Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from House Toupports
Speaker 1: dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
Speaker 1: and I'm Caroline, and today we are talking about Brownie's,
Speaker 1: which are male fans of My Little Pony. Friendship is magic.
Speaker 1: I was. I was my Little Pony fan growing up,
Speaker 1: although I don't think I could call myself a Brownie
Speaker 1: considering I was like the target audience. Yeah, you'd be
Speaker 1: a peg as sister in today's terms. Uh. This was
Speaker 1: actually a conversation too that got started over on the
Speaker 1: Stuff I've Never Told You Facebook page because there was
Speaker 1: news that came out a couple of months ago about
Speaker 1: a boy at school who was being bullied for bringing
Speaker 1: uh My Little Pony lunch box, and the school's response
Speaker 1: to him was we'll stop bringing the lunchbox. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: so I posted that on our Facebook page, and we
Speaker 1: heard from some moms of Brownies, and just to kick
Speaker 1: things off, wanted to share a note from Justine, who
Speaker 1: also sent along a photo of her ten year old
Speaker 1: Brownie with one of his My Little Ponies and it's
Speaker 1: very cute, but she writes, we haven't raised our kids
Speaker 1: with a lot of gender stereotyping. I honestly don't think
Speaker 1: his love of my little pony is indicative of his sexuality,
Speaker 1: not that that would bother me. I just think he's
Speaker 1: sort of oblivious to the misogyny and our culture at large.
Speaker 1: He doesn't think girls are less than I'm curious to
Speaker 1: see how that plays out as he enters the teenage years.
Speaker 1: But I wonder if his generation really hasn't been as
Speaker 1: acculturated to sexism as ours. I can't fathom it, but
Speaker 1: it might be true. We saw another brownie in the
Speaker 1: Build to Bear in Oklahoma City on March eighth of
Speaker 1: this year. My son and the boy total strangers, just
Speaker 1: gave each other high fives over their love of my
Speaker 1: little pony. I'm very proud, but also think the embrace
Speaker 1: of feminine culture by probably straight tween boys is pretty
Speaker 1: amazing and bizarre. We might be on the cusp of
Speaker 1: a tipping point toward real gender equality. Wow, so we
Speaker 1: had to do a podcast, right? Yeah? Absolutely? And it's
Speaker 1: funny like the the end of her letter talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, boys liking traditionally girl things and are we going?
Speaker 1: Are we heading towards gender equality? It was thoughts like
Speaker 1: that that just gave me like, you know, warm fuzzy feelings.
Speaker 1: When I was reading about this, it it just puts
Speaker 1: stars in my eyes as I was reading about brownies,
Speaker 1: because I just thought, oh my gosh, here are young
Speaker 1: boys all the way through, you know, men in their
Speaker 1: thirties and maybe even beyond, who are like cool with
Speaker 1: something that's traditionally feminine, Like this is anti fem phobia.
Speaker 1: This is an embrace of all things like pink and
Speaker 1: rainbowie and um, you know. Then I read some more
Speaker 1: and and there are some dark parts of brownism, but
Speaker 1: really it's not the majority. No, not at all. Um.
Speaker 1: But for listeners who are like what, yeah, we're scratching
Speaker 1: their heads wondering what on earth we're talking about, let's
Speaker 1: back up for a moment and just talk about my
Speaker 1: little pony, because I have a feeling for a lot
Speaker 1: of women listening this is these are very familiar toys.
Speaker 1: I know that my older sister had a stable of
Speaker 1: my Little Ponies. Somehow I never got my little ponies,
Speaker 1: I don't. I think I probably just got them handed
Speaker 1: down from her. But they launched in one originally as
Speaker 1: my pretty Pony and then became my little Pony. In
Speaker 1: nineteen Yeah, my pretty Pony looks a lot um sadder
Speaker 1: then my my My Little Ponies. I feel like it's
Speaker 1: she's kind of like my pretty Pony. And then my
Speaker 1: Little Pony came out. Uh, but I had a million
Speaker 1: of them, And do you remember the ones that like
Speaker 1: if you got the flank wet or like he was
Speaker 1: like heat or like water or whatever, the pattern would
Speaker 1: come out. I do remember those. Um. I also just
Speaker 1: remember asking my sister to play with them. She was
Speaker 1: pretty proprietary over her ponies, but every now and then
Speaker 1: she would let me brush their tails. For some reason,
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed using those little plastic brushes to comb
Speaker 1: fake horse tails. Childhood is bizarre, carolyzed, so bizarre and amazing.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so this is all in the eighties. This
Speaker 1: is you know, when Kristen and when Kristen and I
Speaker 1: were growing up. But um, the whole thing was rebooted
Speaker 1: back in with an emphasis on My Little Ponies elements
Speaker 1: of harmony. Yeah, that's why it's called My Little Pony.
Speaker 1: Friendship is Magic. And this was essentially launched as a
Speaker 1: partnership between Hasbro, which is the toy company that manufactures
Speaker 1: My Little Ponies and and the TV show The Hub.
Speaker 1: It's like a kid's channel all Nickelodeon that's also owned
Speaker 1: by Discovery Communications. And so the elements of harmony that
Speaker 1: it emphasizes our generosity, loyalty, honesty, kindness, laughter, and magic. Magic. Um. So, okay,
Speaker 1: let's look at the six stars of the show. We've
Speaker 1: got Twilight Sparkle, whose power is magic, Rainbow Dash symbolizes loyalty,
Speaker 1: Apple Jack with the with the Texas accent is honesty,
Speaker 1: Pinky Pie laughter, Fluttershy is kindness, and rarity the Unicorn
Speaker 1: who ties it all together with generosity. Yeah, and they're
Speaker 1: referred to as the Main Six, and that's m A
Speaker 1: N E. Six. I'll tell you what, folks, if you
Speaker 1: like Horse Punch, then you need to watch My Little
Speaker 1: Pony because all of their ponies speak is pony fied.
Speaker 1: And so saying, for instance, everybody, you would say every pony.
Speaker 1: And don't worry, listeners, we're not just going to go
Speaker 1: on and on and on about My Little Pony. There
Speaker 1: is a point, a greater point to this whole conversation.
Speaker 1: But just for a couple more details about this, because
Speaker 1: explaining the show really drives home to how Little girl oriented.
Speaker 1: It really is. And so so My Little Pony Friendship
Speaker 1: is Magic is set in the town of Ponyville and
Speaker 1: the land of Equestria, and it's ruled over by Alcorne's sisters,
Speaker 1: Princesses Celestia and Luna. And in case you're wondering, because
Speaker 1: I was an Alicorn, is a Unicorn Pegasus combo. So
Speaker 1: there's just a lot of fanciful, magical, pro friendship fun,
Speaker 1: lots of sparkle, glitter, pink, very traditionally girly stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so when has Bro slashed the Hub launched this
Speaker 1: new show in two thousand and ten, obviously they were
Speaker 1: selling of this TV product two girls, so wing they
Speaker 1: would go and buy My Little Ponies. But something happened
Speaker 1: where all of a sudden, a lot of guys started
Speaker 1: watching it. Yeah, it's kind of like how the Powerpuff Girls.
Speaker 1: When that cartoon was around, it also appealed to guys.
Speaker 1: My my first high school boyfriend was like a huge
Speaker 1: Powerpuff Girls fan. He even had a favorite. I couldn't
Speaker 1: tell you which one which one it is. But you know,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of cartoons around nowadays that are
Speaker 1: really even though there are four kids they're also four adults.
Speaker 1: You know, you have things like SpongeBob or Adventure Time
Speaker 1: that are definitely I mean, they're very cartoony and silly,
Speaker 1: but they are very enjoyable for grown ups. And so
Speaker 1: what started happening very quickly after My Little Pony rebooted
Speaker 1: in you start to see a lot of young men
Speaker 1: being drawn to it. And not only are they drawn
Speaker 1: to it, but they they start forming these really rapidly
Speaker 1: growing communities. And not so surprisingly, as has happened with
Speaker 1: a lot of these subcultures that have popped up in
Speaker 1: more recent years, they found each other on the Internet,
Speaker 1: and the case of Brownies, they specifically found each other
Speaker 1: on a message board called four chan. And soon after
Speaker 1: My Little Pony French Magic launched, there was a blog
Speaker 1: that was cross posted onto four Chan by this animation
Speaker 1: critic name I Mean Amadi, who was essentially decrying the
Speaker 1: demise of what he called creator driven animation and name
Speaker 1: checked My Little Pony along with a lot of other
Speaker 1: shows as being part of the sign of sort of
Speaker 1: the demise, basically saying these shows were just being manufactured
Speaker 1: to sell things they don't really have any true spirit.
Speaker 1: Wasn't a big fan and even though his his blog
Speaker 1: post doesn't focus too closely on my little pony, that
Speaker 1: was all it took. The floodgates, the browny floodgates. The
Speaker 1: stable doors were opened, right. Yeah, So all these guys
Speaker 1: start popping up on four Chan talking about my little
Speaker 1: pony friendship is magic, and by February there were six
Speaker 1: thousand plus daily pony threads going on on four chance
Speaker 1: cartoon board, to the point where like a four Chune
Speaker 1: moderator was like your band no more pony post. It
Speaker 1: even bled over into like animal boards where people were
Speaker 1: talking about real life furry ponies, like you couldn't say
Speaker 1: anything with pony in it. Yeah, because, not surprisingly, if
Speaker 1: you know anything about four Chan, four chan is a
Speaker 1: very powerful entity. Allah read it on the Internet, which
Speaker 1: also Allah read it comes with a lot of trolling
Speaker 1: and what like more perfect Internet trolling target could you
Speaker 1: put on your forehead then to say, Hey, I'm a
Speaker 1: guy and I really enjoy my little pony friendship is
Speaker 1: magic and I'm earnest about it and I'm not being
Speaker 1: ironic exactly, have at me. So that was part of
Speaker 1: the reason why four chan for a little while said
Speaker 1: no more Brownie talk because there was so much in
Speaker 1: fighting back and forth, although in fighting actually isn't the
Speaker 1: correct term to say, because the Brownies, in response to
Speaker 1: the trolls did not fight back because they wanted to
Speaker 1: embody the friendship. Element of the friendship is magic that
Speaker 1: is taught in My Little Pony, which is kind of incredible. Yeah.
Speaker 1: A word that keeps coming up again and again when
Speaker 1: you read about this particular era in Brownie history is acceptance.
Speaker 1: Everybody's preaching acceptance, like Okay, well you know, obviously you're
Speaker 1: not into this. I'm into this, and if you're going
Speaker 1: to be angry about it, you know that's your deal.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna keep enjoying my my happy friendship, loyalty
Speaker 1: driven my Little Pony thing. Yeah, and four Chan founder
Speaker 1: Christopher Pool was actually so impressed by the way that
Speaker 1: the Brownies were so successfully resisting this trolling effort that
Speaker 1: he finally lifted the ban on the Browny post. And
Speaker 1: there was one response from a Brownie to this that
Speaker 1: was kind of funny. He said, my Little Pony is
Speaker 1: the only group to take on four Chan and win.
Speaker 1: Four Chan once took over the FBI and one, so
Speaker 1: you might say that my Little Pony is more powerful
Speaker 1: than the FBI. Yeah, well, which is incredible to think
Speaker 1: about it, hilarious. Um, But so they moved on from
Speaker 1: four Chan building their own pony safe spaces online. They
Speaker 1: have pony Chan. They posted things on deviant art and YouTube.
Speaker 1: There's the website Equestria Daily and lots of different like
Speaker 1: fan fic um pony art. There's also some like darker
Speaker 1: corners of that art and fan fic as well erotic
Speaker 1: pony art. It we'll get to that. We'll get to that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this also harkens back to our episode a little while
Speaker 1: ago on fandom and shipping. Um, this is Brownie's are
Speaker 1: a prime space ace for this. So the reimaginings of
Speaker 1: different adventures for the ponies, different relationships the ponies might have.
Speaker 1: There's even music mashups that Brownies will make, all sorts
Speaker 1: of things, and Brownies have started congregating as well. In
Speaker 1: June two thou eleven, the first Browny Con took place
Speaker 1: in New York and about a hundred people attended. But
Speaker 1: compare that to two thousand thirteen, when Browny Con drew
Speaker 1: six thousand attendees. Yeah, I mean talk about talk about
Speaker 1: like just separate from Brownie's even but talk about how
Speaker 1: incredible like internet communities are the fact that you can
Speaker 1: live your whole life or you know, like, let's think
Speaker 1: back to the seventies eighties, where you could have lived
Speaker 1: your whole life thinking you were the sole weirdo who
Speaker 1: likes something. But these message boards fueled by this whole
Speaker 1: like background of acceptance and friendship and loyalty, like, all
Speaker 1: of these people are finding each other. And so now
Speaker 1: six thousand plus people are going to this conference. It's incredible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's a similar kind of effect as we
Speaker 1: saw in the A s MR podcast. Totally different kind
Speaker 1: of thing, but the effect of people finding each other
Speaker 1: on the Internet and this community growing from it, of
Speaker 1: people saying, oh, I thought I was the only one. No,
Speaker 1: you like it, Oh he likes oh awesome. And just
Speaker 1: imagine at browne Con though these are i mean younger
Speaker 1: boys as well, and some peg of sisters, some some girls,
Speaker 1: but up to you know, grown men dressing up as
Speaker 1: their favorite my little pony right, hanging out playing games,
Speaker 1: just having a really good time. So the question is then,
Speaker 1: who are these Brownies, Like, who are there? They just
Speaker 1: are they just weirdos are are they outliers in society?
Speaker 1: I mean, it turns out, at least according to surveys
Speaker 1: of brownies, they're kind of just average guys. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: this survey that took place in August and September had
Speaker 1: nearly respondents and they found that the average age was
Speaker 1: nearly twenty years old, and they hailed from from far
Speaker 1: and wide. Um, most of them are from the US,
Speaker 1: but if you move in descending order, you've got people
Speaker 1: represented from the UK, from Canada, Australia, Germany, Poland, Mexico, Sweden, Finland,
Speaker 1: and Brazil. This is not an American phenomenon. And when
Speaker 1: you look at gender, I mean, brownie is the combination
Speaker 1: of bro or brother and pony. But the gender breakdown
Speaker 1: shows that it's eighty six percent male, twelve percent female,
Speaker 1: one percent who identifies neither, and one percent unsure. Now,
Speaker 1: this next statistic on sexual orientation is one that comes
Speaker 1: up in pretty much any article that you read about
Speaker 1: brownie culture because there is this knee jerk assumption that, Okay,
Speaker 1: here's a guy who really likes pink stuff and ponies,
Speaker 1: and you know a show that is for girls, the
Speaker 1: are four he must be gay, right, this must be
Speaker 1: just a you know, group of okay guys really enjoying ponies.
Speaker 1: Not exactly. Uh of brownies identify a straight as bisexual,
Speaker 1: four percent as a sexual, only three percent identify as gay,
Speaker 1: and three percent identify as pan sexual. So I mean
Speaker 1: a bulk of again, kind of like the mom who
Speaker 1: pointed out in the letter that we read at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the podcast, this is a lot of straight
Speaker 1: tween boys and adult guys who are loving them some pony. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Of the respondents were in steady relationships, um, with forty
Speaker 1: six percent of those saying that they're the soul brownie
Speaker 1: in the relationship. Thirty eight percent of those were actually
Speaker 1: in dual brownie relationships. You wonder, like, do they just
Speaker 1: talk about it all the time, like if you get
Speaker 1: together with someone who also has such a specific like
Speaker 1: niche interest, Like, I wonder they just talk about brownie's
Speaker 1: all the time? Well, I mean, well, in terms of
Speaker 1: brownie openness, say they did look into that, say that
Speaker 1: they would proudly identify themselves as brownie's both online and offline,
Speaker 1: whereas would only identify as brownie online. Because understandably, there's
Speaker 1: still a lot of confusion about what does this actually
Speaker 1: mean about who you are if you like this one
Speaker 1: particular thing. But then the question is, well, why are
Speaker 1: we sitting here trying to extrapolate so many meanings upon
Speaker 1: the appreciation of ponies. Well? Yeah. As far as why
Speaker 1: they identify as Brownie's and identify with the show, the
Speaker 1: survey respondents said that the most appealing aspects of the
Speaker 1: show were the characters, the humor, and the style and
Speaker 1: design of the animation. Um. And so when they were
Speaker 1: talking about how they like to, I don't know, be
Speaker 1: Brownie's act as Brownie's what that entails, they responded that
Speaker 1: they browse fan art and watch fan videos, they read
Speaker 1: fan fiction, and they visit Equestria Daily. Yeah, Equestria Daily
Speaker 1: is pretty much the go to site for for Brownie's
Speaker 1: all things Brownie, and it is, I mean, there is
Speaker 1: the daily aspect of Equestria Daily. It's essentially the Huffington's
Speaker 1: Post of Brownies. Um. And when when you look at though,
Speaker 1: like who, especially among the older brownies, like who who
Speaker 1: are these guys? I mean, you'll you'll meet brownies who
Speaker 1: have traditionally very masculine jobs, like their mechanics or they
Speaker 1: work on motorcycles. There's one what's his name, I ever
Speaker 1: get his name, but he's kind of known as the
Speaker 1: Manliest Brownie, kind of big old Mustang, and he works
Speaker 1: on cars and motorcycles. And there's even a squadron of
Speaker 1: pilots in training in the U. S. Air Force at
Speaker 1: Vance Air Force Base in Oklahoma who are now wearing
Speaker 1: My Little Pony Friendship is Magic themed patches on their
Speaker 1: flight suits. Yeah, but instead of friend Ship is Magic,
Speaker 1: it's just flying is Magic is magic because some of
Speaker 1: the ponies have flying powers. Uh. But and there are
Speaker 1: other um there have been other articles too about Brownie's
Speaker 1: in the military. So this is not just a thing
Speaker 1: for what we would consider more effeminate men as well.
Speaker 1: This is really challenging in a lot of ways our
Speaker 1: ideas of well, what is masculine and feminine and what
Speaker 1: is okay for boys and men to like? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: a lot of those guys are kind of asking themselves
Speaker 1: the same question. Wired talked to Brownie Luke Allen, who said, first,
Speaker 1: we can't believe the show is so good. Then we
Speaker 1: can't believe we've become fans for life, and then we
Speaker 1: can't believe we're walking down the pink aisle at Toys
Speaker 1: r us are asking for the girls toin our happy meal.
Speaker 1: Then we can't believe our friends haven't seen it yet.
Speaker 1: Then we can't believe they're becoming Brownie's too. And this
Speaker 1: guy also went on to talk about how he has
Speaker 1: asked Berger's and how the show has taught him so
Speaker 1: much just about getting along with people, the basic tenants
Speaker 1: of friendship and loyalty and sort of helped him understand
Speaker 1: that in a way that he never had before, which
Speaker 1: is pretty incredible. Um. There's also a documentary called Bronis
Speaker 1: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony, And
Speaker 1: they interviewed one kid named Alex Thickmen, and he said,
Speaker 1: as soon as Ponies came into my life, I was like, Wow,
Speaker 1: I never want the day to end. Yeah. And Alex's story,
Speaker 1: I mean it's a it's a terrible story of of
Speaker 1: bullying and how you know he had My Little Pony
Speaker 1: decals on the back of his car and and some
Speaker 1: guys like smashed the back of his car and and
Speaker 1: all this stuff. And you know it comes from this
Speaker 1: really small town in in North Carolina and Appalachia, and
Speaker 1: like nobody understands it, and um, how he's been able
Speaker 1: to sort of connect with people like him, like minded
Speaker 1: guys who aren't all about hunting in and you know,
Speaker 1: being like super traditionally masculine, and how how that just
Speaker 1: lets him find other people that he can form a community,
Speaker 1: really loyal community of friends with. Yeah. In this same
Speaker 1: documentary Brownies and this also is not the only Brownie
Speaker 1: documentary there is out there. This one is on Netflix
Speaker 1: too if you if you have it and want to
Speaker 1: watch it. But it also follows this boy who is
Speaker 1: going to Browny Con for the first time and his
Speaker 1: dad is really uncomfortable with the fact that his son
Speaker 1: likes My Little Pony. Um. There's also the way that
Speaker 1: it's termed when younger guys especially will inform their their
Speaker 1: parents that they are fans of the show. It's almost
Speaker 1: like a coming out process. Um, and the dad's like
Speaker 1: super uncomfortable, but he ends up going to Browny Con
Speaker 1: with him, and he talks to far more enthusiastic Brownie
Speaker 1: dad who kind of breaks it down for him, like, Listen,
Speaker 1: I know this kind looks super weird that our sons
Speaker 1: are playing My Little Pony, but I'm just really happy
Speaker 1: to be sharing this experience with him, and this is
Speaker 1: our new way of bonding and it's pretty cool, and like, look,
Speaker 1: look how happy this is making our kids. And then
Speaker 1: you know Q crying fast. Well, there's there's clips of
Speaker 1: of all these guys like linking arms and singing, and
Speaker 1: you know, they talked to um one young woman who
Speaker 1: I don't know if she was a Pega sister or
Speaker 1: if she's in a band or something, that she was
Speaker 1: on stage singing and she talks about how like, you know,
Speaker 1: nobody's here to judge other people. Everybody is here to
Speaker 1: like be friends, have fun. You know, this is the
Speaker 1: most acceptance I've ever felt. And we mentioned the manly
Speaker 1: is BRONI. It's this guy named Dusty Rhodes and he
Speaker 1: was interviewed also by Wired magazine about this and getting
Speaker 1: his take is as an older guy who is invested
Speaker 1: in this culture is really telling because he says, you're
Speaker 1: supposed to be the guy who was on TV, You're
Speaker 1: supposed to be the moral Broman, You're supposed to be
Speaker 1: the guy from die Hard. That's all well and good,
Speaker 1: but we got spoon fed enough of that crud through
Speaker 1: the eighties and nineties that people are starting to believe
Speaker 1: that that's the way you had to be. Everybody's a person,
Speaker 1: everybody is a human being on this planet, and the
Speaker 1: sooner we figure that out, we might be a little
Speaker 1: better off. And then he goes on to talk about
Speaker 1: how that's why he loves my little Pony so much
Speaker 1: because it sort of was the catalyst for helping him
Speaker 1: sort of embody those kinds of ideas, which is incredible.
Speaker 1: I mean, sort of like using a children's show to
Speaker 1: reevaluate what you think about hegemonic masculinity. Is that's some
Speaker 1: heavy stuff. That is heavy stuff, and I mean it's
Speaker 1: it's just the fact that it's such heavy stuff, and
Speaker 1: it it seems so deep for what it is, which
Speaker 1: is like a two dimensional children's show. Um. But the
Speaker 1: sudden and rapid rise of this older male fan base
Speaker 1: has a lot of people, like especially in academia, kind
Speaker 1: of scratching their heads, going like, Okay, something's got to
Speaker 1: be weird here. This, this can't be normal. Um. And
Speaker 1: two of those people who were just kind of trying
Speaker 1: to investigate what was going on are dr Patrick Edwards
Speaker 1: and Marcia redden Um. Patrick Edwards son, by the way
Speaker 1: he became interested in researching brownies and this whole topic
Speaker 1: because his son came out so to speak to him
Speaker 1: as a Brownie and he's like, all right, let's figure
Speaker 1: out what's going on here. Is this like some sort
Speaker 1: of like pathological thing. Are they making up for other
Speaker 1: lacking aspects in their lives? And um, they didn't really
Speaker 1: find anything that said, Okay, these guys are weird. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They surveyed over twenty thousand self identified brownies, and they
Speaker 1: found some common hallmarks, such as Brownie's being slightly more
Speaker 1: introverted but more agreeable than non brownies. They also tended
Speaker 1: to be more tolerant of others and bullied less often.
Speaker 1: And when it comes to Brownie's home life, not surprisingly,
Speaker 1: they found the happiest ones tended to come from open
Speaker 1: minded homes with accepting, more liberal parents. And they identified
Speaker 1: a lot of these guys as social brownies, and social
Speaker 1: brownies actually made up the largest subsection of all of
Speaker 1: the ones that they talked to. And they're the most open,
Speaker 1: extroverted and uh, they compared them to the pony pinky pie,
Speaker 1: who is, you know, kind of the party love and pony.
Speaker 1: That's funny. So they have their little avatar um. They
Speaker 1: also found another subsection of secret brownies that makes up
Speaker 1: twenty percent of this group, and these guys typically come
Speaker 1: from more closed minded homes, and the researchers said these
Speaker 1: guys were the browny equivalent of the withdrawn patients they
Speaker 1: had seen in therapy for years. So these guys are
Speaker 1: less likely to have the dad who was open and
Speaker 1: willing to go to the conference, learn what it's all
Speaker 1: about out just make sure his son is happy. And
Speaker 1: there's some interesting theory swirling around this, this rise, this
Speaker 1: lack of irony, this this genuine acceptance of happiness and
Speaker 1: you know, loyalty that's going on with this whole movement.
Speaker 1: And so there's a theory that this is like post
Speaker 1: nine eleven escapism, that that we had, our our generation
Speaker 1: had this terrible, horrific event that kind of bisected our
Speaker 1: young lives, and so this is now a return to
Speaker 1: something more innocent. We're we're trying to get away from
Speaker 1: this planet that's so concerned with terrorism and war and
Speaker 1: and focus on sparkly, shiny ponies. But there's also this
Speaker 1: idea that a lot of people are talking about called
Speaker 1: new sincerity, and it's not that this is like a
Speaker 1: new movement or something, but it's kind of just like
Speaker 1: a pop culture trend away from all of that irony
Speaker 1: that kind of all of our social media is dripping
Speaker 1: with these days, the hipster irony. Yeah, and pretty much
Speaker 1: any article that you'd read about new sincerity, Brownie's are
Speaker 1: upheld as the exemplars of it because they truly love
Speaker 1: this cartoon for exactly what it is and are unabashed
Speaker 1: in their fandom. Um. But there is also a researcher
Speaker 1: Venetia Laura Delano Robertson, who thinks that it might also
Speaker 1: have to do with the anthropomorphic element of My Little Pony,
Speaker 1: and she graciously sent us the full text of her
Speaker 1: recent study called of Ponies and Men, My Little Pony
Speaker 1: Friendship is Magic and the Browny fandom, and she thinks
Speaker 1: that it has to this connection that Brownie's have and
Speaker 1: the learning about friendship and loyalty that they're deriving from.
Speaker 1: It has to do with the fact that these are
Speaker 1: cartoon animals that act as people. Yeah, she's talking about
Speaker 1: all this anthropomorphism and says, uh, the candy combination of
Speaker 1: My Little Pony's subcultural qualities and the value of non
Speaker 1: human but humanlike role models or avatars speaks intimately to
Speaker 1: a group of individuals typically bound up in anonymous internet networks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so all of that to say that maybe the
Speaker 1: anthropomorphism on screen sort of creates enough distance from the
Speaker 1: human experience that is might maybe more fraught in these
Speaker 1: posts on eleven days with uh fear or anxiety. It
Speaker 1: creates enough distance from that to kind of build a
Speaker 1: relationship with these viewers. I mean, the fact that people
Speaker 1: are forming relationships with animated characters, you know, animals that
Speaker 1: can talk and run around and have similar, almost humanlike lives,
Speaker 1: is nothing strange at all. Disney exists, hello. Um. But
Speaker 1: there's also to the element of hypercuteness in My My
Speaker 1: Little Pony that also seems to appeal to brownies. Um.
Speaker 1: There's this Japanese concept of kauai I hope I'm pronouncing
Speaker 1: that correctly, which is sort of that hyper cuteness. And
Speaker 1: if you look at My Little Pony, friendship is magic,
Speaker 1: it is drenched in kauai. And and there's this sky.
Speaker 1: Brian McVeigh, who back in the mid nineties talking about
Speaker 1: this appeal of hypercuteness and cartoon nous, argues that these
Speaker 1: kinds of super cute mascots in a way embody the
Speaker 1: essential qualities of cuteness and by invoking affection, are able
Speaker 1: to exert authority. So in other words, they're teaching guys
Speaker 1: like Luke Allen, who's high on the Asperger scale, what
Speaker 1: friendship and loyalty really means in action. And we're going
Speaker 1: to talk way more about a whole lot of interesting
Speaker 1: aspects of brownie culture when we come right back from
Speaker 1: a quick break and now back to the show. Okay,
Speaker 1: So Kristen was just discussing the concept, the Japanese concept
Speaker 1: of kauai, basically things that are just like dripping with cuteness.
Speaker 1: They often have like big eyes, and they're maybe little
Speaker 1: animal ears and stuff, and how this concept really plays
Speaker 1: into what we're talking about now, which is My Little
Speaker 1: Pony and Brownies. And there's something great about the fact
Speaker 1: that these ponies can kind of service avatars for for
Speaker 1: a lot of guys who maybe don't have great in
Speaker 1: person like life connections, and they can form these connections
Speaker 1: online through My Little Pony. But there's also something a
Speaker 1: little weird and that's worth bringing up, and that's just
Speaker 1: the fact that you know, these these ponies are super
Speaker 1: vulnerable and but also harmless. They're dependent, very feminine, very gentle,
Speaker 1: so very non threatening. Yeah. Fluttershy, for instance, is a
Speaker 1: Browny favorite among the main six ponies, and flutter Shy
Speaker 1: embodies kindness, but as her name implies, eyes, she's also
Speaker 1: very shy, very unsure of herself. She's too scared to fly,
Speaker 1: and this raises some red flags among some people kind
Speaker 1: of looking from the outside end of the brownie culture,
Speaker 1: thinking well, why is this particular pony so appealing, Like
Speaker 1: why why is it the shy, submissive one. There's there's
Speaker 1: kind of a protective white hat element to brownie fandom
Speaker 1: as well of loving these ponies so much, not just
Speaker 1: because of the lessons they might teach, but also because
Speaker 1: they feel protective of Fluttershy and the other ponies. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I think it's interesting that this whole arena, this
Speaker 1: whole browny arena, is on the one hand, so anti
Speaker 1: gender norms. It's guys feeling like they can be more
Speaker 1: open with their emotions and and love their friends and
Speaker 1: be open with their love for their friends and for
Speaker 1: this cartoon. But on the other hand, um, these very
Speaker 1: sort of like cute harmless, gentle feminine creatures. These ponies
Speaker 1: also sort of bring out, like Kristen said, that that protective,
Speaker 1: very stereotypically male behavior aspect feelings. And this the thing is,
Speaker 1: though this isn't it's a good thing that this isn't
Speaker 1: the typical line of conversation when it comes to brownies.
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of Uh, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of people who have rude things to say, but
Speaker 1: there's also a lot of embrace of it for the
Speaker 1: fact that it is sort of transgressing those gender norms,
Speaker 1: because that whole appeal of the cute and hyper feminine
Speaker 1: in animation, especially if we're talking about you know, the
Speaker 1: Japanese concept of Kauai is not it's not solely a
Speaker 1: product of brownies. I mean, attraction to hyper feminine, cute
Speaker 1: animated girls, for instance, is super common in anime culture too. Yeah, exactly. Um,
Speaker 1: And so speaking of that Venetia Laura Delano Robertsons study
Speaker 1: that we were talking about before the break, Um, she
Speaker 1: does acknowledge in her study that yes, there is a
Speaker 1: level of attraction to the ponies among a certain subset
Speaker 1: of brownies. Yeah, this is this is by far not
Speaker 1: all Brownies. But we would be remiss not to acknowledge
Speaker 1: the fact that in that two thousand twelve Brownie study
Speaker 1: of respondents said yes to the question of are you
Speaker 1: sexually attracted to the friendship is magic stylized ponies now?
Speaker 1: Six also said no, absolutely not. I just love the
Speaker 1: ponies for the ponies. But yeah, there is there is
Speaker 1: some sexualization that goes on. There's something called clop fick,
Speaker 1: which is the erotic uh my Little pony fan fiction.
Speaker 1: There's also if you start digging into go on deviant
Speaker 1: Art and start looking at my Little Pony fan art,
Speaker 1: it does get sexuel at certain points. So so there's that,
Speaker 1: But I mean there's a name for it that I
Speaker 1: that is living my mind right now. But essentially there's
Speaker 1: a rule on the Internet that if something exists, there's
Speaker 1: also porn of it, Like everything is portified at this
Speaker 1: point on the Internet. Yeah, I I don't yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: But Robertson also argues that maybe one reason why the
Speaker 1: more erotic side of Brodie the brony subculture is swept
Speaker 1: under the rug a little bit that we don't talk
Speaker 1: about it as much, or at least it doesn't raise
Speaker 1: perhaps as many red flags is because again due to
Speaker 1: the anthropomorphism, they're not doing this. If this was a
Speaker 1: group of little girls, you know, animated characters, then people
Speaker 1: would probably not be so pumped about browny con But
Speaker 1: the fact that it's horses their animals not as big
Speaker 1: of a deal if we put them in sexual situations
Speaker 1: and fan art right, and a lot of guys are
Speaker 1: saying like, I don't even like real horses. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was that was one funny thing. Overwhelmingly brownies don't want
Speaker 1: anything to do with horses in real life. Yeah. One
Speaker 1: guy brought up the same thing that I think the
Speaker 1: Oatmeal has a cartoon regarding this exact same thing, saying that, basically,
Speaker 1: to paraphrase, like, horses poop a lot, and they're gross
Speaker 1: and you've got to scoop the poop all the time,
Speaker 1: and so I'm not interested in real life horses and
Speaker 1: their poop at all. Well, and they're just massive, powerful creatures, yeah,
Speaker 1: as opposed to these little, flying, fairy horse creatures. So again,
Speaker 1: while we don't want to give the impression that all
Speaker 1: brownies are only interested in my little pony, because they
Speaker 1: are either consciously or subconsciously attracted to these Ponies. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: we do want to acknowledge that there there is this one,
Speaker 1: there's a corner of this culture that exists. But I
Speaker 1: think you would find something like that in any kind
Speaker 1: of fan culture. I mean, if you are going back
Speaker 1: to the shipping episode again, pretty much all shipping eventually,
Speaker 1: no matter what you're talking about, whether you're you know,
Speaker 1: looking at the X Files or Twilight or My Little
Speaker 1: Pony whatever, it might be little trail off at some
Speaker 1: point into erotic fick yea um. But you know what,
Speaker 1: you know who's really loving it as has Bro Because
Speaker 1: if you look one one of the sites we were
Speaker 1: looking at, how to graph showing Hasbro sales of their
Speaker 1: merch and I mean not that the chart itself or
Speaker 1: even Hasbro itself can really tell us for sure that
Speaker 1: Brownies are propping up there their industry, their sales, but
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's Hasbro sales and My Little Pony
Speaker 1: sales have steadily increased. Oh yeah. Well, and it's interesting
Speaker 1: too to see how Hasbro is also not just now
Speaker 1: selling to little girls that the Pegga sisters watching the show,
Speaker 1: but specifically to Brownie's because they're selling things like trading
Speaker 1: cards comic books, USB drives, in addition to more typical
Speaker 1: products like plush toys and dolls like they're they're clearly
Speaker 1: trying to reach an audience. Um, and I mean just
Speaker 1: the fact too that it's become I don't think that
Speaker 1: I didn't have to find a concrete number of how
Speaker 1: many Brownies there are, but I mean we're not talking
Speaker 1: about millions of guys. It's still a pretty relatively small
Speaker 1: group of men. But the fact that they're getting articles
Speaker 1: and wired in grant Land and have a convention that
Speaker 1: makes national news. You know that Stephen Colbert mentions them
Speaker 1: on the Colbert Report, that Bob's Burgers has a Brownie
Speaker 1: spin off show or episode, I should say, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's kind of incredible that such a you know, relatively
Speaker 1: small group of people has generated this much conversation. So
Speaker 1: of course has Bro is riding the right, the right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: riding the saddle, that's right. But I mean it makes
Speaker 1: sense that there's so much attention paid even though this
Speaker 1: is a really small subset of young men in our
Speaker 1: country and and many other countries. I mean, it makes
Speaker 1: sense that that people are like wired or digging into
Speaker 1: it because you just don't see big groups of of
Speaker 1: guys who are really earnest in their love and affection
Speaker 1: for something that is so typically geared towards girls. That's
Speaker 1: so unusual. It's okay for girls to to play with transformers,
Speaker 1: to play with their brothers g I Joe dolls, but
Speaker 1: it's it's not okay, like we've said a million times
Speaker 1: in different podcast episodes, you know, it's it's not as
Speaker 1: okay for guys to like girl things. And so everybody's
Speaker 1: looking at this going like, are we on some precipice
Speaker 1: all of a sudden that we didn't realize, right? I
Speaker 1: mean because just in my own child play, I totally
Speaker 1: played with my brother's Gi Joe's all the time, No
Speaker 1: big deal. I have a feeling if my brother started
Speaker 1: playing with my sisters my little ponies, my parents would
Speaker 1: probably have raised an eyebrow. You know, There's not as
Speaker 1: much fluidity for for boys. So so it is cool
Speaker 1: to see that this kind of stuff is happening, particularly
Speaker 1: for the younger boys. But that's not to say though,
Speaker 1: that when they are out not hanging among their brownie pals,
Speaker 1: that everybody is pro brownie. Like we mentioned, this entire
Speaker 1: conversation was instigated by news of Grayson Bruce, a nine
Speaker 1: year old who was bullied at school for bringing you
Speaker 1: know that my little pony lunchbox, to which the school,
Speaker 1: shaking my fist, just told him to leave the lunch
Speaker 1: box at home, which is not the answer at all.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe broaden your mind, maybe tell the bullies that hey,
Speaker 1: this is your your lame I would make a great principle.
Speaker 1: But a far more heartbreaking example though, of brownie bullying
Speaker 1: is the case of eleven year old Michael Moronez, who
Speaker 1: attempted to hang himself as a result of relentless brownie bullying,
Speaker 1: and also as an example of how this bronie community
Speaker 1: really supports their own and really does try to live
Speaker 1: out the friendship is Magic motto. The Brownie's have set
Speaker 1: up a recovery fund for him, same thing with Grayson
Speaker 1: Bruce as well. They started a whole stand with Grayson
Speaker 1: hashtag that trended on the internet and got a lot
Speaker 1: of attention you know to his case. Um So, brownie's
Speaker 1: definitely look out for their own, but it's unfortunate to
Speaker 1: see still, especially for the younger guys, that they do
Speaker 1: still face bullying for wanting to play with my Little
Speaker 1: Pony instead of g I Joe. Yeah, And I mean,
Speaker 1: and who's to say that even it's an either or thing, like,
Speaker 1: you know, like I played, you know, I played with
Speaker 1: all sorts of different toys as a kid. Because I
Speaker 1: was an only child, my parents didn't really care. I
Speaker 1: had a million barbies and a million my Little ponies,
Speaker 1: but I also had monster trucks, you know. Like so
Speaker 1: I I hope we can get to a point, all
Speaker 1: of us together in general, can get you a point
Speaker 1: where it is okay for boys to play with whatever
Speaker 1: girls are playing with and it not be a big deal.
Speaker 1: But you know, we've just gotta I don't know, we've
Speaker 1: just got to work on. It's a whole cultural thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, these trolls aren't just going to disappear overnight, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, but it is. It does see something though,
Speaker 1: that we are talking so much about, you know, again,
Speaker 1: a relatively small group of men who are, whether intentionally
Speaker 1: or not, challenging what we consider to be acceptable masculinity.
Speaker 1: And I think that's only for the better of all
Speaker 1: of us, because if girls are granted, you know, more
Speaker 1: fluidity in the sense of like, you know, we're told
Speaker 1: that you can be anything, and you can play with anything,
Speaker 1: and you can wear skirts or pants. Boys boys won't
Speaker 1: enjoy that same amount of social fluidity, and I think
Speaker 1: that it's time that that that changes, one brownie at
Speaker 1: a time. So I hope that there are some brownie's listening,
Speaker 1: or mom's and brownie's, dads and brownie's we want to
Speaker 1: hear from you on this, or just fans of my
Speaker 1: little Pony, any Pegga sisters, we want to hear from
Speaker 1: you as well. Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is
Speaker 1: where you can email us. You can also tweet us
Speaker 1: at mom Stuff podcast or send us a Facebook message
Speaker 1: as well, and we have a couple of messages to
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