Who is Sethisto, and what did he say about Applejack?

He's like the brony king. He runs Equestria Daily. Though he's cooled down on it he'd keep making cracks about Applejack being boring. Damn hypocrite would call her out on Applejack "type casting" herself by doing farm stuff, but on the otherhoof would mark out over Rarity fussing over fashion or Twilight studying.

So what happens to the bronies that wander this far off, you guys turn him into glue, or oats or something?

Oh yeah, I just found his ED page. I don't spend much time on Equestria Daily, or any other fansite for that matter, but I can see how he'd be a divisive figure.

Does EqD have any connection to Equestria After Dark? I thought they were run by the same people, but I also seem to recall hearing (from some creepy ranters, if memory serves) that the owner of EqD was anti-clop.

I've never heard of Equestria After Dark. I don't think the folks at EqD are anti-clop, they just don't post none of that there.

This pretty much sums up why I think 'fandoms' of any kind are fucking retarded. There's plenty of shows, movies, books and games I love, but not so much to dedicate every waking moment to them or spend hours on a website dedicated to any single subject.

At the store where I run my board game night, there's a few Dr. Who fans and a couple of bronies that hang out there. I've honestly wondered a couple times if the Dr. Who girl owns another shirt besides the tardis one she has on literally every Tuesday.

There were plenty of examples of stunted manchildren obsessing over kids shows posted at the old Portal of Evil but a lot of that was fringe-y stuff; it was nothing part of the spreading Brony plague that seems to have no sign of abating; an ever growing army of alleged grown men (and women) for whom lessons aimed at 5-year olds on the power of friendship or overcoming shyness or how important it is to work together in the form of songs sung by pastel colored cartoon ponies with chirpy voices were astonishing revelations.

The worst part : they also fail to learn the lessons from the show and act like the person in this video.

I'd draw some comparisons to Star Trek here, but that wouldn't be fair. The cast and crew of Star Trek are generally pretty negative about their experiences with the Trekkie fandom; the cast and crew of MLP, on the other hand, have had an extremely positive relationship with the Bronies. It's a demonstrable fact that Lauren Faust, Tara Strong, et al approach their fandom with all of the gusto yet none of the cynicism of, say, George Takei.

I don't like Bronies anymore than you do, but in their case, falling back on the normal dork fandom narrative-critique is wrong, as anyone who's studied the matter objectively can plainly see. I will agree with memedumpster's second post, however: it is true that many of them fail to learn the lessons of the show. Bronydom attracts a lot of nerds, and nerds have a marked tendency towards anger and pettiness. These sorts of people have a hard time learning to love and tolerate, even if they pay lip service to the show's ideals. Think of Bronydom like Christianity. The core message (love thy neigh-bor) may be simple and good, but people are people, and not everyone can stick to it.

I hate to say it, but I think the show creators actually like the adult attention they're getting. One website I read for nerdy things also has user posted comments, and every some often one blogger (I can't express the amount of hatred I have for myself for using that word.) or another will point out something like "Did anyone else see? The angry pony in the latest episode had the grumpy cat meme as his mark! They recognize redittors as their true fanbase!" or some similar shit.

Point is, everyone at Hasbro probably loves this phenomena, think of how much more money they must have made off the show than they were expecting.

Also, I just read your second post, EH, and that's one of the most reasonable outlooks I've ever seen. I wish that parallel to Christianity wasn't true, but growing up Catholic (IE: The one true christian religion that if you're not part of you're going to hell even if you're still christian), I can easily attest that it is.

Also, you guys don't like the bronies either?

Meant to be a reply. Went out in the polar vortex, almost lost my ears, and am still a bit loopy.

That sounds awesome! What video was that?

At any rate, we both know that there are no absolutes in sociology. For every general trend that can be applied to groups, you are going to find individual exceptions to the rule; in the case of Brony-Cast relations, these exceptions are statistically insignificant. Besides, we know for a fact that the cast has a positive outlook on Bronies, because their positive outlooks been self-reported by the cast themselves. If *they* say they're happy with Bronies, then I don't see us having any grounds to dispute this.

And My Little Pony is "meant" for adults just as much as children. Now this should be obvious to anyone who's sat down and watched a few episodes, but here again, we don't have to debate this point because it's already been corroborated by firsthand testimonial from the crew. In fact, revamping the sagging franchise by gearing it towards all audiences was the core selling point of Lauren Faust's original pitch to Hasbro! The old, lame My Little Ponies of G1-G3 were undoubtedly kid's shows, and could only be enjoyed by little girls, or people who wished they were little girls. But FiM is for kids in the same sense that Adventure Time, Star Wars, or even (it could be argued) Star Trek are for kids. There isn't much sex in MLP, that's true, and the cast and crew seem to really like each other, which obviously stands in stark contrast to Star Trek, but I think you'll find that these two factors help explain why Bronies are, for the most part, less creepy than Trekkies.

Never underestimate the power of social ostricism. These people aren't rejects because they are the Brony fandom. They were rejects, losers, and broken toys for a long time, adrift, before they found Bronyism.

Which is certainly in no way to defend Bronyism. It's truly the bottom of the barrel in a gutter knife fight with furries for the title.

Could be homophobia? Don't worry, though, the show isn't particularly gay. It bucks gender norms, sure, but it pretty much just sticks to girls and how girls deal with issues relating to masculinity/femininity; there are no major characters that directly threaten male sexuality or gender identity. It is also not very preachy, in that neither the lesbian ponies nor the cis ponies seem to notice the difference in the other. Rarity, a total girly-girl, is friends with Applejack, a bull dyke, and neither considers the other's gender role to be aberrant; while they do not fully accept the other's lifestyle, they tolerate each other and don't let their differences prevent from being friends. So I wouldn't worry about it turning you gay, or anyone thinking you're gay for giving it a chance.

Also, why do you say it's "poorly animated"? I'm curious, because I've herd this accusation before, yet nobody's ever been able to provide an actual critique beyond "it's animated in Flash, and I think Flash sucks". In terms of animation, MLP is probably the best show on television right now. The character models are fairly simple, but they are extraordinarily expressive, with countless unique facial expressions and body language that's reminiscent of classic silent cinema. I call it the "Calvin & Hobbes approach", where the simplicity of design belies a sea of emotive nuances.

I'd also like to add that, having now seen a number of Adventure Time episodes, I'd have to say that MLP is actually the less childish of the two, as it does not have to rely on sophomoric humor or geeky in-jokes that appeal to college-aged dweebs. Not that I look down on anyone for watching Adventure Time! It is a really good show, and I can definitely see the appeal! But come on; if you're age-dysphoric enough to watch Adventure Time, you're age-dysphoric enough to watch ponies.

Adventure Time has excellent voice acting and the animation is fluid and a source of humor. There's more experimentation in the sight gags (Finn's face will drastically change a la Spongebob but his character model's simplicity keeps you informed that it's clearly still Finn). I really, really don't like the voices on MLP:FiM, and as a PPG fan that surprises me, but PPG had more variety in the voices and the female leads were really balanced. The Ponies are decidedly unbalanced, they're juvenile representations of very basic personalities. They're as interesting as Cookie Monster is, but not funny like he is.

The animation is competent, but not very artful. Everything looks like an ad for a toy, which is what it is. I prefer the toys to be based on a work of art, rather than the other way around.

I'm not worried that a show will turn me gay, and if I were I wouldn't be a die-hard fan of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Rocky Horror, Priscilla Queen of the Desert and Project Runway (make it work!). I am just stating my opinion of the show, which is that it is mediocre. I'm a wrestling fan too (hasn't turned me gay yet either) and I acknowledge that all modern wrestling right now is extremely mediocre, but i'm biased so I still watch. I think MLP:FiM fans spend a lot of energy defending a mediocre show when they could just admit it's mediocre and they don't care.

I mentioned it above, but I run a board game night at a local game store that's got a few groups of fandoms that hang out. There's a pair of guys that have been coming in lately to try and run a group for an MLP card game (yeah, apparently that exists) since Tuesday night is the only night the store isn't completely taken over by Magic the Gathering (Which is why I run board game night that night, in all honesty.).

Anyway, one of these guys is a white dude that has crazy long hair that I usually see in either a giant messy braid or a painful attempt at dreadlocks and, I shit you not, a MUSTACHE TATTOO ON HIS UPPER LIP. Like he has to shave an actual mustache off so people can see the fake one. The has some strange stle where both sides of his head are shaved, leaving a strip in the middle that's too wide to be a mohawk and long enough for his emo bangs, and is usually seen with either massive gauges in his ears or several inch long piecing shoved through them that look like rusty nails and other shit.

Every time they're in to run their card game, they're dressed from head to toe in MLP merch; various adult sized MLP T shirts (mostly of the shy yellow one), and blondie always wears this lanyard covered with dozens of character pins like an overzealous Disneyworld employee.

Basically, what I'm getting at here, judging by these individuals, is that this whole Pony Fandom is just another desperate cry for people to pay attention to them.