Bronies are awesome: Male fans of My Little Pony

Brony: “A name typically given to the male viewers/fans (whether they are straight, gay, bisexual, etc.) of the My Little Pony show or franchise. They typically do not give in to the hype that males aren’t allowed to enjoy things that may be intended for females.” – Urban Dictionary

I recently watched a documentary on Netflix all about bronies. If you don’t understand who they are based on the definition I gave you, let me explain. There is a TV show called My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic that had a targeted audience of young girls ages 5-10, but there is a large group of bronies, who are male fans of the show who are aged anywhere from 13 to 100. Now I am 100 per cent on board for gender neutralism, however, before I really knew anything about these fans I was skeptical about whether they actually did like the show, or if they were just pedophiles or if the television company hired them in order to get more publicity. The only reason I was lead to believe they were fake was not the fact the show is “meant” for girls, it was their ages. I for one have never seen an episode of the television show however I have seen clips and loved playing with the toys when I was younger. I have found a new respect for these Bronies, because I realized that they actually do love the show and we should encourage everyone to do so, especially young boys. Some parents raise their children in a manor where their son would get a talking to if they played with their sisters barbies constantly, and hardly touched their G.I Joes to the point where they are collecting dust in the toy box. I believe we should encourage people to play with whatever they want and stop putting gender labels on things like My Little Pony. This show teaches the viewer about kindness, that you need to work as a team sometimes and that friendship is magic; if we encouraged younger boys to watch this show, they would learn about treating people fairly rather than teaching violence for example playing Call of Duty. We should also stop putting labels on men, the fact that if they act nice and are kind, they get called “Gay” or “too feminine” is ridiculous. Since when did males have to behave a specific way just to be considered men? And why is gay being used as an insult? Males shouldn’t have to have this tough guy image and I believe this is the main reason Bronies are getting made fun of and it needs to stop. So before you consider judging anyone again just because they like something “not made for their gender,” please go do yourself a favor and watch the documentary or consider this post.