By now many people have heard of fan communities or "fandoms" like the Bronies popping up. For the few that haven’t fandoms like the Bronies are watching shows meant for a younger demographic. Currently the popular image is one of creepy individuals glued to their television, as innocent children’s programming plays, and all of this of course happens in a deep dank basement. Unfortunately this is a hard stereotype to break, especially when some people in these communities live up to the stereotype all too well.

But rather than judge on a case-by-case basis these adult fans are all grouped together under the same label. Creepy, perverted old men and women watching something that is not “for them.” In reality this new audience is an exciting thing overall. A sign that children’s T.V is no longer made for the lowest common denominator. Yet, stigmatized they are and are made an open joke of in conversation.

Speaking as a Brony myself I feel that this broad cultural stigma needs to end. I started watching the new series of My Little Pony (MLP for short) around 2011 when the first season had just finished up and the second season was just beginning. I initially watched out of morbid curiosity rather than any actual desire to see it. Growing up as child of the 90’s my opinion on My Little Pony was already set in stone as something “for girls” because for the longest time the franchise was just that.

Generations one through three of MLP were all aimed to what was thought to be the lowest common denominator of “girliness,” all cute and pink and fluffy. Just because something was feminine doesn’t make it bad by any stretch of the imagination, far from it in fact. But the shows weren’t made for girls; producers who thought they could sell more toys by appealing to what they thought girls liked made them. This kind of blunt cynical air had been draped over the entire series for some time.

So, when I finally sat down to watch the new series, I did so with extreme prejudiced just to see if it was just as cynical as I remember. To my surprise the show was appealing. Oh it was still tailor made for little kids (little girls in particular) but it was the one thing that the old series was not, sincere, a beckon of hope for smart children T.V and that was intellectually engaging for me.

Needless to say I was blown away. This wonderful show of candy colored female ponies was genius. Later, when I dug more into the production of the show I found out the 4th generation of My little Pony, now called My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic was actually written and produced by Lauren Faust. I was stunned that the same woman who crafted such wonderful shows like Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends and Powerpuff Girls had created a show that had genuinely wholesome humor, rounded characters, and absolutely gorgeous animation. Her intention was to create a show that disproved the notion that girly was bad. That a show couldn’t be more feminine and yet it is still enjoyed by dads sitting down to watch the show with their little girls and boys.

Sure enough the show did just that and more. Now dads were no longer just watching it with their kids, now they were going out of their way to record episodes on their DVR’s, downloading episodes online, anything to watch full length episodes of My Little Pony. I was right there with them, spending my free time watching a show for little girls. Despite how much I would love to tell people about the cyan colored Pegasus pony Rainbow Dash and her ability to fly straight through the sound barrier and shatter the visible light spectrum, I can’t. I can’t talk about the sonic rainboom and how it was animated beautifully, or how much character development and story came out of that episode for Miss Dash, because apparently I shouldn’t even find that stuff cool. Despite the shows pedigree and the whole slew of content it provides, most people outside of the Brony fandom still look at it as just another kid’s show, and think that the older people who watch it are deviant.

Jumping over just a little bit we can see another of Mrs. Faust’s shows garnering a similar audience. Wonder Over Yonder has been on Disney Channel for only a short time and it has gotten the same reaction as My Little Pony. Adult fans are sitting down right now to watch or re-watch their favorite episodes, along with other Disney channel shows like Gravity Falls, and Phineas and Ferb. Right now adults are tuning in to watch, and are being called deviant by the general public for doing so.

So this begs the question, what does it mean to be deviant and what does it mean to engage in deviant behavior? Well, as negative as it may sound, to be deviant is nothing too sinister. To engage in deviant behavior is to simply engage in behavior outside the “social” norm. Calling something deviant just because it exists outside the social norm is nothing new. We’ve seen this sort of marginalization happen all throughout history, from the beat generation of writers being classified as stupid junkies, to the punk rock movement being classified as a just a group of angry teenagers. To be fair those stereotypes did exist in those movements/communities, but then again, you’re always going to find people who live up to those stereotypes. They are not the majority of course but they define the culture’s image all too often. It is a sad truth, but a vocal minority will always define a generation if the majority doesn’t speak up.

For example, the rules of the Internet are a very popular meme that has become nearly universal in the confines of the World Wide Web. The most infamous rule of course is rule 34, essentially stating that if it exists someone has made porn of it. Now I’m not about to go into every single rule or who ever thought them up in the first place. The important thing is that these rules didn’t exist ten/fifteen years ago, and now with them (especially rule 34) it has never been easier for that poisonous minority to color the opinions of the public. These rules aren’t definitive by any means; in fact they are one big joke. But any joke taken too far can quickly be mistaken as truth. So what began as watching a children’s show for the sole reason of enjoying it, now becomes some sick obsession in the eyes of people outside these fandoms who just see all the pony porn.

To blame the Internet alone however is silly. In the end there are far more deeply rooted biases that cloud the common consensus with these negative stigmas. The uncomfortable fact is that especially here in America we still have very biased views of what the world is. As I stated before the lure of the label is a very enticing thing, and American culture has always been built upon fundamental principles of cataloguing everything into set parameters. This needs to be for him, this needs to be for her, etc.

Again though this begs the question, is it really that weird? More to the point is this anything new? Careful readers will have noticed that I have given multiple examples of shows that have a wide adult audience, and all of them are animated cartoons. Flash back to the nineteen thirties and sixties and suddenly we see the same thing happening with Loony Tunes.

Just as popular today as they were back then Loony Tunes has arguably one of the biggest adult fan bases in the history of American animation. It’s no secret why Loony Tunes was and still is so popular. Acting as the purest form of family entertainment, Loony Tunes was able to transcend both gender and age with characters that fondly remembered by everyone. So here we have a generation of older fans, raised on animated cartoons, now enjoying a new breed of cartoons that reminds them of those they grew up with. Sounds logical to me.

So why then are fandoms like the Bronies still marginalized? Unfortunately it all comes back to the idea of deviant behavior. Most of these shows either come from a big franchise name or belong to a network that specializes in children entertainment. At least from my experience, social norms dictate that adults watch these shows either with children under their care or because they are morbidly curious. For most people the reasons why adults watch these shows beyond those reasons is irrelevant.

There is hope though. The information highway despite all the problems it has caused, i.e. giving the vocal minority of fandoms even more voice, has actually made society evolve on a much faster scale. Rather than wait for radical groups or gradual change, now people can post their thoughts, feelings, and ideas anywhere they want, and by doing so change the way society moves in the 21st century. A grown man watching a show for little girls in 2010 has now become an excepted fact three years later. While not wholly accepted, these adults are at least recognized as an actual viewership by production houses. Like so many times before, what people call devious behavior today will be laughed off in the future, as it swiftly becomes the norm.

© 2013 Jared "I.J" Steinberg. All Rights Reserved.

#culturalcriticism