I was recently asked: Why did I join the Brony Fandom and why do I stick around?

Why did you start watching MLP and what keeps you coming back for more?

Here are some other Brony personalities you might have heard of:

Anime Wolfgamer:
Anna Madsen:
Crimson Glow:
Hallelujah Brony:
Mattwo7:
MisAnthro Pony:
OkashiNaArtist Nat:
The Second Opinion:
UnovaBrony:
Omni Viewer

5318871 Well, I stick to this fandom because of how much great stuff it puts out and it has some of the nicest people I've ever met and even made a few friends among them.

5318871

Honestly, I don't know at this point. I just don't gel with a lot of the people here; I want an open and honest exchange of ideas, whereas they just want to shout loudly about how they're always right and disagreeing with their opinion marks you out as some kind of troublemaker.

5318871 I first heard about mlp through a friend who was talking about fan fiction I never read. At the time I just assumed they were erotic and bloody books that already existed. Turns out Trixie's Fun house, Cupcakes, Sweet Apple Massacre, and Lil Miss Rarity were fan fics for a show I never knew. Once I found out what mlp was. I decided to look it up. Watch an episode. I ended up watching half the first season in one evening. It was great! So that's when I decided to see what the fans made. Thus I found my place in the fandom.

5318871
I have no idea who these people are. Frankly, I never paid much attention to the fandom at large. I started watching because the show was good, then started writing because I had ideas I thought were worth sharing. Then the show stopped being good, so I stopped watching, and eventually stopped writing.

5318911
I experienced a lot of this. I don't hate the bronies, but I don't like the show any more, which makes a lot of bronies hate me. Weird how that works out.

5318961

I'm the opposite: love the show more than ever, but rapidly going off the fans. (Not all of them, obviously; there are a lot of great ones out there, but I keep running into the prescriptive ones.)

5318966 Yeah, I seem to be in the same situation as well. There's a lot of good guys and gals out there who are sane and rational, like Harmony Pie, Nordryd and Manaphy, but then there's the major league jerks who spring to mind. (You know the ones.)

5318977

Yes, I do. And what makes it worse is that they aren't deliberate trolls or anything, but people with such narrow-minded views that I cannot fathom what they actually get out of fanfiction in the first place.

5318982 My guess is that they've forgotten the show's message or just don't care to begin with. It's sad, as our fandom started out so well and with a hope to be better then any of the other fandoms. My guess, people have just gotten arrogant and full of themselves.

5318994

As with most fandoms, there is an initial cadre of the hardcore; they are the ones, like Trekkies or Whovians, who take the show to heart and really appreciate it for what it is (and what it could be). Over the years, a second - larger - group appears who are nothing more than interested. It's just a pleasant way to while away twenty minutes of their week. This is when you start to get the bad seeds: the ones who like to troll, the ones who don't care about the show's principles, the ones who'll bugger off at any little change in the status quo that doesn't fit their narrow preconceptions.

5319051 Yeah, I know what you mean sadly. I can think up a few people like that, but I'm going to be polite about it and not name names. But still, there are worse fandoms to be a part of. I don't even want to imagine the headaches I'd get if I was a member of the Sonic fandom. (No offence guys, but you really do seem to get angry over the littlest things.)

5319055

I'm a Sonic fan. But that is my point in a nutshell: I've been a fan of it since the beginning (1991), so I appreciate the entire universe, and I don't just go to DeviantArt after every game so I can 'ship the new characters with the old characters.

5319071 Oops, sorry. Like I said, I didn't mean to offend but the Sonic Fandom does seem pretty high up there drama wise from what I've heard. Also, thanks for the follow!

5319073

You're welcome on the follow (and likewise, thank you).

I'm not offended at all. Sonic fans are the craziest people out there, but I like to think that it's because we're so darned passionate (we have to be to stick with it through uncertain times). The ones who just want to fight and argue about who Sonic ends up with, to me, aren't real fans.

5319051

the ones who'll bugger off at any little change in the status quo that doesn't fit their narrow preconceptions.

You make it sound like anyone who doesn't like the direction the show took is narrow minded. I'd like to think I'm not. And I mean, on the other end of the spectrum are the people who are so obsessed with the show that they're unwilling to see or admit that it has any flaws.

Increasingly as the seasons went on I started to notice that it was more and more difficult to talk about the show's problems without being shouted down. Back in the day people talked about the mishandled message in Feeling Pinkie Keen or the flaws of characterisation in, like, the Mare Do Well episode, but nowadays God forbid someone says Twilicorn was mishandled or mention the show having broken aesops.

Don't get me wrong, I think we're talking about the same thing: toxic people in the fandom. It's just that, as with people in general, toxic people come in all shapes and sizes.

5319164

Well, that certainly wasn't my intent. Mostly, my issue lies with those who not only don't accept changes to the show but will also criticise people who still enjoy it. Twilight becoming an alicorn had already come and gone by the time I started watching the show, so it was a non-issue for me (I just wish the episode had been written better). In any show like MLP with lots of writers, you're gonna get the occasional episode which just isn't very good (though opinions will wildly vary on which ones those are).