with the average brony I just feel its a better idea not to get involved in the shitstorm.

As to geek culture splitting up, it's mainstream now so of course we all can't be friends if it means one of us can't be king. (philosophy right there)

captcha: comma,comma

This I find fairly depressing.

ANYONE who approaches me or the people I associate with, and begins to assume certain things about us (whether or not we're creeps or whatever the hell), I just simply correct them.

On our TF2 brony server, a guy wondered in and started acting belligerent when he found out it was a pony server. He thought we were going to act like stereotypical fan-tards since he didn't like the show (he also thought it's all that we would talk about). All we had to do was gently correct him, play the game with him, and he ended up enjoying the server. We even instructed him on how to turn off certain sounds that would play from the show, as well as we vetoed pony-themed maps for him. It's because of our behavior that we get plenty of people who go onto our servers just because they enjoy playing with us, despite not being fans.

The opinions of people can be changed, most of which you can just simply ignore, because they simply do not matter in the end.

If you like the show, then watch it, enjoy it, and do it all for yourself. You don't have to associate with fans, and you don't have to be into the fan content. If someone assumes something of you just because of that, then besure to remind them how much of an idiot they are.

Also, I bet you wouldn't be worried about getting into a certain show/anime, despite there being made copious amounts of porn or erotic fan fiction based off that show. It's just not worth it worrying about those little things.

 

[Comando96]

I'm ashamed of the human species sometimes ¬.¬
Some girl yesterday drank a cocktail with liquid nitrogen in it.... she shockingly needed her stomoch removing as liquic nitrogen which is at -180 'c apparently is harmful if digested...

Oh what? Am ashamed to be a Brony?
Na...

Well I'm a closet brony but through stealth, cunning and this:

Oh I just like the parrodies I say. Then I show them some of the weirder clips:
Fluttershy killed a bear I say.
WTF this is a kids show they say...

I converted 8 people to the herd so far

 

[twohundredpercent]

lol these people are incapable of shame.

 

[twohundredpercent]

Y'see some people aren't even really capable of shame.

 

[Comando96]

lol these people are incapable of shame.

No sense of shame if Government type is Absolute Monarchy or Constitutional Monarchy:
+1 Happiness (Nobility)

 

[Savryc]

It's a gods damn cartoon, why should they feel ashamed? It's for girls? So fucking what? Let them enjoy their girly cartoon then, what harm does it do to you? They keep talking about it you say? I asked what harm it did, not what incredibly microscopic first world inconvenience it inflicts upon your warped mind.

 

[AnotherPersonDELETE]

There is no reason why I'd be disappointed in what I enjoy. Most of my mates don't really mind and some of them are actually bronies themselves.

 

[Broken Blade]

Why would I feel ashamed for finding enjoyment in something that doesn't hurt anyone else and makes my life a bit better in it's own way?

 

[chadachada123]

21 year old male university brony here.

Nah. I'm also luckily outgoing enough that I can bring up my liking of the show relatively early after meeting people without being met with (much) derision. Most people have been pretty damn cool about it.

That said, other than a single pin on my backpack, I don't display outwardly my love of MLP, except for when topics of television or hobbies come up in conversation.

As far as family/friends go, my sister enjoys it, two of my six closest friends enjoy it immensely, with a girlfriend of one of the four others enjoying it, and my parents are cool with it. Around the house or around friends, ponies are referenced constantly, even in public, because we don't give much a fuck about anything around our own neck of the woods where some douches from high school know us, let alone in an area with complete strangers.