May 14, 2014 • 43 mins
When "My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic" premiered in 2010, the cartoon attracted a surprising new fan base: men, aka bronies. Cristen and Caroline explore the brony origin, who they are and what it means that a group of men, young and old, are proudly embracing their love of an animated show for little girls.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from House Toupports
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline, and today we are talking about Brownie's,
which are male fans of My Little Pony. Friendship is magic.
(00:25):
I was. I was my Little Pony fan growing up,
although I don't think I could call myself a Brownie
considering I was like the target audience. Yeah, you'd be
a peg as sister in today's terms. Uh. This was
actually a conversation too that got started over on the
Stuff I've Never Told You Facebook page because there was
news that came out a couple of months ago about
(00:47):
a boy at school who was being bullied for bringing
uh My Little Pony lunch box, and the school's response
to him was we'll stop bringing the lunchbox. Yeah, And
so I posted that on our Facebook page, and we
heard from some moms of Brownies, and just to kick
(01:08):
things off, wanted to share a note from Justine, who
also sent along a photo of her ten year old
Brownie with one of his My Little Ponies and it's
very cute, but she writes, we haven't raised our kids
with a lot of gender stereotyping. I honestly don't think
his love of my little pony is indicative of his sexuality,
not that that would bother me. I just think he's
(01:30):
sort of oblivious to the misogyny and our culture at large.
He doesn't think girls are less than I'm curious to
see how that plays out as he enters the teenage years.
But I wonder if his generation really hasn't been as
acculturated to sexism as ours. I can't fathom it, but
it might be true. We saw another brownie in the
Build to Bear in Oklahoma City on March eighth of
this year. My son and the boy total strangers, just
(01:53):
gave each other high fives over their love of my
little pony. I'm very proud, but also think the embrace
of feminine culture by probably straight tween boys is pretty
amazing and bizarre. We might be on the cusp of
a tipping point toward real gender equality. Wow, so we
had to do a podcast, right? Yeah? Absolutely? And it's
(02:14):
funny like the the end of her letter talking about,
you know, boys liking traditionally girl things and are we going?
Are we heading towards gender equality? It was thoughts like
that that just gave me like, you know, warm fuzzy feelings.
When I was reading about this, it it just puts
stars in my eyes as I was reading about brownies,
because I just thought, oh my gosh, here are young
(02:37):
boys all the way through, you know, men in their
thirties and maybe even beyond, who are like cool with
something that's traditionally feminine, Like this is anti fem phobia.
This is an embrace of all things like pink and
rainbowie and um, you know. Then I read some more
and and there are some dark parts of brownism, but
(02:59):
really it's not the majority. No, not at all. Um.
But for listeners who are like what, yeah, we're scratching
their heads wondering what on earth we're talking about, let's
back up for a moment and just talk about my
little pony, because I have a feeling for a lot
of women listening this is these are very familiar toys.
(03:20):
I know that my older sister had a stable of
my Little Ponies. Somehow I never got my little ponies,
I don't. I think I probably just got them handed
down from her. But they launched in one originally as
my pretty Pony and then became my little Pony. In
nineteen Yeah, my pretty Pony looks a lot um sadder
(03:43):
then my my My Little Ponies. I feel like it's
she's kind of like my pretty Pony. And then my
Little Pony came out. Uh, but I had a million
of them, And do you remember the ones that like
if you got the flank wet or like he was
like heat or like water or whatever, the pattern would
(04:04):
come out. I do remember those. Um. I also just
remember asking my sister to play with them. She was
pretty proprietary over her ponies, but every now and then
she would let me brush their tails. For some reason,
I really enjoyed using those little plastic brushes to comb
(04:25):
fake horse tails. Childhood is bizarre, carolyzed, so bizarre and amazing.
But yeah, so this is all in the eighties. This
is you know, when Kristen and when Kristen and I
were growing up. But um, the whole thing was rebooted
back in with an emphasis on My Little Ponies elements
(04:45):
of harmony. Yeah, that's why it's called My Little Pony.
Friendship is Magic. And this was essentially launched as a
partnership between Hasbro, which is the toy company that manufactures
My Little Ponies and and the TV show The Hub.
It's like a kid's channel all Nickelodeon that's also owned
(05:05):
by Discovery Communications. And so the elements of harmony that
it emphasizes our generosity, loyalty, honesty, kindness, laughter, and magic. Magic. Um. So, okay,
let's look at the six stars of the show. We've
got Twilight Sparkle, whose power is magic, Rainbow Dash symbolizes loyalty,
(05:29):
Apple Jack with the with the Texas accent is honesty,
Pinky Pie laughter, Fluttershy is kindness, and rarity the Unicorn
who ties it all together with generosity. Yeah, and they're
referred to as the Main Six, and that's m A
N E. Six. I'll tell you what, folks, if you
like Horse Punch, then you need to watch My Little
(05:51):
Pony because all of their ponies speak is pony fied.
And so saying, for instance, everybody, you would say every pony.
And don't worry, listeners, we're not just going to go
on and on and on about My Little Pony. There
is a point, a greater point to this whole conversation.
But just for a couple more details about this, because
(06:12):
explaining the show really drives home to how Little girl oriented.
It really is. And so so My Little Pony Friendship
is Magic is set in the town of Ponyville and
the land of Equestria, and it's ruled over by Alcorne's sisters,
Princesses Celestia and Luna. And in case you're wondering, because
(06:34):
I was an Alicorn, is a Unicorn Pegasus combo. So
there's just a lot of fanciful, magical, pro friendship fun,
lots of sparkle, glitter, pink, very traditionally girly stuff. Yeah,
and so when has Bro slashed the Hub launched this
(06:54):
new show in two thousand and ten, obviously they were
selling of this TV product two girls, so wing they
would go and buy My Little Ponies. But something happened
where all of a sudden, a lot of guys started
watching it. Yeah, it's kind of like how the Powerpuff Girls.
When that cartoon was around, it also appealed to guys.
(07:16):
My my first high school boyfriend was like a huge
Powerpuff Girls fan. He even had a favorite. I couldn't
tell you which one which one it is. But you know,
there are a lot of cartoons around nowadays that are
really even though there are four kids they're also four adults.
You know, you have things like SpongeBob or Adventure Time
that are definitely I mean, they're very cartoony and silly,
(07:36):
but they are very enjoyable for grown ups. And so
what started happening very quickly after My Little Pony rebooted
in you start to see a lot of young men
being drawn to it. And not only are they drawn
to it, but they they start forming these really rapidly
growing communities. And not so surprisingly, as has happened with
(07:57):
a lot of these subcultures that have popped up in
more recent years, they found each other on the Internet,
and the case of Brownies, they specifically found each other
on a message board called four chan. And soon after
My Little Pony French Magic launched, there was a blog
that was cross posted onto four Chan by this animation
(08:18):
critic name I Mean Amadi, who was essentially decrying the
demise of what he called creator driven animation and name
checked My Little Pony along with a lot of other
shows as being part of the sign of sort of
the demise, basically saying these shows were just being manufactured
to sell things they don't really have any true spirit.
(08:42):
Wasn't a big fan and even though his his blog
post doesn't focus too closely on my little pony, that
was all it took. The floodgates, the browny floodgates. The
stable doors were opened, right. Yeah, So all these guys
start popping up on four Chan talking about my little
(09:03):
pony friendship is magic, and by February there were six
thousand plus daily pony threads going on on four chance
cartoon board, to the point where like a four Chune
moderator was like your band no more pony post. It
even bled over into like animal boards where people were
talking about real life furry ponies, like you couldn't say
(09:26):
anything with pony in it. Yeah, because, not surprisingly, if
you know anything about four Chan, four chan is a
very powerful entity. Allah read it on the Internet, which
also Allah read it comes with a lot of trolling
and what like more perfect Internet trolling target could you
(09:49):
put on your forehead then to say, Hey, I'm a
guy and I really enjoy my little pony friendship is
magic and I'm earnest about it and I'm not being
ironic exactly, have at me. So that was part of
the reason why four chan for a little while said
no more Brownie talk because there was so much in
fighting back and forth, although in fighting actually isn't the
correct term to say, because the Brownies, in response to
(10:13):
the trolls did not fight back because they wanted to
embody the friendship. Element of the friendship is magic that
is taught in My Little Pony, which is kind of incredible. Yeah.
A word that keeps coming up again and again when
you read about this particular era in Brownie history is acceptance.
(10:33):
Everybody's preaching acceptance, like Okay, well you know, obviously you're
not into this. I'm into this, and if you're going
to be angry about it, you know that's your deal.
I'm just gonna keep enjoying my my happy friendship, loyalty
driven my Little Pony thing. Yeah, and four Chan founder
Christopher Pool was actually so impressed by the way that
(10:55):
the Brownies were so successfully resisting this trolling effort that
he finally lifted the ban on the Browny post. And
there was one response from a Brownie to this that
was kind of funny. He said, my Little Pony is
the only group to take on four Chan and win.
Four Chan once took over the FBI and one, so
(11:16):
you might say that my Little Pony is more powerful
than the FBI. Yeah, well, which is incredible to think
about it, hilarious. Um, But so they moved on from
four Chan building their own pony safe spaces online. They
have pony Chan. They posted things on deviant art and YouTube.
There's the website Equestria Daily and lots of different like
(11:38):
fan fic um pony art. There's also some like darker
corners of that art and fan fic as well erotic
pony art. It we'll get to that. We'll get to that. Yeah,
this also harkens back to our episode a little while
ago on fandom and shipping. Um, this is Brownie's are
(11:59):
a prime space ace for this. So the reimaginings of
different adventures for the ponies, different relationships the ponies might have.
There's even music mashups that Brownies will make, all sorts
of things, and Brownies have started congregating as well. In
June two thou eleven, the first Browny Con took place
in New York and about a hundred people attended. But
(12:21):
compare that to two thousand thirteen, when Browny Con drew
six thousand attendees. Yeah, I mean talk about talk about
like just separate from Brownie's even but talk about how
incredible like internet communities are the fact that you can
live your whole life or you know, like, let's think
back to the seventies eighties, where you could have lived
(12:41):
your whole life thinking you were the sole weirdo who
likes something. But these message boards fueled by this whole
like background of acceptance and friendship and loyalty, like, all
of these people are finding each other. And so now
six thousand plus people are going to this conference. It's incredible. Yeah,
I mean it's a similar kind of effect as we
saw in the A s MR podcast. Totally different kind
(13:06):
of thing, but the effect of people finding each other
on the Internet and this community growing from it, of
people saying, oh, I thought I was the only one. No,
you like it, Oh he likes oh awesome. And just
imagine at browne Con though these are i mean younger
boys as well, and some peg of sisters, some some girls,
but up to you know, grown men dressing up as
(13:28):
their favorite my little pony right, hanging out playing games,
just having a really good time. So the question is then,
who are these Brownies, Like, who are there? They just
are they just weirdos are are they outliers in society?
I mean, it turns out, at least according to surveys
(13:49):
of brownies, they're kind of just average guys. Yeah. So
this survey that took place in August and September had
nearly respondents and they found that the average age was
nearly twenty years old, and they hailed from from far
and wide. Um, most of them are from the US,
(14:11):
but if you move in descending order, you've got people
represented from the UK, from Canada, Australia, Germany, Poland, Mexico, Sweden, Finland,
and Brazil. This is not an American phenomenon. And when
you look at gender, I mean, brownie is the combination
of bro or brother and pony. But the gender breakdown
(14:31):
shows that it's eighty six percent male, twelve percent female,
one percent who identifies neither, and one percent unsure. Now,
this next statistic on sexual orientation is one that comes
up in pretty much any article that you read about
brownie culture because there is this knee jerk assumption that, Okay,
(14:51):
here's a guy who really likes pink stuff and ponies,
and you know a show that is for girls, the
are four he must be gay, right, this must be
just a you know, group of okay guys really enjoying ponies.
Not exactly. Uh of brownies identify a straight as bisexual,
(15:15):
four percent as a sexual, only three percent identify as gay,
and three percent identify as pan sexual. So I mean
a bulk of again, kind of like the mom who
pointed out in the letter that we read at the
beginning of the podcast, this is a lot of straight
tween boys and adult guys who are loving them some pony. Yeah.
(15:39):
Of the respondents were in steady relationships, um, with forty
six percent of those saying that they're the soul brownie
in the relationship. Thirty eight percent of those were actually
in dual brownie relationships. You wonder, like, do they just
talk about it all the time, like if you get
together with someone who also has such a specific like
niche interest, Like, I wonder they just talk about brownie's
(16:01):
all the time? Well, I mean, well, in terms of
brownie openness, say they did look into that, say that
they would proudly identify themselves as brownie's both online and offline,
whereas would only identify as brownie online. Because understandably, there's
still a lot of confusion about what does this actually
(16:22):
mean about who you are if you like this one
particular thing. But then the question is, well, why are
we sitting here trying to extrapolate so many meanings upon
the appreciation of ponies. Well? Yeah. As far as why
they identify as Brownie's and identify with the show, the
survey respondents said that the most appealing aspects of the
show were the characters, the humor, and the style and
(16:47):
design of the animation. Um. And so when they were
talking about how they like to, I don't know, be
Brownie's act as Brownie's what that entails, they responded that
they browse fan art and watch fan videos, they read
fan fiction, and they visit Equestria Daily. Yeah, Equestria Daily
is pretty much the go to site for for Brownie's
(17:11):
all things Brownie, and it is, I mean, there is
the daily aspect of Equestria Daily. It's essentially the Huffington's
Post of Brownies. Um. And when when you look at though,
like who, especially among the older brownies, like who who
are these guys? I mean, you'll you'll meet brownies who
have traditionally very masculine jobs, like their mechanics or they
(17:36):
work on motorcycles. There's one what's his name, I ever
get his name, but he's kind of known as the
Manliest Brownie, kind of big old Mustang, and he works
on cars and motorcycles. And there's even a squadron of
pilots in training in the U. S. Air Force at
Vance Air Force Base in Oklahoma who are now wearing
My Little Pony Friendship is Magic themed patches on their
(17:58):
flight suits. Yeah, but instead of friend Ship is Magic,
it's just flying is Magic is magic because some of
the ponies have flying powers. Uh. But and there are
other um there have been other articles too about Brownie's
in the military. So this is not just a thing
for what we would consider more effeminate men as well.
(18:19):
This is really challenging in a lot of ways our
ideas of well, what is masculine and feminine and what
is okay for boys and men to like? Yeah, well,
a lot of those guys are kind of asking themselves
the same question. Wired talked to Brownie Luke Allen, who said, first,
(18:40):
we can't believe the show is so good. Then we
can't believe we've become fans for life, and then we
can't believe we're walking down the pink aisle at Toys
r us are asking for the girls toin our happy meal.
Then we can't believe our friends haven't seen it yet.
Then we can't believe they're becoming Brownie's too. And this
guy also went on to talk about how he has
asked Berger's and how the show has taught him so
(19:03):
much just about getting along with people, the basic tenants
of friendship and loyalty and sort of helped him understand
that in a way that he never had before, which
is pretty incredible. Um. There's also a documentary called Bronis
The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony, And
they interviewed one kid named Alex Thickmen, and he said,
(19:24):
as soon as Ponies came into my life, I was like, Wow,
I never want the day to end. Yeah. And Alex's story,
I mean it's a it's a terrible story of of
bullying and how you know he had My Little Pony
decals on the back of his car and and some
guys like smashed the back of his car and and
all this stuff. And you know it comes from this
(19:46):
really small town in in North Carolina and Appalachia, and
like nobody understands it, and um, how he's been able
to sort of connect with people like him, like minded
guys who aren't all about hunting in and you know,
being like super traditionally masculine, and how how that just
lets him find other people that he can form a community,
(20:09):
really loyal community of friends with. Yeah. In this same
documentary Brownies and this also is not the only Brownie
documentary there is out there. This one is on Netflix
too if you if you have it and want to
watch it. But it also follows this boy who is
going to Browny Con for the first time and his
(20:30):
dad is really uncomfortable with the fact that his son
likes My Little Pony. Um. There's also the way that
it's termed when younger guys especially will inform their their
parents that they are fans of the show. It's almost
like a coming out process. Um, and the dad's like
super uncomfortable, but he ends up going to Browny Con
(20:50):
with him, and he talks to far more enthusiastic Brownie
dad who kind of breaks it down for him, like, Listen,
I know this kind looks super weird that our sons
are playing My Little Pony, but I'm just really happy
to be sharing this experience with him, and this is
our new way of bonding and it's pretty cool, and like, look,
(21:11):
look how happy this is making our kids. And then
you know Q crying fast. Well, there's there's clips of
of all these guys like linking arms and singing, and
you know, they talked to um one young woman who
I don't know if she was a Pega sister or
(21:33):
if she's in a band or something, that she was
on stage singing and she talks about how like, you know,
nobody's here to judge other people. Everybody is here to
like be friends, have fun. You know, this is the
most acceptance I've ever felt. And we mentioned the manly
is BRONI. It's this guy named Dusty Rhodes and he
was interviewed also by Wired magazine about this and getting
(21:54):
his take is as an older guy who is invested
in this culture is really telling because he says, you're
supposed to be the guy who was on TV, You're
supposed to be the moral Broman, You're supposed to be
the guy from die Hard. That's all well and good,
but we got spoon fed enough of that crud through
the eighties and nineties that people are starting to believe
that that's the way you had to be. Everybody's a person,
(22:15):
everybody is a human being on this planet, and the
sooner we figure that out, we might be a little
better off. And then he goes on to talk about
how that's why he loves my little Pony so much
because it sort of was the catalyst for helping him
sort of embody those kinds of ideas, which is incredible.
I mean, sort of like using a children's show to
(22:38):
reevaluate what you think about hegemonic masculinity. Is that's some
heavy stuff. That is heavy stuff, and I mean it's
it's just the fact that it's such heavy stuff, and
it it seems so deep for what it is, which
is like a two dimensional children's show. Um. But the
sudden and rapid rise of this older male fan base
(23:00):
has a lot of people, like especially in academia, kind
of scratching their heads, going like, Okay, something's got to
be weird here. This, this can't be normal. Um. And
two of those people who were just kind of trying
to investigate what was going on are dr Patrick Edwards
and Marcia redden Um. Patrick Edwards son, by the way
he became interested in researching brownies and this whole topic
(23:23):
because his son came out so to speak to him
as a Brownie and he's like, all right, let's figure
out what's going on here. Is this like some sort
of like pathological thing. Are they making up for other
lacking aspects in their lives? And um, they didn't really
find anything that said, Okay, these guys are weird. Yeah.
(23:43):
They surveyed over twenty thousand self identified brownies, and they
found some common hallmarks, such as Brownie's being slightly more
introverted but more agreeable than non brownies. They also tended
to be more tolerant of others and bullied less often.
And when it comes to Brownie's home life, not surprisingly,
(24:04):
they found the happiest ones tended to come from open
minded homes with accepting, more liberal parents. And they identified
a lot of these guys as social brownies, and social
brownies actually made up the largest subsection of all of
the ones that they talked to. And they're the most open,
extroverted and uh, they compared them to the pony pinky pie,
(24:28):
who is, you know, kind of the party love and pony.
That's funny. So they have their little avatar um. They
also found another subsection of secret brownies that makes up
twenty percent of this group, and these guys typically come
from more closed minded homes, and the researchers said these
guys were the browny equivalent of the withdrawn patients they
(24:50):
had seen in therapy for years. So these guys are
less likely to have the dad who was open and
willing to go to the conference, learn what it's all
about out just make sure his son is happy. And
there's some interesting theory swirling around this, this rise, this
lack of irony, this this genuine acceptance of happiness and
(25:11):
you know, loyalty that's going on with this whole movement.
And so there's a theory that this is like post
nine eleven escapism, that that we had, our our generation
had this terrible, horrific event that kind of bisected our
young lives, and so this is now a return to
something more innocent. We're we're trying to get away from
this planet that's so concerned with terrorism and war and
(25:35):
and focus on sparkly, shiny ponies. But there's also this
idea that a lot of people are talking about called
new sincerity, and it's not that this is like a
new movement or something, but it's kind of just like
a pop culture trend away from all of that irony
that kind of all of our social media is dripping
with these days, the hipster irony. Yeah, and pretty much
(25:56):
any article that you'd read about new sincerity, Brownie's are
upheld as the exemplars of it because they truly love
this cartoon for exactly what it is and are unabashed
in their fandom. Um. But there is also a researcher
Venetia Laura Delano Robertson, who thinks that it might also
(26:20):
have to do with the anthropomorphic element of My Little Pony,
and she graciously sent us the full text of her
recent study called of Ponies and Men, My Little Pony
Friendship is Magic and the Browny fandom, and she thinks
that it has to this connection that Brownie's have and
(26:40):
the learning about friendship and loyalty that they're deriving from.
It has to do with the fact that these are
cartoon animals that act as people. Yeah, she's talking about
all this anthropomorphism and says, uh, the candy combination of
My Little Pony's subcultural qualities and the value of non
human but humanlike role models or avatars speaks intimately to
(27:05):
a group of individuals typically bound up in anonymous internet networks. Yeah,
and so all of that to say that maybe the
anthropomorphism on screen sort of creates enough distance from the
human experience that is might maybe more fraught in these
posts on eleven days with uh fear or anxiety. It
(27:27):
creates enough distance from that to kind of build a
relationship with these viewers. I mean, the fact that people
are forming relationships with animated characters, you know, animals that
can talk and run around and have similar, almost humanlike lives,
is nothing strange at all. Disney exists, hello. Um. But
(27:49):
there's also to the element of hypercuteness in My My
Little Pony that also seems to appeal to brownies. Um.
There's this Japanese concept of kauai I hope I'm pronouncing
that correctly, which is sort of that hyper cuteness. And
if you look at My Little Pony, friendship is magic,
it is drenched in kauai. And and there's this sky.
(28:11):
Brian McVeigh, who back in the mid nineties talking about
this appeal of hypercuteness and cartoon nous, argues that these
kinds of super cute mascots in a way embody the
essential qualities of cuteness and by invoking affection, are able
to exert authority. So in other words, they're teaching guys
(28:31):
like Luke Allen, who's high on the Asperger scale, what
friendship and loyalty really means in action. And we're going
to talk way more about a whole lot of interesting
aspects of brownie culture when we come right back from
a quick break and now back to the show. Okay,
(28:55):
So Kristen was just discussing the concept, the Japanese concept
of kauai, basically things that are just like dripping with cuteness.
They often have like big eyes, and they're maybe little
animal ears and stuff, and how this concept really plays
into what we're talking about now, which is My Little
Pony and Brownies. And there's something great about the fact
(29:19):
that these ponies can kind of service avatars for for
a lot of guys who maybe don't have great in
person like life connections, and they can form these connections
online through My Little Pony. But there's also something a
little weird and that's worth bringing up, and that's just
the fact that you know, these these ponies are super
(29:40):
vulnerable and but also harmless. They're dependent, very feminine, very gentle,
so very non threatening. Yeah. Fluttershy, for instance, is a
Browny favorite among the main six ponies, and flutter Shy
embodies kindness, but as her name implies, eyes, she's also
(30:01):
very shy, very unsure of herself. She's too scared to fly,
and this raises some red flags among some people kind
of looking from the outside end of the brownie culture,
thinking well, why is this particular pony so appealing, Like
why why is it the shy, submissive one. There's there's
kind of a protective white hat element to brownie fandom
(30:25):
as well of loving these ponies so much, not just
because of the lessons they might teach, but also because
they feel protective of Fluttershy and the other ponies. Yeah.
So I think it's interesting that this whole arena, this
whole browny arena, is on the one hand, so anti
(30:46):
gender norms. It's guys feeling like they can be more
open with their emotions and and love their friends and
be open with their love for their friends and for
this cartoon. But on the other hand, um, these very
sort of like cute harmless, gentle feminine creatures. These ponies
(31:07):
also sort of bring out, like Kristen said, that that protective,
very stereotypically male behavior aspect feelings. And this the thing is,
though this isn't it's a good thing that this isn't
the typical line of conversation when it comes to brownies.
I think there's a lot of Uh, there are a
lot of people who have rude things to say, but
(31:28):
there's also a lot of embrace of it for the
fact that it is sort of transgressing those gender norms,
because that whole appeal of the cute and hyper feminine
in animation, especially if we're talking about you know, the
Japanese concept of Kauai is not it's not solely a
product of brownies. I mean, attraction to hyper feminine, cute
(31:52):
animated girls, for instance, is super common in anime culture too. Yeah, exactly. Um,
And so speaking of that Venetia Laura Delano Robertsons study
that we were talking about before the break, Um, she
does acknowledge in her study that yes, there is a
level of attraction to the ponies among a certain subset
(32:16):
of brownies. Yeah, this is this is by far not
all Brownies. But we would be remiss not to acknowledge
the fact that in that two thousand twelve Brownie study
of respondents said yes to the question of are you
sexually attracted to the friendship is magic stylized ponies now?
(32:37):
Six also said no, absolutely not. I just love the
ponies for the ponies. But yeah, there is there is
some sexualization that goes on. There's something called clop fick,
which is the erotic uh my Little pony fan fiction.
There's also if you start digging into go on deviant
Art and start looking at my Little Pony fan art,
(32:59):
it does get sexuel at certain points. So so there's that,
But I mean there's a name for it that I
that is living my mind right now. But essentially there's
a rule on the Internet that if something exists, there's
also porn of it, Like everything is portified at this
point on the Internet. Yeah, I I don't yeah exactly.
(33:21):
But Robertson also argues that maybe one reason why the
more erotic side of Brodie the brony subculture is swept
under the rug a little bit that we don't talk
about it as much, or at least it doesn't raise
perhaps as many red flags is because again due to
the anthropomorphism, they're not doing this. If this was a
(33:44):
group of little girls, you know, animated characters, then people
would probably not be so pumped about browny con But
the fact that it's horses their animals not as big
of a deal if we put them in sexual situations
and fan art right, and a lot of guys are
saying like, I don't even like real horses. Yeah, that
was that was one funny thing. Overwhelmingly brownies don't want
(34:08):
anything to do with horses in real life. Yeah. One
guy brought up the same thing that I think the
Oatmeal has a cartoon regarding this exact same thing, saying that, basically,
to paraphrase, like, horses poop a lot, and they're gross
and you've got to scoop the poop all the time,
and so I'm not interested in real life horses and
their poop at all. Well, and they're just massive, powerful creatures, yeah,
(34:29):
as opposed to these little, flying, fairy horse creatures. So again,
while we don't want to give the impression that all
brownies are only interested in my little pony, because they
are either consciously or subconsciously attracted to these Ponies. Nonetheless,
we do want to acknowledge that there there is this one,
there's a corner of this culture that exists. But I
(34:51):
think you would find something like that in any kind
of fan culture. I mean, if you are going back
to the shipping episode again, pretty much all shipping eventually,
no matter what you're talking about, whether you're you know,
looking at the X Files or Twilight or My Little
Pony whatever, it might be little trail off at some
(35:11):
point into erotic fick yea um. But you know what,
you know who's really loving it as has Bro Because
if you look one one of the sites we were
looking at, how to graph showing Hasbro sales of their
merch and I mean not that the chart itself or
even Hasbro itself can really tell us for sure that
(35:33):
Brownies are propping up there their industry, their sales, but
I mean it's it's Hasbro sales and My Little Pony
sales have steadily increased. Oh yeah. Well, and it's interesting
too to see how Hasbro is also not just now
selling to little girls that the Pegga sisters watching the show,
but specifically to Brownie's because they're selling things like trading
(35:53):
cards comic books, USB drives, in addition to more typical
products like plush toys and dolls like they're they're clearly
trying to reach an audience. Um, and I mean just
the fact too that it's become I don't think that
I didn't have to find a concrete number of how
many Brownies there are, but I mean we're not talking
(36:15):
about millions of guys. It's still a pretty relatively small
group of men. But the fact that they're getting articles
and wired in grant Land and have a convention that
makes national news. You know that Stephen Colbert mentions them
on the Colbert Report, that Bob's Burgers has a Brownie
spin off show or episode, I should say, I mean,
(36:38):
it's kind of incredible that such a you know, relatively
small group of people has generated this much conversation. So
of course has Bro is riding the right, the right, Yeah,
riding the saddle, that's right. But I mean it makes
sense that there's so much attention paid even though this
is a really small subset of young men in our
(36:59):
country and and many other countries. I mean, it makes
sense that that people are like wired or digging into
it because you just don't see big groups of of
guys who are really earnest in their love and affection
for something that is so typically geared towards girls. That's
so unusual. It's okay for girls to to play with transformers,
(37:22):
to play with their brothers g I Joe dolls, but
it's it's not okay, like we've said a million times
in different podcast episodes, you know, it's it's not as
okay for guys to like girl things. And so everybody's
looking at this going like, are we on some precipice
all of a sudden that we didn't realize, right? I
mean because just in my own child play, I totally
(37:43):
played with my brother's Gi Joe's all the time, No
big deal. I have a feeling if my brother started
playing with my sisters my little ponies, my parents would
probably have raised an eyebrow. You know, There's not as
much fluidity for for boys. So so it is cool
to see that this kind of stuff is happening, particularly
(38:04):
for the younger boys. But that's not to say though,
that when they are out not hanging among their brownie pals,
that everybody is pro brownie. Like we mentioned, this entire
conversation was instigated by news of Grayson Bruce, a nine
year old who was bullied at school for bringing you
(38:26):
know that my little pony lunchbox, to which the school,
shaking my fist, just told him to leave the lunch
box at home, which is not the answer at all.
Maybe maybe broaden your mind, maybe tell the bullies that hey,
this is your your lame I would make a great principle.
But a far more heartbreaking example though, of brownie bullying
(38:49):
is the case of eleven year old Michael Moronez, who
attempted to hang himself as a result of relentless brownie bullying,
and also as an example of how this bronie community
really supports their own and really does try to live
out the friendship is Magic motto. The Brownie's have set
up a recovery fund for him, same thing with Grayson
(39:12):
Bruce as well. They started a whole stand with Grayson
hashtag that trended on the internet and got a lot
of attention you know to his case. Um So, brownie's
definitely look out for their own, but it's unfortunate to
see still, especially for the younger guys, that they do
still face bullying for wanting to play with my Little
(39:34):
Pony instead of g I Joe. Yeah, And I mean,
and who's to say that even it's an either or thing, like,
you know, like I played, you know, I played with
all sorts of different toys as a kid. Because I
was an only child, my parents didn't really care. I
had a million barbies and a million my Little ponies,
but I also had monster trucks, you know. Like so
(39:55):
I I hope we can get to a point, all
of us together in general, can get you a point
where it is okay for boys to play with whatever
girls are playing with and it not be a big deal.
But you know, we've just gotta I don't know, we've
just got to work on. It's a whole cultural thing.
I mean, these trolls aren't just going to disappear overnight, right,
I mean, but it is. It does see something though,
(40:18):
that we are talking so much about, you know, again,
a relatively small group of men who are, whether intentionally
or not, challenging what we consider to be acceptable masculinity.
And I think that's only for the better of all
of us, because if girls are granted, you know, more
(40:39):
fluidity in the sense of like, you know, we're told
that you can be anything, and you can play with anything,
and you can wear skirts or pants. Boys boys won't
enjoy that same amount of social fluidity, and I think
that it's time that that that changes, one brownie at
a time. So I hope that there are some brownie's listening,
(41:02):
or mom's and brownie's, dads and brownie's we want to
hear from you on this, or just fans of my
little Pony, any Pegga sisters, we want to hear from
you as well. Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is
where you can email us. You can also tweet us
at mom Stuff podcast or send us a Facebook message
as well, and we have a couple of messages to
share with you right now. All right, Well, I have
(41:26):
a letter here from a lady listener who wishes to
remain anonymous because she is writing in about our women
and Weed episode. Um. She said, I was especially interested
in the women in Weed episode because I am a
woman and I love weed. I have a college degree
in an office job, and whenever people find out I
smoke weed, they're always shocked. I do not look like
(41:46):
your typical stoner. I'm sometimes left out of joint pass
and circles because new people assume I don't smoke. I
find it helps me let go of work stress, and
it helps me sleep and enjoy music, food, books, and
the outdoors even more usual. Thanks for your awesome podcast
and for promising not to wrap anybody out if they
wrote to you on this topic. Well. I also have
(42:07):
a letter about our marijuana episode. This is from a
woman named j M and she writes them talking about
how she started smoking pot in high school and then
kind of stopped for a while, and says after college
I saw started smoking again to treat my migraines, which
also led to smoking for recreation but also for stress relief.
I'd become a manager in my profession. By the time
(42:29):
I was twenty six, I was working long hours, and
I loved coming home after work and taking a few
bong hits. Ten years later, I have two children and
ran a very successful business all while smoking blunts after work.
I do occasionally smoke in the afternoons when I'm home
with my children because it does help me relax and
enjoy some of the boring or tough things about parenting.
(42:50):
I just wanted your listeners to know, especially the ones
who are skeptical of legalizing that many people are productive
members of society and smoke weed. Unfortunately, being that it
is not lead goal, I really don't share my experience
often because I'm afraid that it would negatively affect my
business or impact my children. Thanks so much for your podcast.
It's an important topic that needs to be discussed, so thanks. Also.
(43:12):
Her her subject mind was marijuana Mommy, So thank you
marijuana Mommy and everyone else who has written into us.
Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is where you can
email us and to find all of our podcast, blogs
and videos. There's one place to go, and it's Stuff
Mom Never Told You dot com. For more on this
(43:32):
and thousands of other topics, does it How stuff Works
dot com
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from House Toupports
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline, and today we are talking about Brownie's,
which are male fans of My Little Pony. Friendship is magic.
(00:25):
I was. I was my Little Pony fan growing up,
although I don't think I could call myself a Brownie
considering I was like the target audience. Yeah, you'd be
a peg as sister in today's terms. Uh. This was
actually a conversation too that got started over on the
Stuff I've Never Told You Facebook page because there was
news that came out a couple of months ago about
(00:47):
a boy at school who was being bullied for bringing
uh My Little Pony lunch box, and the school's response
to him was we'll stop bringing the lunchbox. Yeah, And
so I posted that on our Facebook page, and we
heard from some moms of Brownies, and just to kick
(01:08):
things off, wanted to share a note from Justine, who
also sent along a photo of her ten year old
Brownie with one of his My Little Ponies and it's
very cute, but she writes, we haven't raised our kids
with a lot of gender stereotyping. I honestly don't think
his love of my little pony is indicative of his sexuality,
not that that would bother me. I just think he's
(01:30):
sort of oblivious to the misogyny and our culture at large.
He doesn't think girls are less than I'm curious to
see how that plays out as he enters the teenage years.
But I wonder if his generation really hasn't been as
acculturated to sexism as ours. I can't fathom it, but
it might be true. We saw another brownie in the
Build to Bear in Oklahoma City on March eighth of
this year. My son and the boy total strangers, just
(01:53):
gave each other high fives over their love of my
little pony. I'm very proud, but also think the embrace
of feminine culture by probably straight tween boys is pretty
amazing and bizarre. We might be on the cusp of
a tipping point toward real gender equality. Wow, so we
had to do a podcast, right? Yeah? Absolutely? And it's
(02:14):
funny like the the end of her letter talking about,
you know, boys liking traditionally girl things and are we going?
Are we heading towards gender equality? It was thoughts like
that that just gave me like, you know, warm fuzzy feelings.
When I was reading about this, it it just puts
stars in my eyes as I was reading about brownies,
because I just thought, oh my gosh, here are young
(02:37):
boys all the way through, you know, men in their
thirties and maybe even beyond, who are like cool with
something that's traditionally feminine, Like this is anti fem phobia.
This is an embrace of all things like pink and
rainbowie and um, you know. Then I read some more
and and there are some dark parts of brownism, but
(02:59):
really it's not the majority. No, not at all. Um.
But for listeners who are like what, yeah, we're scratching
their heads wondering what on earth we're talking about, let's
back up for a moment and just talk about my
little pony, because I have a feeling for a lot
of women listening this is these are very familiar toys.
(03:20):
I know that my older sister had a stable of
my Little Ponies. Somehow I never got my little ponies,
I don't. I think I probably just got them handed
down from her. But they launched in one originally as
my pretty Pony and then became my little Pony. In
nineteen Yeah, my pretty Pony looks a lot um sadder
(03:43):
then my my My Little Ponies. I feel like it's
she's kind of like my pretty Pony. And then my
Little Pony came out. Uh, but I had a million
of them, And do you remember the ones that like
if you got the flank wet or like he was
like heat or like water or whatever, the pattern would
(04:04):
come out. I do remember those. Um. I also just
remember asking my sister to play with them. She was
pretty proprietary over her ponies, but every now and then
she would let me brush their tails. For some reason,
I really enjoyed using those little plastic brushes to comb
(04:25):
fake horse tails. Childhood is bizarre, carolyzed, so bizarre and amazing.
But yeah, so this is all in the eighties. This
is you know, when Kristen and when Kristen and I
were growing up. But um, the whole thing was rebooted
back in with an emphasis on My Little Ponies elements
(04:45):
of harmony. Yeah, that's why it's called My Little Pony.
Friendship is Magic. And this was essentially launched as a
partnership between Hasbro, which is the toy company that manufactures
My Little Ponies and and the TV show The Hub.
It's like a kid's channel all Nickelodeon that's also owned
(05:05):
by Discovery Communications. And so the elements of harmony that
it emphasizes our generosity, loyalty, honesty, kindness, laughter, and magic. Magic. Um. So, okay,
let's look at the six stars of the show. We've
got Twilight Sparkle, whose power is magic, Rainbow Dash symbolizes loyalty,
(05:29):
Apple Jack with the with the Texas accent is honesty,
Pinky Pie laughter, Fluttershy is kindness, and rarity the Unicorn
who ties it all together with generosity. Yeah, and they're
referred to as the Main Six, and that's m A
N E. Six. I'll tell you what, folks, if you
like Horse Punch, then you need to watch My Little
(05:51):
Pony because all of their ponies speak is pony fied.
And so saying, for instance, everybody, you would say every pony.
And don't worry, listeners, we're not just going to go
on and on and on about My Little Pony. There
is a point, a greater point to this whole conversation.
But just for a couple more details about this, because
(06:12):
explaining the show really drives home to how Little girl oriented.
It really is. And so so My Little Pony Friendship
is Magic is set in the town of Ponyville and
the land of Equestria, and it's ruled over by Alcorne's sisters,
Princesses Celestia and Luna. And in case you're wondering, because
(06:34):
I was an Alicorn, is a Unicorn Pegasus combo. So
there's just a lot of fanciful, magical, pro friendship fun,
lots of sparkle, glitter, pink, very traditionally girly stuff. Yeah,
and so when has Bro slashed the Hub launched this
(06:54):
new show in two thousand and ten, obviously they were
selling of this TV product two girls, so wing they
would go and buy My Little Ponies. But something happened
where all of a sudden, a lot of guys started
watching it. Yeah, it's kind of like how the Powerpuff Girls.
When that cartoon was around, it also appealed to guys.
(07:16):
My my first high school boyfriend was like a huge
Powerpuff Girls fan. He even had a favorite. I couldn't
tell you which one which one it is. But you know,
there are a lot of cartoons around nowadays that are
really even though there are four kids they're also four adults.
You know, you have things like SpongeBob or Adventure Time
that are definitely I mean, they're very cartoony and silly,
(07:36):
but they are very enjoyable for grown ups. And so
what started happening very quickly after My Little Pony rebooted
in you start to see a lot of young men
being drawn to it. And not only are they drawn
to it, but they they start forming these really rapidly
growing communities. And not so surprisingly, as has happened with
(07:57):
a lot of these subcultures that have popped up in
more recent years, they found each other on the Internet,
and the case of Brownies, they specifically found each other
on a message board called four chan. And soon after
My Little Pony French Magic launched, there was a blog
that was cross posted onto four Chan by this animation
(08:18):
critic name I Mean Amadi, who was essentially decrying the
demise of what he called creator driven animation and name
checked My Little Pony along with a lot of other
shows as being part of the sign of sort of
the demise, basically saying these shows were just being manufactured
to sell things they don't really have any true spirit.
(08:42):
Wasn't a big fan and even though his his blog
post doesn't focus too closely on my little pony, that
was all it took. The floodgates, the browny floodgates. The
stable doors were opened, right. Yeah, So all these guys
start popping up on four Chan talking about my little
(09:03):
pony friendship is magic, and by February there were six
thousand plus daily pony threads going on on four chance
cartoon board, to the point where like a four Chune
moderator was like your band no more pony post. It
even bled over into like animal boards where people were
talking about real life furry ponies, like you couldn't say
(09:26):
anything with pony in it. Yeah, because, not surprisingly, if
you know anything about four Chan, four chan is a
very powerful entity. Allah read it on the Internet, which
also Allah read it comes with a lot of trolling
and what like more perfect Internet trolling target could you
(09:49):
put on your forehead then to say, Hey, I'm a
guy and I really enjoy my little pony friendship is
magic and I'm earnest about it and I'm not being
ironic exactly, have at me. So that was part of
the reason why four chan for a little while said
no more Brownie talk because there was so much in
fighting back and forth, although in fighting actually isn't the
correct term to say, because the Brownies, in response to
(10:13):
the trolls did not fight back because they wanted to
embody the friendship. Element of the friendship is magic that
is taught in My Little Pony, which is kind of incredible. Yeah.
A word that keeps coming up again and again when
you read about this particular era in Brownie history is acceptance.
(10:33):
Everybody's preaching acceptance, like Okay, well you know, obviously you're
not into this. I'm into this, and if you're going
to be angry about it, you know that's your deal.
I'm just gonna keep enjoying my my happy friendship, loyalty
driven my Little Pony thing. Yeah, and four Chan founder
Christopher Pool was actually so impressed by the way that
(10:55):
the Brownies were so successfully resisting this trolling effort that
he finally lifted the ban on the Browny post. And
there was one response from a Brownie to this that
was kind of funny. He said, my Little Pony is
the only group to take on four Chan and win.
Four Chan once took over the FBI and one, so
(11:16):
you might say that my Little Pony is more powerful
than the FBI. Yeah, well, which is incredible to think
about it, hilarious. Um, But so they moved on from
four Chan building their own pony safe spaces online. They
have pony Chan. They posted things on deviant art and YouTube.
There's the website Equestria Daily and lots of different like
(11:38):
fan fic um pony art. There's also some like darker
corners of that art and fan fic as well erotic
pony art. It we'll get to that. We'll get to that. Yeah,
this also harkens back to our episode a little while
ago on fandom and shipping. Um, this is Brownie's are
(11:59):
a prime space ace for this. So the reimaginings of
different adventures for the ponies, different relationships the ponies might have.
There's even music mashups that Brownies will make, all sorts
of things, and Brownies have started congregating as well. In
June two thou eleven, the first Browny Con took place
in New York and about a hundred people attended. But
(12:21):
compare that to two thousand thirteen, when Browny Con drew
six thousand attendees. Yeah, I mean talk about talk about
like just separate from Brownie's even but talk about how
incredible like internet communities are the fact that you can
live your whole life or you know, like, let's think
back to the seventies eighties, where you could have lived
(12:41):
your whole life thinking you were the sole weirdo who
likes something. But these message boards fueled by this whole
like background of acceptance and friendship and loyalty, like, all
of these people are finding each other. And so now
six thousand plus people are going to this conference. It's incredible. Yeah,
I mean it's a similar kind of effect as we
saw in the A s MR podcast. Totally different kind
(13:06):
of thing, but the effect of people finding each other
on the Internet and this community growing from it, of
people saying, oh, I thought I was the only one. No,
you like it, Oh he likes oh awesome. And just
imagine at browne Con though these are i mean younger
boys as well, and some peg of sisters, some some girls,
but up to you know, grown men dressing up as
(13:28):
their favorite my little pony right, hanging out playing games,
just having a really good time. So the question is then,
who are these Brownies, Like, who are there? They just
are they just weirdos are are they outliers in society?
I mean, it turns out, at least according to surveys
(13:49):
of brownies, they're kind of just average guys. Yeah. So
this survey that took place in August and September had
nearly respondents and they found that the average age was
nearly twenty years old, and they hailed from from far
and wide. Um, most of them are from the US,
(14:11):
but if you move in descending order, you've got people
represented from the UK, from Canada, Australia, Germany, Poland, Mexico, Sweden, Finland,
and Brazil. This is not an American phenomenon. And when
you look at gender, I mean, brownie is the combination
of bro or brother and pony. But the gender breakdown
(14:31):
shows that it's eighty six percent male, twelve percent female,
one percent who identifies neither, and one percent unsure. Now,
this next statistic on sexual orientation is one that comes
up in pretty much any article that you read about
brownie culture because there is this knee jerk assumption that, Okay,
(14:51):
here's a guy who really likes pink stuff and ponies,
and you know a show that is for girls, the
are four he must be gay, right, this must be
just a you know, group of okay guys really enjoying ponies.
Not exactly. Uh of brownies identify a straight as bisexual,
(15:15):
four percent as a sexual, only three percent identify as gay,
and three percent identify as pan sexual. So I mean
a bulk of again, kind of like the mom who
pointed out in the letter that we read at the
beginning of the podcast, this is a lot of straight
tween boys and adult guys who are loving them some pony. Yeah.
(15:39):
Of the respondents were in steady relationships, um, with forty
six percent of those saying that they're the soul brownie
in the relationship. Thirty eight percent of those were actually
in dual brownie relationships. You wonder, like, do they just
talk about it all the time, like if you get
together with someone who also has such a specific like
niche interest, Like, I wonder they just talk about brownie's
(16:01):
all the time? Well, I mean, well, in terms of
brownie openness, say they did look into that, say that
they would proudly identify themselves as brownie's both online and offline,
whereas would only identify as brownie online. Because understandably, there's
still a lot of confusion about what does this actually
(16:22):
mean about who you are if you like this one
particular thing. But then the question is, well, why are
we sitting here trying to extrapolate so many meanings upon
the appreciation of ponies. Well? Yeah. As far as why
they identify as Brownie's and identify with the show, the
survey respondents said that the most appealing aspects of the
show were the characters, the humor, and the style and
(16:47):
design of the animation. Um. And so when they were
talking about how they like to, I don't know, be
Brownie's act as Brownie's what that entails, they responded that
they browse fan art and watch fan videos, they read
fan fiction, and they visit Equestria Daily. Yeah, Equestria Daily
is pretty much the go to site for for Brownie's
(17:11):
all things Brownie, and it is, I mean, there is
the daily aspect of Equestria Daily. It's essentially the Huffington's
Post of Brownies. Um. And when when you look at though,
like who, especially among the older brownies, like who who
are these guys? I mean, you'll you'll meet brownies who
have traditionally very masculine jobs, like their mechanics or they
(17:36):
work on motorcycles. There's one what's his name, I ever
get his name, but he's kind of known as the
Manliest Brownie, kind of big old Mustang, and he works
on cars and motorcycles. And there's even a squadron of
pilots in training in the U. S. Air Force at
Vance Air Force Base in Oklahoma who are now wearing
My Little Pony Friendship is Magic themed patches on their
(17:58):
flight suits. Yeah, but instead of friend Ship is Magic,
it's just flying is Magic is magic because some of
the ponies have flying powers. Uh. But and there are
other um there have been other articles too about Brownie's
in the military. So this is not just a thing
for what we would consider more effeminate men as well.
(18:19):
This is really challenging in a lot of ways our
ideas of well, what is masculine and feminine and what
is okay for boys and men to like? Yeah, well,
a lot of those guys are kind of asking themselves
the same question. Wired talked to Brownie Luke Allen, who said, first,
(18:40):
we can't believe the show is so good. Then we
can't believe we've become fans for life, and then we
can't believe we're walking down the pink aisle at Toys
r us are asking for the girls toin our happy meal.
Then we can't believe our friends haven't seen it yet.
Then we can't believe they're becoming Brownie's too. And this
guy also went on to talk about how he has
asked Berger's and how the show has taught him so
(19:03):
much just about getting along with people, the basic tenants
of friendship and loyalty and sort of helped him understand
that in a way that he never had before, which
is pretty incredible. Um. There's also a documentary called Bronis
The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony, And
they interviewed one kid named Alex Thickmen, and he said,
(19:24):
as soon as Ponies came into my life, I was like, Wow,
I never want the day to end. Yeah. And Alex's story,
I mean it's a it's a terrible story of of
bullying and how you know he had My Little Pony
decals on the back of his car and and some
guys like smashed the back of his car and and
all this stuff. And you know it comes from this
(19:46):
really small town in in North Carolina and Appalachia, and
like nobody understands it, and um, how he's been able
to sort of connect with people like him, like minded
guys who aren't all about hunting in and you know,
being like super traditionally masculine, and how how that just
lets him find other people that he can form a community,
(20:09):
really loyal community of friends with. Yeah. In this same
documentary Brownies and this also is not the only Brownie
documentary there is out there. This one is on Netflix
too if you if you have it and want to
watch it. But it also follows this boy who is
going to Browny Con for the first time and his
(20:30):
dad is really uncomfortable with the fact that his son
likes My Little Pony. Um. There's also the way that
it's termed when younger guys especially will inform their their
parents that they are fans of the show. It's almost
like a coming out process. Um, and the dad's like
super uncomfortable, but he ends up going to Browny Con
(20:50):
with him, and he talks to far more enthusiastic Brownie
dad who kind of breaks it down for him, like, Listen,
I know this kind looks super weird that our sons
are playing My Little Pony, but I'm just really happy
to be sharing this experience with him, and this is
our new way of bonding and it's pretty cool, and like, look,
(21:11):
look how happy this is making our kids. And then
you know Q crying fast. Well, there's there's clips of
of all these guys like linking arms and singing, and
you know, they talked to um one young woman who
I don't know if she was a Pega sister or
(21:33):
if she's in a band or something, that she was
on stage singing and she talks about how like, you know,
nobody's here to judge other people. Everybody is here to
like be friends, have fun. You know, this is the
most acceptance I've ever felt. And we mentioned the manly
is BRONI. It's this guy named Dusty Rhodes and he
was interviewed also by Wired magazine about this and getting
(21:54):
his take is as an older guy who is invested
in this culture is really telling because he says, you're
supposed to be the guy who was on TV, You're
supposed to be the moral Broman, You're supposed to be
the guy from die Hard. That's all well and good,
but we got spoon fed enough of that crud through
the eighties and nineties that people are starting to believe
that that's the way you had to be. Everybody's a person,
(22:15):
everybody is a human being on this planet, and the
sooner we figure that out, we might be a little
better off. And then he goes on to talk about
how that's why he loves my little Pony so much
because it sort of was the catalyst for helping him
sort of embody those kinds of ideas, which is incredible.
I mean, sort of like using a children's show to
(22:38):
reevaluate what you think about hegemonic masculinity. Is that's some
heavy stuff. That is heavy stuff, and I mean it's
it's just the fact that it's such heavy stuff, and
it it seems so deep for what it is, which
is like a two dimensional children's show. Um. But the
sudden and rapid rise of this older male fan base
(23:00):
has a lot of people, like especially in academia, kind
of scratching their heads, going like, Okay, something's got to
be weird here. This, this can't be normal. Um. And
two of those people who were just kind of trying
to investigate what was going on are dr Patrick Edwards
and Marcia redden Um. Patrick Edwards son, by the way
he became interested in researching brownies and this whole topic
(23:23):
because his son came out so to speak to him
as a Brownie and he's like, all right, let's figure
out what's going on here. Is this like some sort
of like pathological thing. Are they making up for other
lacking aspects in their lives? And um, they didn't really
find anything that said, Okay, these guys are weird. Yeah.
(23:43):
They surveyed over twenty thousand self identified brownies, and they
found some common hallmarks, such as Brownie's being slightly more
introverted but more agreeable than non brownies. They also tended
to be more tolerant of others and bullied less often.
And when it comes to Brownie's home life, not surprisingly,
(24:04):
they found the happiest ones tended to come from open
minded homes with accepting, more liberal parents. And they identified
a lot of these guys as social brownies, and social
brownies actually made up the largest subsection of all of
the ones that they talked to. And they're the most open,
extroverted and uh, they compared them to the pony pinky pie,
(24:28):
who is, you know, kind of the party love and pony.
That's funny. So they have their little avatar um. They
also found another subsection of secret brownies that makes up
twenty percent of this group, and these guys typically come
from more closed minded homes, and the researchers said these
guys were the browny equivalent of the withdrawn patients they
(24:50):
had seen in therapy for years. So these guys are
less likely to have the dad who was open and
willing to go to the conference, learn what it's all
about out just make sure his son is happy. And
there's some interesting theory swirling around this, this rise, this
lack of irony, this this genuine acceptance of happiness and
(25:11):
you know, loyalty that's going on with this whole movement.
And so there's a theory that this is like post
nine eleven escapism, that that we had, our our generation
had this terrible, horrific event that kind of bisected our
young lives, and so this is now a return to
something more innocent. We're we're trying to get away from
this planet that's so concerned with terrorism and war and
(25:35):
and focus on sparkly, shiny ponies. But there's also this
idea that a lot of people are talking about called
new sincerity, and it's not that this is like a
new movement or something, but it's kind of just like
a pop culture trend away from all of that irony
that kind of all of our social media is dripping
with these days, the hipster irony. Yeah, and pretty much
(25:56):
any article that you'd read about new sincerity, Brownie's are
upheld as the exemplars of it because they truly love
this cartoon for exactly what it is and are unabashed
in their fandom. Um. But there is also a researcher
Venetia Laura Delano Robertson, who thinks that it might also
(26:20):
have to do with the anthropomorphic element of My Little Pony,
and she graciously sent us the full text of her
recent study called of Ponies and Men, My Little Pony
Friendship is Magic and the Browny fandom, and she thinks
that it has to this connection that Brownie's have and
(26:40):
the learning about friendship and loyalty that they're deriving from.
It has to do with the fact that these are
cartoon animals that act as people. Yeah, she's talking about
all this anthropomorphism and says, uh, the candy combination of
My Little Pony's subcultural qualities and the value of non
human but humanlike role models or avatars speaks intimately to
(27:05):
a group of individuals typically bound up in anonymous internet networks. Yeah,
and so all of that to say that maybe the
anthropomorphism on screen sort of creates enough distance from the
human experience that is might maybe more fraught in these
posts on eleven days with uh fear or anxiety. It
(27:27):
creates enough distance from that to kind of build a
relationship with these viewers. I mean, the fact that people
are forming relationships with animated characters, you know, animals that
can talk and run around and have similar, almost humanlike lives,
is nothing strange at all. Disney exists, hello. Um. But
(27:49):
there's also to the element of hypercuteness in My My
Little Pony that also seems to appeal to brownies. Um.
There's this Japanese concept of kauai I hope I'm pronouncing
that correctly, which is sort of that hyper cuteness. And
if you look at My Little Pony, friendship is magic,
it is drenched in kauai. And and there's this sky.
(28:11):
Brian McVeigh, who back in the mid nineties talking about
this appeal of hypercuteness and cartoon nous, argues that these
kinds of super cute mascots in a way embody the
essential qualities of cuteness and by invoking affection, are able
to exert authority. So in other words, they're teaching guys
(28:31):
like Luke Allen, who's high on the Asperger scale, what
friendship and loyalty really means in action. And we're going
to talk way more about a whole lot of interesting
aspects of brownie culture when we come right back from
a quick break and now back to the show. Okay,
(28:55):
So Kristen was just discussing the concept, the Japanese concept
of kauai, basically things that are just like dripping with cuteness.
They often have like big eyes, and they're maybe little
animal ears and stuff, and how this concept really plays
into what we're talking about now, which is My Little
Pony and Brownies. And there's something great about the fact
(29:19):
that these ponies can kind of service avatars for for
a lot of guys who maybe don't have great in
person like life connections, and they can form these connections
online through My Little Pony. But there's also something a
little weird and that's worth bringing up, and that's just
the fact that you know, these these ponies are super
(29:40):
vulnerable and but also harmless. They're dependent, very feminine, very gentle,
so very non threatening. Yeah. Fluttershy, for instance, is a
Browny favorite among the main six ponies, and flutter Shy
embodies kindness, but as her name implies, eyes, she's also
(30:01):
very shy, very unsure of herself. She's too scared to fly,
and this raises some red flags among some people kind
of looking from the outside end of the brownie culture,
thinking well, why is this particular pony so appealing, Like
why why is it the shy, submissive one. There's there's
kind of a protective white hat element to brownie fandom
(30:25):
as well of loving these ponies so much, not just
because of the lessons they might teach, but also because
they feel protective of Fluttershy and the other ponies. Yeah.
So I think it's interesting that this whole arena, this
whole browny arena, is on the one hand, so anti
(30:46):
gender norms. It's guys feeling like they can be more
open with their emotions and and love their friends and
be open with their love for their friends and for
this cartoon. But on the other hand, um, these very
sort of like cute harmless, gentle feminine creatures. These ponies
(31:07):
also sort of bring out, like Kristen said, that that protective,
very stereotypically male behavior aspect feelings. And this the thing is,
though this isn't it's a good thing that this isn't
the typical line of conversation when it comes to brownies.
I think there's a lot of Uh, there are a
lot of people who have rude things to say, but
(31:28):
there's also a lot of embrace of it for the
fact that it is sort of transgressing those gender norms,
because that whole appeal of the cute and hyper feminine
in animation, especially if we're talking about you know, the
Japanese concept of Kauai is not it's not solely a
product of brownies. I mean, attraction to hyper feminine, cute
(31:52):
animated girls, for instance, is super common in anime culture too. Yeah, exactly. Um,
And so speaking of that Venetia Laura Delano Robertsons study
that we were talking about before the break, Um, she
does acknowledge in her study that yes, there is a
level of attraction to the ponies among a certain subset
(32:16):
of brownies. Yeah, this is this is by far not
all Brownies. But we would be remiss not to acknowledge
the fact that in that two thousand twelve Brownie study
of respondents said yes to the question of are you
sexually attracted to the friendship is magic stylized ponies now?
(32:37):
Six also said no, absolutely not. I just love the
ponies for the ponies. But yeah, there is there is
some sexualization that goes on. There's something called clop fick,
which is the erotic uh my Little pony fan fiction.
There's also if you start digging into go on deviant
Art and start looking at my Little Pony fan art,
(32:59):
it does get sexuel at certain points. So so there's that,
But I mean there's a name for it that I
that is living my mind right now. But essentially there's
a rule on the Internet that if something exists, there's
also porn of it, Like everything is portified at this
point on the Internet. Yeah, I I don't yeah exactly.
(33:21):
But Robertson also argues that maybe one reason why the
more erotic side of Brodie the brony subculture is swept
under the rug a little bit that we don't talk
about it as much, or at least it doesn't raise
perhaps as many red flags is because again due to
the anthropomorphism, they're not doing this. If this was a
(33:44):
group of little girls, you know, animated characters, then people
would probably not be so pumped about browny con But
the fact that it's horses their animals not as big
of a deal if we put them in sexual situations
and fan art right, and a lot of guys are
saying like, I don't even like real horses. Yeah, that
was that was one funny thing. Overwhelmingly brownies don't want
(34:08):
anything to do with horses in real life. Yeah. One
guy brought up the same thing that I think the
Oatmeal has a cartoon regarding this exact same thing, saying that, basically,
to paraphrase, like, horses poop a lot, and they're gross
and you've got to scoop the poop all the time,
and so I'm not interested in real life horses and
their poop at all. Well, and they're just massive, powerful creatures, yeah,
(34:29):
as opposed to these little, flying, fairy horse creatures. So again,
while we don't want to give the impression that all
brownies are only interested in my little pony, because they
are either consciously or subconsciously attracted to these Ponies. Nonetheless,
we do want to acknowledge that there there is this one,
there's a corner of this culture that exists. But I
(34:51):
think you would find something like that in any kind
of fan culture. I mean, if you are going back
to the shipping episode again, pretty much all shipping eventually,
no matter what you're talking about, whether you're you know,
looking at the X Files or Twilight or My Little
Pony whatever, it might be little trail off at some
(35:11):
point into erotic fick yea um. But you know what,
you know who's really loving it as has Bro Because
if you look one one of the sites we were
looking at, how to graph showing Hasbro sales of their
merch and I mean not that the chart itself or
even Hasbro itself can really tell us for sure that
(35:33):
Brownies are propping up there their industry, their sales, but
I mean it's it's Hasbro sales and My Little Pony
sales have steadily increased. Oh yeah. Well, and it's interesting
too to see how Hasbro is also not just now
selling to little girls that the Pegga sisters watching the show,
but specifically to Brownie's because they're selling things like trading
(35:53):
cards comic books, USB drives, in addition to more typical
products like plush toys and dolls like they're they're clearly
trying to reach an audience. Um, and I mean just
the fact too that it's become I don't think that
I didn't have to find a concrete number of how
many Brownies there are, but I mean we're not talking
(36:15):
about millions of guys. It's still a pretty relatively small
group of men. But the fact that they're getting articles
and wired in grant Land and have a convention that
makes national news. You know that Stephen Colbert mentions them
on the Colbert Report, that Bob's Burgers has a Brownie
spin off show or episode, I should say, I mean,
(36:38):
it's kind of incredible that such a you know, relatively
small group of people has generated this much conversation. So
of course has Bro is riding the right, the right, Yeah,
riding the saddle, that's right. But I mean it makes
sense that there's so much attention paid even though this
is a really small subset of young men in our
(36:59):
country and and many other countries. I mean, it makes
sense that that people are like wired or digging into
it because you just don't see big groups of of
guys who are really earnest in their love and affection
for something that is so typically geared towards girls. That's
so unusual. It's okay for girls to to play with transformers,
(37:22):
to play with their brothers g I Joe dolls, but
it's it's not okay, like we've said a million times
in different podcast episodes, you know, it's it's not as
okay for guys to like girl things. And so everybody's
looking at this going like, are we on some precipice
all of a sudden that we didn't realize, right? I
mean because just in my own child play, I totally
(37:43):
played with my brother's Gi Joe's all the time, No
big deal. I have a feeling if my brother started
playing with my sisters my little ponies, my parents would
probably have raised an eyebrow. You know, There's not as
much fluidity for for boys. So so it is cool
to see that this kind of stuff is happening, particularly
(38:04):
for the younger boys. But that's not to say though,
that when they are out not hanging among their brownie pals,
that everybody is pro brownie. Like we mentioned, this entire
conversation was instigated by news of Grayson Bruce, a nine
year old who was bullied at school for bringing you
(38:26):
know that my little pony lunchbox, to which the school,
shaking my fist, just told him to leave the lunch
box at home, which is not the answer at all.
Maybe maybe broaden your mind, maybe tell the bullies that hey,
this is your your lame I would make a great principle.
But a far more heartbreaking example though, of brownie bullying
(38:49):
is the case of eleven year old Michael Moronez, who
attempted to hang himself as a result of relentless brownie bullying,
and also as an example of how this bronie community
really supports their own and really does try to live
out the friendship is Magic motto. The Brownie's have set
up a recovery fund for him, same thing with Grayson
(39:12):
Bruce as well. They started a whole stand with Grayson
hashtag that trended on the internet and got a lot
of attention you know to his case. Um So, brownie's
definitely look out for their own, but it's unfortunate to
see still, especially for the younger guys, that they do
still face bullying for wanting to play with my Little
(39:34):
Pony instead of g I Joe. Yeah, And I mean,
and who's to say that even it's an either or thing, like,
you know, like I played, you know, I played with
all sorts of different toys as a kid. Because I
was an only child, my parents didn't really care. I
had a million barbies and a million my Little ponies,
but I also had monster trucks, you know. Like so
(39:55):
I I hope we can get to a point, all
of us together in general, can get you a point
where it is okay for boys to play with whatever
girls are playing with and it not be a big deal.
But you know, we've just gotta I don't know, we've
just got to work on. It's a whole cultural thing.
I mean, these trolls aren't just going to disappear overnight, right,
I mean, but it is. It does see something though,
(40:18):
that we are talking so much about, you know, again,
a relatively small group of men who are, whether intentionally
or not, challenging what we consider to be acceptable masculinity.
And I think that's only for the better of all
of us, because if girls are granted, you know, more
(40:39):
fluidity in the sense of like, you know, we're told
that you can be anything, and you can play with anything,
and you can wear skirts or pants. Boys boys won't
enjoy that same amount of social fluidity, and I think
that it's time that that that changes, one brownie at
a time. So I hope that there are some brownie's listening,
(41:02):
or mom's and brownie's, dads and brownie's we want to
hear from you on this, or just fans of my
little Pony, any Pegga sisters, we want to hear from
you as well. Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is
where you can email us. You can also tweet us
at mom Stuff podcast or send us a Facebook message
as well, and we have a couple of messages to
share with you right now. All right, Well, I have
(41:26):
a letter here from a lady listener who wishes to
remain anonymous because she is writing in about our women
and Weed episode. Um. She said, I was especially interested
in the women in Weed episode because I am a
woman and I love weed. I have a college degree
in an office job, and whenever people find out I
smoke weed, they're always shocked. I do not look like
(41:46):
your typical stoner. I'm sometimes left out of joint pass
and circles because new people assume I don't smoke. I
find it helps me let go of work stress, and
it helps me sleep and enjoy music, food, books, and
the outdoors even more usual. Thanks for your awesome podcast
and for promising not to wrap anybody out if they
wrote to you on this topic. Well. I also have
(42:07):
a letter about our marijuana episode. This is from a
woman named j M and she writes them talking about
how she started smoking pot in high school and then
kind of stopped for a while, and says after college
I saw started smoking again to treat my migraines, which
also led to smoking for recreation but also for stress relief.
I'd become a manager in my profession. By the time
(42:29):
I was twenty six, I was working long hours, and
I loved coming home after work and taking a few
bong hits. Ten years later, I have two children and
ran a very successful business all while smoking blunts after work.
I do occasionally smoke in the afternoons when I'm home
with my children because it does help me relax and
enjoy some of the boring or tough things about parenting.
(42:50):
I just wanted your listeners to know, especially the ones
who are skeptical of legalizing that many people are productive
members of society and smoke weed. Unfortunately, being that it
is not lead goal, I really don't share my experience
often because I'm afraid that it would negatively affect my
business or impact my children. Thanks so much for your podcast.
It's an important topic that needs to be discussed, so thanks. Also.
(43:12):
Her her subject mind was marijuana Mommy, So thank you
marijuana Mommy and everyone else who has written into us.
Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is where you can
email us and to find all of our podcast, blogs
and videos. There's one place to go, and it's Stuff
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(43:32):
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