https://www.reddit.com/r/mylittlepony/comments/1igrfxh/why_do_people_still_hate_bronies/
created by harfdard on 03/02/2025 at 15:20 UTC
68 upvotes, 27 top-level comments (showing 25)
When the fandom was first starting out, there were certainly a lot of weird and repulsive things going on. And it was weird to see adults watching a cartoon for little girls.
But many years have passed. Many adults watch cartoons for children, because they have a good plot and characters. Moreover, in every fandom there are creepy obsessed fans. But for some reason people still look with disdain at bronies (like in r/4chan, r/greentext), thinking that they are creepy (for watching the cartoon), pedos, degenerates, abnormal functional adults. Why do people always generalize bronies (even though every fandom has creepy fans) and look with negativity after so many years?
How do you deal with this negativity and contempt from people (especially when they find out you're a bronie)? What advice can you give to avoid anger?
Comment by enigmafiend at 03/02/2025 at 15:32 UTC
71 upvotes, 2 direct replies
I simply don't call myself a brony, and I never have. The word itself has a lot of baggage associated with it. I just like the show and talk about it like any other.
That said, I think part of it is that people associate bronies with furries. Despite furries being much more mainstream than they used to be, people still think furries (and bronies by extension) wanna have sex with animals/ponies.
I also assume there's an element of misogyny involved, where people see MLP as a show for girls, therefore making it lesser in their eyes.
Comment by articulatedWriter at 03/02/2025 at 15:50 UTC
20 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I don't call myself a bronie because of the awful connotations that come from that word and no I don't call myself a pegasister either that just sounds stupid
I'm an adult who watches cartoons often geared towards children. I have no shame in that, and I don't need a title or label to justify or signify my liking a show
Comment by MagnetMod at 03/02/2025 at 16:36 UTC
15 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Hater gonna hate. I don't mind calling myself a Brony because being a Sonic fan in the early to late 2000s gave me tough skin for this kind of BS. lol
Comment by Quirky_Future2140 at 03/02/2025 at 15:55 UTC
11 upvotes, 0 direct replies
One reason I could see is people liking fictional animals, which people see as weird even if we're not being weird about it.
The reason I ACTUALLY am aware of is the "if an adult watches it they're pedos or "if it's animated it's for kids". Sadly this mentality didn't disappear and probably won't for a while.
Comment by Mroompaloompa64 at 03/02/2025 at 17:10 UTC*
7 upvotes, 0 direct replies
They probably still uphold traditional gender norm which makes them have a disdain for bronies. Which is odd because these are the same people who watch anime enough to be considered a weeb, which was disdained in the 90s.
It's 2025, nobody cares about traditional gender norms. Tell these haters to give it up.
"I'm not a brony but.." we really don't need to hear that, just say what you mean, nobody's going to maul you.
Comment by HybridofEvil at 03/02/2025 at 18:34 UTC
10 upvotes, 0 direct replies
As a lifelong mlp enjoyer, it's bc bronies like to link in nazism and bigotry within the mlp franchise, forever staining it'd community. From kids and collectors to weird gooners and 4chan artists getting all the hype they want.
Sexualising kids media shouldn't have ever been made the norm.
Comment by trash_crow at 03/02/2025 at 19:15 UTC
5 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Probably going to get downvoted for this, but having been a fan of MLP since I was a kid in the late 80’s/early 90’s, it’s because bronies are gross. I know it’s not all of them, but having been in the fandom as long as I have, we didn’t have things like Nazis, the MLP ahegao face hoodie, or the Rainbow Dash jar until bronies came in. Granted, I’m sure there were things occurring with MLP in dark corners of the internet since its conception, but there was definitely a huge uptick from 2010-2019.
Did bronies help popularize MLP? Undeniably yes. But many were nasty AF, and I’m honestly glad G5 has chased many of them away.
Comment by ope50 at 03/02/2025 at 16:43 UTC
5 upvotes, 0 direct replies
If there is something you like ,why should you care what others think
Comment by FlutterShy1941 at 03/02/2025 at 16:54 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Never called myself a pegasis. But if i have to be honest there are few reasons to this to pinpoint:
1. History of bad cases: Many and many of bad people, predators, creeps etc... have been somewhat connected to the community.
2. Zoophilia: Many people think that watching a cartoon for little children about (mostly) female horses has something to do with zoophilia, this mostly applies to male viewers i'd say (Although i have been called that online too already)
3. Cartoon = Reality: Yes, there are still people who think that everyone will do everything they see, i am not kink-shaming here anyone but i know there are thousands of people basically watching porn of MLP and i do not really care honestly, go for it if you like it. But many people think that this means zoophilia and because many cases as said before have been about people watching this sort of stuff, people who do not know much about our community thinks that we are all zoophiles, predators etc etc...
TL:DR Most of it is caused by people who did bad stuff and connected to NSFW stuff too.
Comment by Nintendians559 at 03/02/2025 at 17:11 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
haters going to hate, that's all.
Comment by Austin_N at 03/02/2025 at 18:03 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
The fandom's way less visible than it once was and by this point I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people only know the brony community by reputation.
Comment by lilcassiebug at 03/02/2025 at 18:39 UTC
2 upvotes, 2 direct replies
homophobia, sincerely
Comment by Sensei_Ochiba at 03/02/2025 at 18:58 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Hatedom will always outlive fandom, unfortunately. Fans are more complex, their tastes and opinions shaped over time by content and and participation in spaces and what's actually there - haters only need a caricature that in their mind never changes, and can always be pulled out to rag on, in exactly the same condition it was when they forgot about it. Their feelings don't shift or change or diminish at all because they're just static things. The picture of what a brony is will never change, so why would their feelings about it?
Comment by xWinterPR at 03/02/2025 at 20:04 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I feel like you're ignoring the fact that early 2010s bronies were kind of the pioneers of being creepy fans outside of anime circles. If someone does something creepy, or makes a joke about doing something creepy, there's an 80% chance it was directly inspired by infamous brony incidents >!(jar jokes, people "having fun" with plushies, etc.).!< It sucks, but the first people to do something are likely going to be the ones most remembered for it.
Outside of that, I'd argue the fandom's reputation hasn't improved over time because deranged MLP fans are still doing horrible stuff that is easily worse than most fandoms. Just four years ago, there was a shooting at a FedEx facility that left nine people dead because the shooter "hoped that he could be with Applejack in the afterlife."[1] I feel like saying "other fandoms have bad fans too!" doesn't hold up much when it gets to this level.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indianapolis_FedEx_shooting
Honestly, in my eyes, but the fandom's bad reputation isn't that shocking from an outside perspective. The problematic actions are from a few bad apples, sure, but when you keep attracting individuals like that year after year your reputation is bound to be tarnished. I don't even think "why are these people watching a cartoon for little girls?" is much of a factor anymore considering how many people openly enjoy kids shows now. It's just people seeing absolute freaks and associating MLP as a whole with them.
Comment by Christian_teen12 at 03/02/2025 at 18:23 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Brony has a lot of negative stuff applied to it so yeah.
Comment by dreadtrex at 03/02/2025 at 18:41 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I used to when I was a teenager pretty openly and proudly call myself a brony, but as I've grown up and matured I've seen just how much harm has been caused by people calling themselves bronies.
A lot of my friends in the fandom now had to deal with bigotry and hatred, as well as misogyny and grooming that happened from self described bronies, and recently I've come to the realization that even I was groomed as a teenager by someone else using the term.
Worst of all this isn't an old or dead problem, there are still people in the fandom perpetuating these issues, and oftentimes they still use that term to describe themselves. For that reason, I've chosen to abandon it. I just consider myself an MLP fan now, with no special word to describe it.
Comment by KenOfDragons at 03/02/2025 at 18:42 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It's lame, dated term in hindsight. Nowadays, I'm simply a my little pony fan.
Comment by Hairy-Yesterday-5575 at 03/02/2025 at 18:58 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
People hate the brony fandom because of the bad people
Comment by Caramenadiel at 03/02/2025 at 19:07 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Me personally I just never really cared about the ridicule I gladly call myself a brony/Pegasister because I'm proud to be a big fan of the show
Comment by AppearanceAnxious102 at 03/02/2025 at 19:11 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
As someone who watched the show and loved Bronies react, it’s simply human nature. People will hate simply because they can.
Comment by Sad_Independent_8001 at 03/02/2025 at 19:16 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
one word: 4chan
Comment by TimmyTheNerd at 03/02/2025 at 19:53 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Same reason people hate furries. The bad ones ruined the fandom in the eyes of the general public, who only hear about bronies/furries when they do something bad enough to make it into general media. Stuff like zoophiles, groomers, pedos, and so on.
People will often base their opinion of a culture, fandom, subculture, ect off of what they first see about it, and it becomes very difficult to change their opinion once it has been set.
It's like how people still hate on Fallout 76, complaining about things that haven't been issues in the last 3+ years, due to the game's state at launch. Because people saw all the bad press, chose to never play the game, and assume the game is as bad as it was at launch. Their opinion was made based on what they first saw of it, and they never gave it a second chance.
Comment by No-Bike42 at 03/02/2025 at 19:55 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
What's wrong with being called a Brony. Own it.
Comment by andysalamii at 03/02/2025 at 21:09 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
i really dislike the word for some reason, and anyway im not an adult so idc
Comment by redpurgee at 03/02/2025 at 15:53 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I never really hated bronies, but I was turned off by a select few of them before watching MLP because when I was a lil girl I saw explicit photos of the ponies uploaded by bronies that liked the show and got scared. I assumed everyone in the fandom was like that for a while. I guess normal people think that too.
It was not until I decided to sit down and watch the show then talk about it did I learn that there are a lot of bronies that arent degens and are cool ppl.
But yeah the only way to avoid a lot of scrutiny is probably just to say youre a male that likes the show. I never call myself a pegasister cause I just hate the name, but I say I like the show. That’s it.