The angry tears of Bronies taste delicious.

[nenena]

Unless you're living under an internet rock, you've probably heard by now that the upcoming season finale of My Little Pony features our heroine Twilight Sparkle powering up to her alicorn form. Which means, in MLP terms, that she becomes a "princess."

Hasbro wisely chose to let Entertainment Weekly leak the news first instead of giving the exclusive to any of the Brony news outlets:

But don’t worry, Pony fans — though Twilight will undergo a physical transformation, her personality will remain the same. “What we didn’t want to do was change who she is as a character, because she’s certainly someone that everyone’s proud to know and love,” McCarthy says. “I don’t think becoming a princess really changes her; I think it’s going to introduce some new challenges for her.” Those challenges will include living up to that lofty new title. In MLP‘s Equestria, “princess” is a designation that’s earned, not freely given — and though princesses have specific leadership roles in pony society, being one really means “being a good pony who shares the gifts that they have been given with others,” according to McCarthy. “We’re building a very unique mythology around being a princess,” she continues. “Every little girl wants to be a princess, and not everybody can get to be a princess — but you can live up to the ideals that should come along with being a princess.”

The amount of raaaaaaaaaaaage that this news has generated from the male-dominated Pony fandom spaces astounds me. I mean, just look at the comments on the EW article for starters. Or better yet, don't look, if you don't want to raise your blood pressure. The comments on the promos that the Hub has posted to Youtube are hardly any better, and the comments on Equestria Daily are even worse. Over and over again we get: Twilight is ruined by becoming a princess, princesses are icky and gross, the only reason this is happening in the show is because Hasbro just wants to sell princess toys to little girls, and it's sexist for MLP to be selling the "princess" shtick to little girls. The fact that this last objection is so far coming EXCLUSIVELY FROM MEN trying desperately to appropriate feminist arguments in order to conceal their misogynistic revulsion because of the whole but-princesses-are-a-GIRLY-thing!!1! mindset makes it all the more hilarious.

But what really floors me is how many Bronies seem surprised by this - and how many of them decried the EW article as a "fake" when it first hit the internet earlier this week. Twilight becoming a princess should have been an OBVIOUS plot point from the first episode of season 3, if not all the way back in the very first episode of season 1. This has been foreshadowed for a really long time and it's the logical result of three seasons' worth of actual character development for Twilight.

But leave it to Bronies to have an internet conniption about a My Little Pony character getting an actual power-up. I mean there's just almost no way to parse the backlash against Twilight becoming a princess that doesn't immediately reveal the sticky, writhing mass of misogynistic goo underlying all of it.

Man, remember three years ago when Bronies were like, cool? And not disgusting?

I miss those days.

Comments

[broccoman]

Bronies were pretty heavily involved in the EVO breast cancer donation drive- which was pretty cool, particularly the folks developing the Pony fighter.

[nenena]

Yes yes yes, there are some okay Bronies. I know. I teach some of them.

I still think it's fair game to comment, however, that the Brony fandom as a whole is overwhelming vile. There's a reason why I (and nearly every other female pony fan that I know) had to quit going to Equestria Daily and ponibooru. There's a reason why Hasbro has been encouraging separation between Brony events and family-friendly MLP events - to keep the Bronies away from the girls. And there's a reason why nobody was surprised when a BNF Brony raped a sixteen-year-old girl and was widely defended all across the fandom for it.

In general Brony fandom seems to be very supportive of the ideas that a) MLP is a good show therefore it's not actually for girls because things for girls cannot be good, and b) Hasbro is oppressing Bronies by not creating enough man-friendly Pony merchandise and/or not including enough male characters in the show. The fact that you can't go to a Brony website without seeing one of these two ideas reiterated in the first page of posts/comments really says something.

That, and the comments on the EW article that I linked. Those comments also say something loud and clear about the fandom.

I'm well aware of the fact that there are Bronies who don't suck, but considering that most online Brony fandom spaces have become echo chambers of misogyny I feel perfectly justified in expressing my frustration via generalizations here.

[broccoman]

I guess I haven't seen the darkside of bronies because the ones I know aren't bad at all, and I haven't delved in, whereas I see the dark side of my particular fandom on a much more regular basis. (the Bronies that I see in my particular fandom tend to be on the nicest side of that fandom, so I thought the fandom was better than average)

The Breast Cancer drive was kind of a crossover, because the Pony Fighter was originally in the lead, until the Mane6 folks told Evo to knock it off because they didn't want Hasbro breathing on their necks/their game wouldn't be finished in time, so they asked the Bronies to support Skullgirls, which led to about a quarter-million being raised, mostly between a pariah community (for good reason) and the Skullgirls comm.

[(Anonymous)]

This seems relevant...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MZJEe-dzqk

[nenena]

Woooooow. That's a pretty awesome breakdown. TY for the link!