Pinstar said:
Last week there was a thread stating that the NPR radio show (also available as a podcast) made several jokes about "Bronies", going so far as to warp a quote from the creator (who doesn't mind Bronies at all) into saying that she finds them creepy.
I don't watch it, and remain only vaguely aware of the show, but I'm sick of hearing about bronies already.
It's not that I find them creepy. And it's not that I think people are evil for making fun of them. It's that, as far as humor goes, this stuff is low-hanging fruit
and it's not being done well.
It's a case of someone simply saying, "Ha! You watch a show! It's funny that
you watch it!" Okay. Why? No explanation is given. Just, "Ha! You watch it! It's funny that you do!"
Now, if these guys were uniformly behaving in some strange way... or if they all wore giant glowing antennae to show their support or something... then there'd be something to make fun of, I guess. As it is? "They like a cartoon that's meant for little girls."
And this is on whose authority? Yeah, the original
toys were sold featuring little girls in the commercial. Yeah, the majority of the characters are female. But the show is just a show, as far as I'm aware.
I mean, which is it that bothers people more? The fact that it's grown men liking something meant for kids, or liking something meant for females? Does it require the combination of the two to magically become funny?
If a grown man comes home from work, after putting in a good day's work, returning to a home where he pays all his bills on time, helps his neighbors when they need, obeys all traffic laws on his way to and fro... but he plays with action figures in a wholly unironic way, we have this natural inclination to say, "Ew. Weirdo."
But why? Simply put--the more imagination something requests of us, the more we (as adults) write it off as "for children." And I think we're all the worse for that sad fact.