My little Pony Friendship is Magic / Bronies - The phenomenon explained

1. Preface

2. The emergence of the fourth generation 

'Friendship is Magic'

3. The birth of the 'Bronies'

4. Ponies for adults - the reasons

5. The Brony-Community

6. Weaknesses

7. Prejudices

8. conclusion

1. Preface

My little pony : Friendship is Magic ended in 2019 after nine seasons. Nine seasons is an unlikely lot for a cartoon series, and it is no coincidence that FiM has enjoyed such treatment - the cartoon series which was originally aimed at young girls, is one of the greatest pop cultural phenomena of the decade, with an international adult fan base numbering several million in its best times, which brought an unexpected hype about the pony series over the Internet and parts of society. My little Pony - Friendship is Magic is one of the, if not THE best cartoon series ever, for both children and adults. Men. Women. Doesn’t matter. This series has proven over the past nine years that you can impress all age groups with colorful magic ponies, if only the quality is right.

But what exactly makes this pony series such a medial top scorer, the most successful hasbro series of all time, and why did such a gigantic, adult and predominantly male audience form around it after season 1? What are bronies? And what exactly is the phenomenon Friendship is Magic? As a happy brony for seven years, I want to try to explain it.

2. The emergence of the fourth generation

international toy manufacturer and father of the My little Pony brand Hasbro started 2010 planning a new spin-off-series for the latter to be able to address a new generation of young girls with merchandise. To produce this show they asked animator and writer Lauren Faust, which previously worked on well-known series like the Powerpuff girls  - a show that corresponded to Faust's progressive style and was far more than just a little girl feel-good series - everyone who ever saw the grotesque antagonists or some of the disturbing scenarios knows that. 

And so Lauren Faust set herself a goal when she started working on the fourth generation of My little Pony: she wanted to break, expand and deepen the typical, flat conventions of children-shows and try to reach a larger audience than just little girls with 'Friendship is Magic'. That was her goal in the development and you could see that in the first season.

3. The birth of the 'Bronies'

Her plan worked completely - first spotted in the infamous 4chan internet board, memes, pictures, short clips and discussions about this new, not so bad pony-cartoon show soon flooded the internet and it didn't take half a year before a whole movement had formed through word-of-mouth propaganda - The Bronies(Brother + Pony). A predominantly - but not only - male, adult audience of passionate fans. Friendship is Magic impressed with exceptionally good animations, a charming sense of humor, actually interesting messages far away from dusty clichés and seriously convincing characters. The Brony movement soon spread internationally and numbered over 100,000 professing members. It was a small, ridiculed internet niche, but it did exist. It was real - adult My little pony fans.

Ironically, neither Hasbro nor Lauren Faust had actually expected success within older viewers, least of all to this extent - but of course they were happy. And even more - they reacted. The result was a more and more growing, unique symbiosis between Hasbro and the Bronies, which is one of the main attractions of the whole brony-movement. The FiM-team constantly hid small jokes and references in the episodes that could only be understood by adults, serial composer Daniel Ingram repeatedly asked fan remixers to improve his songs via Twitter & Co., later entire EPISODES were created with the help of bronies. Lauren Faust, voice actors like John de Lancie and other parts of the MLP team were regular guests at the BronyCon, one of the largest brony conventions worldwide. The phenomenon became faster, bigger, better known. There were Documentaries, lively Internet forums were formed, YouTube was overwhelmed with thousands and thousands of fan songs, Remixes and MLP animations, the fanfic culture was booming, hundreds of thousands of high quality Fanart leaked out of the internet in every corner, Pony cosplayers grew steadily, the series improved and became more and more mature and polished, more and more well-known Personalities came out on social networks as Bronies and sometimes got roles in the series, the knowledge of the Brony movement and the series which spanned all groups of people, Friendship is Magic, grew. Unfortunately, Lauren Faust left the Friendshipis Magic team After season 2, but her intellectual work and her will remained - until the end.

4. Ponies for adults - the reasons

In my very personal words: Why have I, a 25 year old man, been a fan for seven years of my little pony - friendship is magic? Well, it started for me with profile pictures from the series that some users of my regular forum at that time suddenly wore, and they also talked about the show. I thought nothing of it and took a look inside. And continued. And continued. I laughed, every episode more. And before I knew it I was a fan and slid into the brony-movement. I improved my rickety English enormously with the consumption of the series. 

But what makes Friendship is Magic more than the sum of its parts? 

In its nine seasons, the series addressed an incredibly broad and often very mature field of topics that comparable cartoons would not even approach at a thousand miles - depression, loneliness, exclusion, racism, diversity, (world) war, unrequited love , Suicidal thoughts, addiction, unemployment, communism, tyranny, social anxiety, the deeper meaning of friendship and what goes with it. Just to name a few things. Don't get me wrong - this is not an adult grimdark series. All of these topics, sometimes more or less, are subtly wrapped up in a colorful, child-friendly robe, but they are there, and - with the increasing number of seasons - more and more obviously. The stories are often not as flat, boring and predictable as those of other kids shows - there are such episodes in FiM, no question. But the overwhelming majority are well-written, entertaining episodes that are surprising .

art by Silfoe

The animations got better every season and from season five or six onwards they were on a level with good anime. There are grim, action-packed fantasy fights, including direct references to shows like Dragon Ball.The series songs and the music are on a high catchy tune right from the start, so that seemingly easy texts too become serious good hits that always stay in your head. These songs also impove over the seasons in terms of Complexity, Emotionality and Meta fan service. 

The characters, especially the central protagonists of the Mane Six, the elements of harmony, have been elaborated in detail and continue to develop in the nine seasons - Of course there are setbacks here and there, of course now and then a pony falls into old behavior patterns(lookin 'at you, Pinkie!), but the character development of some ponies makes quite a few real shows or anime look dull very quickly. There are so, so many Characters in Friendship is Magic that you can like and love. Rarity, for example, the element of generosity, is a vain fashion designer who is always very attentive to her appearance, her manners and class, she dreams of great wealth and of being recognized in 'high society'. In EVERY OTHER cartoon series, Rarity would be the nasty antagonist. But here she is by far the most mature and complex of the Mane Six and a character with whom we can identify all too often. Also the Antagonists are getting better and better and are rarely, very rarely, only 'EVIL' - mostly there is a certain motivation or a bigger plan, a deep longing or simply a necessity behind their actions - it is not for nothing that characters like Queen Chrysalis became one of the most popular people in the series shortly after her first Appearance, until today. 

art by Zion

The fan service for adult fans and die-hard Bronies has increased significantly, especially from season 5-6 onwards, so that Fan favorites are brought back, the series self-references or increases small gags, whole episodes are created in collaboration with bronies, antagonists suddenly change sides or there are references to franchises such as Marvel, Dead Space, Dragonball Z, Sailor Moon, IT, Game of Thrones, The Thing and much more. In season 9, the final season of the series, one noticed more and more clearly than before that the creators wanted to try out EVERYTHING the fans had ever wanted - without revealing too much, the series is often a gift to those who love it have made what it ultimately represents - a phenomenon. 

In addition to the series, there are now numerous official other media such as the one intended for older fans, which is extremely dark sometimes,  the comic series. It accomplishes what the show cannot do in terms of storytelling and is the superior medium. There are the Equestria Girls movies and series, countless short stories and picture books, ...

5. The Brony-community

Then there is ofcourse the main point of the whole thing - The Brony-community. The show is all well and good, the canon is the foundation for everything, but what  really made Friendship is Magic a phenomenon to this day are the many hundreds of thousands of creative fans and what they produce. I say there has been no such creative and hardworking community around the world as the Bronies in the past nine years, which have carried out at least two or three million works of all kinds - there are the myriad of fan fictions that often separate themselves from the series and use the magical fantasy world of equestria from Lauren Faust as a basis for telling a much more mature, epic story. Or the shipping division, which is also very distinctive and dominant in MLP and romantically interweaves many characters. There is also enough horror and thriller fanfiction. 

 Then there are the fanarts, the visual power, which always has a wonderful appeal, especially on the Internet. There are hundreds of thousands. Many are far beyond the level of simple cartoon drawings.

The remix subculture and the fan songs are perhaps the most impressive outgrowth of the brony scene. Quantities of original songs or splendid remixes, or just remixes of individual words(!!) came about. I still listen to many of these songs today. 

I have already linked some content in the article, but if you want to get a brief, clear overview of the BEST OF THE BEST from nine years of Friendship is Magic, I created a smorgasboard some time ago in collaboration with a handful of other bronies. You can find it here. The topic is in german but you should understand the categories well enough.

Of course, even more important than the content is the open, tolerant and collaborative atmosphere of the brony community - Love & Tolerate has always been the motto, and even though it has become very washed out and half to death meme’d, its core message is still there - everyone is welcome, anyone can be accepted. It doesn't matter who or how old you are. Friendship is Magic and the Brony-fandom changed my life more than any other franchise or subculture, maybe apart from my Japan-anime -passion. I have made countless friends and acquaintances through this community, and I owe it solely to my first MLP fanfiction that I started writing and I do not regret a single day of being a brony. The show is over, but my passion ends with my death.

'And now his watch has ended.'

6. The weaknesses

Was everything always perfect? No, of course not. The show suffered from large, qualitative fluctuations in the later course. Between season four and seven, a lot of people got out because the series had become too succinct for them, an opinion that I could partially understand at the time. There was the big New Changeling debacle, which was the first nail in the MLP coffin for me. In season eight, the series took a development away from the first six heroines to new main characters, which for me was the final qualitative sentence of death at the time, and I still hold this opinion to this day - fortunately, the new main characters mentioned were again degraded to a bearable  flicker in season 9. Many episodes are by now quite frankly not good or even terrible bad - this statistic used to be better. The italian opening destroys the original. Speaking of the original - Thefact that Hasbro hasn't changed the intro for a good nine seasons, especially the song itself, is one of the main criticisms of the show, because the song is unfortunately very ... well, childish.

Friendship is Magic had and has many weaknesses - but it could always catch up and recover from low points, so that after a two-year (!) break it also won me back to binge the eighth and ninth season. I don't regret it at all. Because the many, justified criticisms of the show are outwaged by at least as many extraordinary, strong pro points that you simply can't find anywhere else - this attention to detail. The fantastic sense of humor. The level of awareness for the fans. Friendship is Magic can be forgiven most of its carvers. At least I can forgive.

7. Prejudices

Lets adress the elephant in the room ... the reason why the brony community, especially on the Internet, was viewed from outside with a rather cold and contemptuous look - clopping. Rule 34 - If anything exists, there is pornography of it. 

Yes, there was and is a big porn scene in MLP. Yes, there are people who sexualize little cartoon ponies. No, that is NOT the main part of the Bronies - not even 10%. These people have no place in the public sphere of bronyhood, but are generally accepted if they do what they believe they have to do in the quiet closet - Let it go. Do I find it disgusting? Yes. But to everyone his own. 90% of the brony community have nothing, nothing at all, to do with sexualization. For most of us it really ends with the romantic love created between fan favorites.

The first thing that comes to mind when you hear that a grown man likes My little Pony is inevitable for most people - gay. However, according to a large study among many bronies, not even 5% of all respondents state that they are homosexual - and many of them were women. So obviously not true. The accusation of pedophilia, which I heard more often than I would like to confess, cannot be confirmed in any known case in nine years. You will just have to accept that this show has something that has won over hundreds of thousands of adults - despite the original target group. 

It is also often confused what Bronies actually love - we are fans of the fourth generation MLP, Friendship is Magic. NOT the three terrible generations of ponies that were actually just one-dimensional cheesy poo pony smog. NOT the disgustingly filthy Filly-stuff that you can find everywhere in shops and unfortunately (of course) could not be displaced by the FiM blindbags. Our passion is Friendship is Magic and Equestria, because it is this world that appeals to all of us. 

What many whom I spoke to named as a knockout criterion - 

"They are ponies!"

Yes, they are ponies. But they are analogies for our human society, as the series shows again and again - There are big cities, technology, vehicles and the same problems as we have. The only difference is, it's a fantasy world with magic ponies. If you overcome their race, you will find out how creative and witty it all is. Just think of series like South Park, Rick & Morty, Adventure Time or Ducktales - My little pony plays in this league. At least. All it takes is that you give it a little benefit of the doubt  and forget your prejudices. Be tolerant to yourself and others. Don't be a small thinker. 

You are better than that. You don't have to like it.

But you can try to understand it. 

8. Conclusion

With this long, hopefully not too long text, I finally wanted to introduce the topic for my blog so that I could write about it more regularly. But I also wanted to start an educational attempt, for friends and acquaintances, but also for strangers who still don't know what a brony is. I hope I was able to convey a little bit of knowledge. I'm actually not quite done with the last season, but I know it won't be the end. (Update: By now I am done.) Yes, the series has ended and the brony hype has also decreased significantly in recent years - our peak is behind us. But those who stay are the real fans who have been shaped by FiM for their lives. And they will always be there. 

For everything Friendship is Magic gave me - thanks.

To you, who has read this text and perhaps took a bit of thought with you - thank you. 

Dear Princess Celestia,

today I learned that friendship can still fascinate. 

No matter how old you are. No matter what gender you are. 
No matter what other people think of it. 

You are never too old for some things, 
and I think one of those things is magic. 

Your faithful student,

- Yoraiko