What would a pony do?

Lauren Faust, creator of MLP

“Bronies” are one of the more peculiar U.S. subcultures. It consists of teenagers and adults who like “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” (MLP for short), an animated cartoon directed at little girls. It's also one of the most derided subcultures on the web, perhaps because most bronies are male. Males watching a show for girls make many people think of homosexuality or pedophilia. Another common anti-brony stereotype is “the 40 year old basement dweller with Asperger's syndrome”. It's also been said that the creators of MLP oppose the brony fandom.

“Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony” is pro-brony and attempts to dispel the prejudices. It succeeds in some ways, but not in others. The documentary follows bronies in several countries as they attend fan conventions known as BronyCons. It turns out that MLP's creator Lauren Faust and voice actors Tara Strong and John de Lancie (Q in Star Trek) do support the brony fandom. Indeed, all three are listed as executive producers of the documentary. A statistical survey shows that the average age of a brony is 20. And no, they don't live in basements.

However, most of the bronies interviewed for the documentary are socially awkward, and one is explicitly diagnosed with Asperger's. Many fans claim to get moral guidance or social skills from watching the animated characters interact with one another. The BronyCons are dominated by males, are mostly White and (presumably) middle class, since these teenagers can afford traveling to a convention in another part of the country, spend a lot of money on souvenirs, etc. The “effeminate” angle is also rather obvious, despite the presence of a group of bronies enrolled in the U.S. military!

The documentary is well-meaning, but if the persons interviewed are representative of this subculture, it's difficult to resist the conclusion that we're dealing with some pretty strange characters! But then, did we really expect anything else? I mean, we're talking about teens and adults who ask what an animated multicolor pony would do…