Pony Confessions

Ponies probably saved my life. I was really depressed and near suicidal, but within weeks of discovering the brony fandom, I was back on track. I still get depressed/suicidal every few days or weeks, but bronies on Ponychan and Cloudsdale help me through. <3

It bothers me how unappreciative some bronies can be regarding the new episodes.

Whenever there’s a new episode, the /pony/ board on Ponychan usually gets filled with criticism about how “x pony was out of character” and “the writing was sloppy in this scene” and “Rainbow Dash sucks”. Don’t they realize that the writers visit the site? Don’t they ever conside the fact that reading so many negative comments about their hard work doesn’t really motivate them? Why can’t they just appreciate the effort put into this wonderful show?

I realised I wasn’t very enthused about the fanbase when I saw a Ponychan thread saying how real horses and ponies are ugly things.

I’m very thoroughly convinced that none of them ever spent any time with a real horse before watching this show. Which saddens me, because they’re lovely creatures and frequently subject to bouts of silliness and adorable.

Years ago, I visited gaming forums and I would be constantly judged and cyberbullied just because I liked cartoon games over most mainstream ones. Because of being picked on, I didn’t really like visiting online communities for anything since most were mean to me.

Then I visited Ponychan after watching an episode on Hub’s website, I started visiting a thread called “How’s everypony”. I visited the thread every day. The talked to me when I was down, we talked about ponies, we talked about anything, even gaming too, and it was great! This was back in May and June.

Now, I keep in touch with people I’ve met in that thread, and they turn out to be the nicest people I have ever met online. If it wasn’t for me getting into My Little Pony, I would have never visited the site or thread, and find out that not all people online are mean!

2012-01-04 // I though I’d go lurk in there for a bit… Few minutes later I ran as if pinkie’s tail was twitching. It’s like /b/ all over again. I’ll stick to my casual strolls through EQD and the r34 tumblrs… At least they seem to actually follow the idea of tolerance.

01/02/2012 - the impression I got from several months contributing art and advice on Ponychan was that people will be skeptical and hostile if you’re not parading a persona. I want to warn others not to post anonymously like I tried to but I know this’ll come across badly to those who use names. Having used image boards for years I don’t consider anonymity to be inherently bad, just the default when it doesn’t matter who you are.

Why? Two main reasons.

Because I think it’s silly. The few times I said something like ‘everypony’ or ‘somepony’, I couldn’t help but think “I sound so stupid”. I’m not saying I’m a casual fan, who doesn’t indulge in many different parts of the community. I used to be a Ponychan regular, I like the fanfictions, I have >2000 individual files in my pony art folder, and I do look at some of the r34 stuff out there. In the case of the fan-made term ‘brony’, reasons why I don’t like using fan-made terminology from other communities also apply to it. I don’t like the term Trekkie so I call myself a Star Trek fan. I don’t like the term brony so I call myself an MLP fan. And as an additional note for disliking the word brony, I have never liked the word bro either.
Another big reason why I don’t like using these terms is because when people who are new to the community to the show approach us and we’re throwing these words around, I fear we’re alienating them. The words make us sound more exclusive than we actually are. I always dread that someone new to the MLP community who jumps in is thinking “I don’t fit in here”. I always try to talk to a newcomer in layman’s terms and I never confuse them or alienate them by speaking to them with pony terminology.