MLP fan watches the awful Brony Documentary

[@RainfoxArts]

"I'm not gay. I'm not gay!" i continue to insist as i slowly shrink and transform into a rainbow dash keychain

[@Technilogica2019]

"IM NOT A BUCKING LESBIAN"

[@laurelalloro]

CALL ME A LESBIAN ONE MORE TIME

[@gnarpsilly]

Everytime you call rainbow dash a lesbian, it rains somewhere

[@raeesrichards6786]

@gnarpsilly Tears of joy

[@thisisapictureofmydog.isnt9208]

@@gnarpsillywater them plants

[@xXzombiebimboXx]

Funny how they made being gay an insult and then half the fandom comes out gay or trans, so many bronies have come out it’s actually funny

[@ArbitraryOutcome]

Yeah, it's funny I see less of the weird imageboard brony types anymore and most MLP fans I run into tend to be queer and/or trans.

[@Phreias]

theres two paths bronies have taken: transitioning or becoming a white supremacist . rarely ever see anything in between that anymore

[@xXzombiebimboXx]

@@Phreias lmfao you’re absolutely correct 😭

[@Solaceon]

12 years ago, my then-boyfriend showed my dad his new MLP seatbelt-style belt, and my dad laughed and told him he liked it but it looked gay. Guy handled it well, he just goes "Well I'm actually bi, so you're half right".

[@rita6355]

I met a racist White supremacist trans woman once, it was horrifying

[@psi_mae]

I was a gay kid watching this documentary and this made me feel so bad I had to trick myself into thinking I was Bi

[@TheOwlOf2]

This proves how poorly they delivered that part, it should have shown us that you aren't gay just for liking a television show made for little girls but instead it feels like it showed us that being gay is a very bad thing to be or something

[@hatenapasas]

SAME

[@shad0wchateau]

i hope you’re doing good nowadays and you find a boyfriend eventually. or you already have one bc either way you deserve that :)

[@alicethemad1613]

Mostly unrelated but that brief pic of a dad in a genderbent Rarity cosplay holding his baby in a little Spike onesie is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.

[@Kh-bs7mg]

Fr

[@marl3ymarl3y86]

At 1:34 for anyone wondering. So cute

[@kingdedede3090]

OMG that's so sweet!!

[@Che3z5]

He should’ve been twilight tbh ( since then it implies the baby has a crush on they’re dad.. )

[@kais347]

@@Che3z5 whatever dude

[@Bluemansonic]

5:57 back then being called gay was indeed the worst thing to happen to a straight Christian male who was not following their Father's workout routine

[@waffie6785]

''babe wake up our goddess Shunks just posted''

[@JAJANANA_21]

"nah i wanna sleep."

[@prosperosmoon]

"Lyle LYLE WAKE UP"

[@whoregrind666]

literally me when i saw that she uploaded

[@katiefield3396]

@@whoregrind666wait I’m confused she?

[@ItsMaraudintime98204]

i misread that as shrunk and now i cant get it out of my head please help help

[@punkysnarks]

I love how they specified that those were "brony psychologists". Like bronies are so special that they need their own line of therapy. Not the brag they thought it was.

[@rootfish2671]

Bronies do seem a kind of specific paraphilia

[@jonal5126]

​@rootfish2671 like those that say clop Or the jar

[@SpectacleSpark]

@@jonal5126 DO NOT REMIND ME OF THE JAR- I can never look at a jar the same way without being reminded of that sht lmao

[@zorinazutella3270]

tbh there's probably a whole brand new documentary that could be made about how MLP and bronydom became a safe way for closeted queer people to experiment with "feminine" interests and presentation. it had a built in supportive community that didn't make fun of you for being "male" and enjoying the pretty girl horse show, and that probably made it a lot easier for some folks to come to terms with their own identity.

[@NoReplyAsset]

same for me as a trans guy actually. when I was a teen girl into ponies, I loved the genderbend art in the fandom and made some myself, which made me question gender and gender roles, eventually leading me to think deeply about my own identity and self and realising some things. anyway I'm a gay man now so ponies did indeed turn me gay.

[@fatcat1414]

Not to mention the transmasc side of things! As an afab egg, I was deathly afraid of engaging in feminine interests because it triggered my dysphoria. Seeing cis men happily engage with a girly show helped me unlearn my internalized misogyny, so I could realize my discomfort with being a woman went far beyond petty stereotypes.

[@otter1712]

I saw this when I was in college and I remember feeling negatively about it. Almost all the bronies they interviewed were like “Hi, I’m a brony. But I’m not gay cause I like a cartoon for girls.” Which as a gay mlp fan, didn’t feel greats

[@strxwbxrry_420]

I get that, I’m also queer and have loved mlp since gen 3. It feels very off when someone is so defensive about being gay, like there’s nothing wrong with being gay and you wouldn’t have to be defensive about it. More people need to just need to shrug it off and be like “I don’t swing that way, but whatever” BECAUSE IT IS WHATEVER. That shit don’t matter and it never will. Straight mfers are just sensitive about it. If they’re called gay it’s the end of the world, if other gay people exist they’ll probably freak out about that too.

[@user-AADZ]

5:02 "oh, it's just the living tombstone. The Living Tombstone? oh my God it's the living tombstone!" *Discord riff*

[@MsSumoon]

I believe the GAY thing in the earlier one, is because back in 2012, and earlier, most people thought that only GAY people and little girls could enjoy a franchise that it's “for girls”. Like the stereotype of a Gay man, who enjoys Barbie and MLP, it always existed. Maybe because I'm in my 30s now, and I was in my early 20s when the show started, but many heterosexual men were too afraid to openly say they enjoy it, fearing a lot fo be called gay to enjoy something that was created for “little girls”. It happens a lot with media that it's targeted for women, many hetero-cis man feel conflicted about enjoying, the fear to be called GAY it's too strong in them. It happens a lot in “girly” fandoms, and I'm saying this as a cis-woman who enjoys both girly and boyish stuff. But you never see a woman who openly enjoys something like Batman, and other women calling them GAY, usually the men call us FAKE or TRY HARD, but they never question our sexuality. Our society tends to scoff at feminine media, regardless of quality. MLP was a surprise, because it was one of the first franchises that a male audience gave it a chance and saw-hey, this is not bad? Because they were conditioned to view feminine stuff as inferior.

[@GhostOfSal]

I loved reading this I think it’s really interesting :3

[@Pinkywinkykinky]

my grandma assumed my dad forced batman onto me as a kid when i just liked the show as a girl 😭

[@MsSumoon]

@@Pinkywinkykinky try to think that your grandma probanbly grew up when the gender binary was even stronger and she was projecting. It's the sad truth. But good on your parents for leting you enjoy Batman.

[@NostalgiaUnicorn]

Male MLP fans existed in the 80's and male collectors have been part of the collector community since day one - both queer and straight. Bronies really weren't anything new. All they did new was try to claim the community as theirs, act really obnoxious towards the original community in general, and make lots and lots AND LOTS of porn. You're right about the scoffing at men interested in anything deemed "girly" tho and I hate to say it but Bronies ABSOLUTELY did that too. They treated G3 like an abomination when it wasn't, it just was very feminine and they absolutely trashed it AND G1 for being aimed at little girls. MLP FiM isn't the first franchise a male audience gave a chance, it isn't even one of the first. There are male Jem fans. There are male G1 MLP fans. There certainly are male She-Ra (80's version) fans. There are male Sailor Moon fans. In fact, if we go into anime - there are a lot of straight male fans of very feminine girl focused shows. There are male Cabbage Patch Kids fans even. And they've always been there and they aren't all queer. I'm in my 50's, I watched it go from only acceptable in community/fandom spaces to something that men can be a little more open about. I dunno if Bronies helped that with the really bad legacy they left behind. It's stuff we MLP collectors still deal with: the idea that we must be perverts or into pony porn. Thanks Bronies! "But you never see a woman who openly enjoys something like Batman, and other women calling them GAY, usually the men call us FAKE or TRY HARD, but they never question our sexuality. " I was a tomboy into both things for girls and stuff for guys in the 80's and I sure did get called a lesbian and "un-ladylike" by other girls for preferring stuff like He-Man and Transformers for a while. When I did comics, Anime, Sci Fi, and AD&D in the 90's, it really wasn't a space welcoming of women and things were assumed of me for being there, especially when I turned down flirting and really didn't want to date anyone. It really wasn't that long ago that geekdom was a male dominated space, that only began to change in the 2000's.

[@unripetheberrby6283]

Yeah.. so right :(

[@moonbunny24]

This documentary also made me want to go to Bronycon sooooo bad as a kid. I remember getting into a debate with my brother on whether it would be cooler to go to Bronycon or Minecon. Which is maybe the most early 2010s argument anyone has ever had.

[@Mooms]

The beginning was extremely cursed DHDHFH

[@sheepgrass500]

Ngl when I watched it as a kid it made me embarrassed to like the show 😭

[@crys_cornflakez]

Same 😭💀

[@TheNobleSocietyofPuddingOwners]

So it basically did the opposite of what it was meant do? For fuck's sake. 🤦‍♂

[@millabasset1710]

It was cringe when I watched it in 2013 and it's still cringe over a decade later. I only appreciate it as a strange novelty and it serves as a time capsule for how the fandom was during its infancy. This was when season 2 started and 4chan threads were still growing, this was when Equestria Girls was in pre-production and when brony con didn't hit their peak attendance.

[@burgerdestroyer1000]

thats what i love about it honestly, its so cringe that once you lose enough shame to enjoy it without worry, you stop caring what other people think. mlp helped me stop caring, and learn to just be happy because i can be.

[@millabasset1710]

@@burgerdestroyer1000 I hope eventually we get the G4 characters back, G5 is so stale and boring and I hope Hasbro learns that. We had ANG which was a great movie and we got two mediocre tv shows from it.

[@burgerdestroyer1000]

@@millabasset1710 we can only hope. g5 had potential but unfortunately it was ruined especially with the shows that came out after the movie. (not saying the movie was any good in of itself :/)

[@joelhagdahl5769]

Freedom Planet username ^o^

[@millabasset1710]

@@joelhagdahl5769 can’t help it. I’m a big freedom planet fan.

[@RemViolet]

Maybe I'm just nostalgic, but I personally still like "The Brony Chronicles" I feel it had a lot of charm to it, and it really takes me back to when I was a kid and fascinated with the fandom. Just seeing how the fandom was back then. Also, it's just nice hearing a Saberspark who isn't scared to talk about how he was a brony, as if it's horrible. Man partially became the thing he disagreed with back in the doc. Still one of my favorite creators. I just find it sad how jaded he is with MLP now.

[@JamesP7]

Agree. They act like it was “embarrassing” to be a fan of the show, ironically parroting the exact same “i’m nOT GaY!” attitude. Except replace “gay” with “pedo/creep” and that’s basically the similar sentiment today. I’ve been a fan since the early years and just I can’t imagine abandoning something I’m passionate about just because people later negatively label it… I’m glad I’ve found some fresh blood in cartoon reactors watching MLP without vitriol such as Scoot and the Musician Reacts guy (can’t remember his name). Love seeing them treat the show with the respect that it gave to its audience from the very beginning, just with there were as many old-age bronies who felt the same way.

[@RavenStarMedia]

I will say that The Brony Chronicles had the best opening.

[@ThatGremlinBab]

Vividly remember finding this on Netflix as a 9-10 year old and becoming oddly obsessed with it, watching it on loop with the occasional Shrek the musical break

[@Starshineblaize]

I remember there was an era where it was common to post about one's "coming out" as a brony. I was a girl and thus left out of this but I felt the need to come out as a brony as well. People thought I was weird for watching a show made for kids and I suddenly realized there is like no reason for me to randomly "come out" that I watched a cartoon. Like, I always thought we shouldn't care what other people enjoyed watching but it doesn't mean I need to shine a spotlight on me and scream "I WATCH CARTOONS MADE FOR YOUNG CHILDREN" to everyone

[@kurodoodle4876]

This was around the time geek culture was becoming mainstream and people were coming out of their fandom shells. We don't see this nowadays because it's normalized to be into strange stuff. It's a relic of an old time, but an interesting one.

[@pemanilnoob]

I watched the show when I was the target age, but then when I grew up, I NEVER had a “cartoons are just for kids” phase, and honestly, I feel like everyone i know silently judge me for it. Which makes no sense. If they were ok with me liking cartoons as a kid, they should be ok with it now too.

[@fatcat1414]

The urge to 'come out' was because of the acceptability gap between liking cartoons and liking things like family sitcoms. "Coming out" would hypothetically be granting yourself the freedom to do things like wear merch in public without being embarrassed.

[@MrSilnev]

Holy shit, I remember there was a video of some kid coming out to his parents that he was a fan/brony and initially the parents are quite concerned but are instantly relieved when he says "brony", because as the father put it, he thought his son was coming out as being gay. I did think it was kind of ridiculous, that people felt the need to "come out" that they liked the horse show. I think it came from the mentality that we were "bronies and proud" and alot of the personalities/influencers would try to push back on the early stereotypes of the fandom, with a sort of "yeah I watch MLP, I'm a guy, what of it". Alot of videos are lost to time but look up mlp videos from 2011/2012 and you'll see what I mean.

[@OG.StrawberryGoat]

Oh man, I still have these documentaries downloaded to my external hard drive. I was in my "download everything" phase, so there's a crazy amount of mlp fan media on there. Every time one of these released, my friend group and I would just go feral about watching and reviewing it lol I'll set a little stage: It's a regular morning in highschool. Kids are waiting with friends for classes to start and teachers are preparing for the first wave of students. An unsuspecting substitute teacher opens the computer lab door to find a group of 7 teens commentating on "Meet the Bronies" playing from the overhead projector. One of them is taking notes on a white board of how many times each of the mane 6 is shown on screen. Another holds a paper fan to slap the guy who keeps saying "hoof bump" whenever someone on screen touches something. It's not a regular morning in highschool.

[@melasnexperience]

People have laughed at me for constantly saying that many modern fandoms feel less like "people who like the same piece of art" & more like cults, but the Brony doc feels like the Patient Zero in that phenomenon, right down to trying to brush off the darker sides of the fandom.

[@samanthahauser4362]

“Mr. 9/11” and his son went to my church. Very nice people. I remember when they were big into MLP and I didn’t get it. I talked to them about it a few times and watched the first few seasons.

[@DrNekobeard]

As someone who was a brony in high school during this time period I honestly just remember being kinda awful, especially when it came to 18+ content and how brazzen people would be with it. I do miss some of the aspects and the community as a whole but there were so many creepy dudes who were VERY homophobic for a show about friendship and kindness

[@thisisapictureofmydog.isnt9208]

The irony of bronies being gatekeepy and homophobic about the literal rainbow unicorn friendship show will forever be funny if not sad

[@Thrackerzod8]

I haven't been there, but sadly these type of creeps are still around, they kinda ruined the show for me. Insane to think such wholesome and well done media has these creeps enjoying it.

[@TheCommenterDragon]

Good thing it wasn't the Brony documentaries that exposed me to the fandom, For me it was the FIM series itself. And besides I've never bothered to watch the full documentary nope and I don't think I ever will I mean I've only ever seen clips of it, And that's good enough for me.

[@emigamer8459]

That intro was beautiful

[@EinerHaar14]

Why.is No body is talking about that Bahaha

[@cadoc7865]

that shedmov derpy toaster hat at 14:05 is batshit. a relic of the past

[@MouetteRoquefort]

in france a journalist made a ""documentary"" in like 2013 about bronies, and its like garbage its saying 90% of bronies clopping but its a sort of dark secret in the fandom and other things like that 😭

[@guyrocketram9698]

this video made me realize something. there are a lot of videos & stuff which are like "I SPENT A DAY WITH A FURRY???" or like "I WENT TO A FURRY CONVENTION????" & i always thought they were odd & otherizing even if people would post them & talk about them as being perfectly in good taste, because to me the idea of suggesting that furries were somehow different enough from a "normal" person & needed to be analyzed was odd. i'm not a furry, but like i have multiple friends who are & its such a small part of them, i really don't see it as different from any other fandom. to an extent even though i'm not a furry i understand the sub culture to the extent i don't otherize them, so to me these videos from an outsider's perspective feel weird & pointless, but not everyone is like me. these videos make furries out to be weird eccentric people on the surface because thats how they feel to outsiders who might want to otherize or be needlesly mean to furries. these videos catch their eye & since its going in with an outsider's POV its showing them how furries are in fact normal people at the end of the day. the first brony doc didn't do that & as a result arguably worsened the view of bronies to the ousiders who watched it.

[@satsuke]

On the "But I'm not gay" bit at the end, that is something that i am thankful has changed significantly since the show started. e.g. for all of my life, being called gay was among the highest insults a man could have lobbed at him .. more so than even rape or criminality. At least in the last few years among folks under 30, the sentiment has been more "so what" than anything else ,. at least in progressive circles. Can't speak for bigots as I don't keep the company of them. Which is good even in a MLP fandom sense as the early years were indeed very "bro" heavy in the fandom. At least between stuff revolving around 4chan in some circles, the abuse I suffered at bronycon as a transwoman early on and just the general undercurrent of dudes let loose from the frathouse while in Baltimare.

[@lemonov3031]

50%

[@BloomPawzzz]

@@lemonov3031 If you're gonna be transphobic, at least do research first so you get your statistics right. Btw, those statistics are about trans people who can't transition and/or are not supported socially. The percentage is WAY lower when we're allowed to have happy lives :3

[@lemonov3031]

@@BloomPawzzz ywnbaw

[@BloomPawzzz]

@@lemonov3031 Thank you, I'm actually nonbinary so I appreciate that

[@MotionlessInWes]

The opening is so funny it actually feels like something you would see in one of these.

[@RagnorokKing]

I feel it is important to point out how until shockingly recently, being closetedly gay was often seen as being "interested" in minors and that underlying homophobia along with the fact the show was targeted at children led to a lot of the online community being labeled as p#$ophiles, whixh could go a long way to explaing the staunch denile of being gay. Not to excuse it, just something i remember from being a fan back then that a lot of people don't ever seem to touch on.

[@PaleoSteno]

Early 2010s was a weird time

[@darksantos1]

It was kind of glorious in a weird way. A lot of my favorite youtubers and streamers come from the fandom. It was unexpected but great.

[@darkron288]

The documentry really loves those rose tinted glasses,beccause it seems to only to talk about all the "good" things bronies have done, however considering all the harassment and grooming bronies have done i feel like portraying the entire fanbase as nice people is harmful

[@galaxxisdionysus7149]

To be fair, while the problem is extremely prevalent in the Brony fandom, that is a problem for alooot of other fandoms, especially child media focused ones. But i fully agree that the documentary should've mentioned a lot of the problems the fandom had, like the immense amount of bigotry for multiple minorities, it's start on 4chan, etc etc You can have a positive documentary and still mention its issues and concerns

[@juliangandara9552]

I think they wanted to show that not every bronie Is a creepy social reject, but It seems they didn't do It well

[@jor8025]

Name a fandom that doesn't have a groomer problem, you can't, welcome to the internet.

[@WeirdTale]

Not necessarily. The groomers in the Brony community where groomers before the Fandom was widespread and before MLP Generation 4 was a thing. They are a disgrace and often are not tolerated the second they are found out and at least among my fellow Bronies in the Fimfiction forums we report them and point the cops in their general direction with extreme prejudice. Cartoons are a big part of Americana and animation is beloved world wide. Letting anyone use the cartoons we make for our kids and the fan-clubs that aspiring creators form out of admiration be used as a hunting ground for children is something I cannot ever allow.

[@WeirdTale]

@@jor8025 Exactly. Unfortunately.

[@skincrawlz]

when i was 9, i met dustykatt at a con in milwaukee (chaperoned ofc) bro got down on his knees and was incredibly kind since i was so shy. he gifted me his trading card from twilight’s secret shipfic folder tcg and i still have it lol. bronies were super kind back in the day.

[@DonovanMcGrath7]

I still see him at about every mlp con I go to. He's one of the golden ones

[@JamSparing]

I mean, yes, I get that it sounds a bit like 'We aren't like, GAY you know how yucky!' but I do also think that it's a lot of people assuming that one HAS to be gay to like ponies. Which is like, a big problem (or at least was back then). I mean, I'm gay and I do like funny lil horseys, but it does feel like if you admit you like toys at all, especially those for girls, you get 'gay' used as an insult. Arguably, some bronies were really overshooting it a bit - in an attempt to make it clearer to people who aren't in the group that it's not all weird... well, you know. IYKYK. - in an attempt to do that they just make it weird again. Like 'GUYS I AM NOT WEIRD!!! while grabbing people by the shoulders and shaking them.

[@ArbitraryOutcome]

And then that becomes so funny now that most MLP fans I see now tend to be gay and/or trans.

[@JamSparing]

@@ArbitraryOutcome You are not gonna believe what I identify as

[@cactoyote]

I exist within the furry fandom more but the similarity between all of these and the furry docs are funny af

[@Pinknarf95]

There's a joke here about how a lot of bronies insisting they weren't gay were indeed correct, and they actually ended up being lesbian trans women later in life, but I can't figure it out. (Also oh my God I didn't know there were THREE documentaries? I knew there were two, but THREE?)

[@pemanilnoob]

Well I know of one person who was on bronies react who i “thought looked like a girl” but called themself a man or guy, and then when i went into their channel after recognising their voice and stuff I saw “she/her” on her profile, so thats at least one for the count

[@TheDickmaster]

​@@pemanilnooboh viva reverie right?

[@duvalie7732]

I adored and still adore My Little Pony and the fandom. I became acquainted with the fandom after reading the fanfic Anthropology, and I watched the show itself for the first time in 2015 when I was at school. I watched it and immediately fell in love with it and all the characters. In my opinion, they were well-developed and even alive, as if you wanted to get to them and communicate with them. I know it’s strange, but that’s how I felt the first time I watched it. I hope the fandom survives and continues to live, even after the end of the series.

[@Przygody_Klika]

Oh the clasic catchphrase "It's brony don't question it".

[@Tairafan]

12:51 he attended a brony convention last year. I saw him. I wouldn't call that former

[@DonovanMcGrath7]

Yee he still goes to cons and does bronies react whenever there's a new one. He just is more involved with his youtube channel than th brony fandom than he used to be

[@Lionkingview]

I am honestly considering doing a video about the bizarre history of people going "no homo" throughout the history of post world war 2 media. Cause there is so much to cover. You got the Mccarthy era and then stonewall, the aids pandemic, seinfeld, the 2000s internet , the legelization of gay marriage and so on. Throughout all these decades did the context of "I'm not gay" change considerably. There is this old youtube video of two guys lip syncing to "The Gay Barbie Song" and at the end of the credits they included this little blurp that simply said "we're not actually gay" . It felt so silly that I had to consider what made them do that in the first place.

[@saintsea-hat7891]

0:10 did they turn him into a lincolnlooker?

[@sillybillybear50]

I’m genuinely curious how a Brony documentary would go these days, now that being a Brony isn’t as big as it used to be (and a lot of the fanbase is now prominently queer, trans, and ND AF)

[@Birdsflight44]

I'd really want it to be compared/contrasted to other fandoms. Especially to the furries, the trekkies, and the Xena fans. I feel like bronies have the art culture of the furries, the lore/geberation stuff of the trekkies, and have been developing the ambiguously queer/neurodivergent safe haven (and continued insistence on in-person events) of the Xena folks

[@crpony]

Thanks for mentioning SoCal Bronies meetups. We are still going and I have been hosting some meetups. Great video.

[@DonovanMcGrath7]

Nice! I'm part of the Sacramento Bronies meetup group, so it's good to know there's both socal bronies and norcal (sacramento) bronies

[@Casterisks]

Okay, so this is how I find out SABER FUCKING SPARK was a brony back in the day???

[@TheKrisMaster4]

Oh he was one of the iconic brony personalities

[@Thrackerzod8]

Just go to any 2012-2013 famous mlp video and you will see a Saberspark comment there lol

[@SpoopySquid]

This doesn't help all the "closet furry" accusations lol

[@gooeydude574]

Makes sense actually

[@doom9564]

Shunks really just went "it's shunksing time" and shunksed all over the place

[@TheDanishGuyReviews]

Ah, Morbin' time hasn't died yet, I see. How vile. ^_^

[@AppleStrife]

This just unlocked a childhood memory of mine lmao😭 i remember watching this when i wad SUPER into mlp and wishing i could go to one of these conventions so badly😓

[@SumnerGeek]

My stepdad actually found the brony documentary when looking for something on cable TV and he recorded for me and I liked it then a year later I attended BronyCon in 2014 my first convention. After that I saw the Brony Tale doc on Netflix and watched it after learning about at that same BronyCon I attended.

[@George_vv]

I'm so glad the phrase "Mother bearing hips" is catching on in one way or another.

[@screwed_up_screwball]

Where did it come from? I know it from Cory or Spazkid from Oneyplays but he's a blubbering buffoon of a boy that constantly spouts that kind of nonsense

[@moonman2183]

11:05 The sun being replaced by the clopper who called his Dad up was a very nice touch, had me cracking up

[@bwrp10]

It's clear 9/11 caused MLP gen 4. Idk how you could miss that.

[@baphometbby]

oh it was always overrun with... that kind of art. from the beginning

[@boocatjones7116]

Still manifesting an Mlp theory retrospective video Also great video as always lol

[@MillieZone]

The only one I've seen is the first one, which I watched as a teen back in 2014. I'm a fan who got into MLP through G3 and G1, was a HUGE fan of MLP tales. I HAAATE the lines the song has about the older gens! Those were my childhood ponies!! It acts like they were all flops with no fans, when in reality there were a bunch of dedicated fan sites, fan art and customs in the late 90s/early 2000s. THOSE fan sites were my introduction to MLP fandom before MLP:FiM even existed! And yeah, the lack of representation for female fans also annoyed me when I watched it as a teen girl. It still made me want to go to Bronycon, but I had some gripes, lol!

[@thisisapictureofmydog.isnt9208]

The way the straight male “bronies” reacted to older gens in general is so frustrating.

[@kimberlycolors7807]

I wrote an essay for one of my high school English class on Bronies… I remember using these documentaries as some of my main sources…

[@snortobortoowo]

This doc came out when I was 13, and I loved it because of how it essentially sanitized the fandom. It made us look good, and non threatening to outsiders. Idk, I remember always justifying my prolonged interest in mlp by insisting that because men liked it, it was like, worthy, quality media. Even though I was literally THE target audience for the show, I had too much internalized misogyny to allow myself to like it without the validation of the brony fandom. As I got older I definitely separated myself from the label of "brony" and shifted my main fandom aspirations to furry shit, but I never missed a Saturday morning daily motion upload of the latest episode. At the time, this doc was a HUGE deal though, and I also have an overwhelming amount of nostalgia for that era of the fandom. Also, yeah the queerphobia back then was weird. We were all SO closeted back then. It's literally just like that stupid meme. If you were a brony in 2012, now you're either gay or a nazi lmaoooo

[@darksantos1]

Dude I didn't plan for ponies to be the main thing to happen to me in my 20s. College is cool and new job is awesome same as career, but pony is what I tend to look back at. Its not something I was planning to do for so long, but it kind of ended up being that way. Life is a funny thing.

[@FuzzyDuga]

As a fellow Brony I didn't watch the video because of how they mentioned clopping in almost the wierdest way possible, seeing clips online of it. Instead i shifted to other documentaries and watched them to show my friends so they can aswell can understand, wish I could remember which specific one it was. Great video! Explains alot of how it's good and bad in it's own ways. It didn't really age well but it can feel nostalgic to many people, i didn't know they had big Brony creators from back then and still now, very cool.

[@CrazyGreenFluff]

i've been a brony since i joined the fandom in 2013, when i was 13 years old! i remember watching the brony documentary! i think i've watched the saberspark one as well, because im a fan of his videos! i keep forgetting that saberspark started out with brony videos, but that would explain how i started watching him, and i have been a fan of him even since back then! god, i love the brony fandom, i wish we weren't a dying breed, modern mlp fans are sorta weird with how much they hate on us :0

[@isleep396]

I’m so glad this wasn’t my first exposure to the fandom

[@TheJrockfreak]

I had no idea any of these documentaries existed before this video lol I did watch that first documentary and as someone who isn't a Brony I thought it was fine for what it was and I did like the bronies that made music around the show.

[@fogsfunhouse]

queen shunks im so glad to see your channel growing

[@mcalladin5314]

1:36 that's my favorite part of the Bible, when jesus said "oh there's going to be people dressed like horses"

[@fardf150]

i saw that bronies doc on netflix back when i was a kid and idek why i watched it 😭 i was still a girl and not online at the time so i had no idea what any of it was abt. my whole family thought it was weird but i just liked the animated bits. the only part i can really remember now is this dude talking abt how his gf got him into it and the part abt the military guy.

[@theinternetfrog930]

Being on the internet in the early 2010s, 2012 especially, was a very fun time, but I do remember that whole being gay is horrible thing back then, especially with a lot of people calling stuff gay as an insult, that was so popular!

[@tster]

Maybe it's cause I'm older, but the "not gay" thing was pushed back cause at the time mainstream media only major talking point was "bronie equal gay." Might not seem like it, but at that time, it was still heavily looked down on. 10 + years can make hell of a lot of difference

[@LynxTheUnrelated]

How interesting! From someone's point of view who casually (and secretly) liked the show as a kid, but never got invested enough to end up in the fandom; this video and the documentaries featured in it really show how closely the brony and furry fadom's treatment by the media paralleled one another. Seeing the conventions and early rougher documentaries trying to bring the fandoms to a better light is the icing on top. Though regarding that our fandom did manage to eventually make like the perfect documentary for that purpose, so if the brony fandom hasn't made one yet I believe in them producing a good documentary for their lovely sub-culture. Best wishes from a person in the furry fandom~ (Also sorry if the comment just sounded like a bunch of yapping, sorry i'm just like this lol)

[@sweethearth-d9349]

There could've been an interesting opportunity to add depth to the documentary if the creators behind it considered the fandom's harmful behavior being expressed in a unique way and/or motivated differently due to the connections it had with various of bronies' behavior being tied to their perspectives as adults, someone on/influenced by 4chan, and men. Of course for that to be possible, the people behind the documentary would need to consider a discussion about the fandom's faults, which is clear the documentary purposely avoided that. I also get people saying that talking about the common occurrence of grooming and harassment in the mlp fandom didn't have to be a priority in the documentary because it is normal in fandoms, although i would say that some harmful issues that mlp fandoms that are commonly in other fandoms are worth discussing as they are motivated differently, due to the background behind bronies (again, their behavior being influenced by their perspectives devloped from being an adult, on 4chan and being men)

[@spaceravine8751]

I find these kinds of vids so interesting as someone who, pretty much most of my life, has gone out of their way to NOT interact with any fandom 💀ive grown to be misanthropic in recent years, but even when i was younger, fandoms were always iffy to me. i loved certain things like mlp, warriorcats, furry art, etc. but i always just wanted to enjoy those things for myself. anytime i talked to other people who also enjoyed those things, somehow there always ended up being some bullshit to deal with in the community. but that's just how communities work i guess. wherever there's people, there's bullshit. well- on a positive note- this vid popping up in my rec reminded me that i have an mlp au story to finish 🙃

[@GSludgeTV]

NEW SHUNKS LETS GO

[@choochoo-hullabaloo6130]

“my name is doof- you’ll do what i say - WOO WOO” that part KILLED ME 9:08

[@mc.gemstone]

I remember watching that MLP documentary back in the day and didn't really see anything wrong with it but hey I was young back then and very convinced by the whole thing. I feel like something like this can be done so much better its heart is in the right place but over time it just hasn't aged all that well. But hey it did get me more into documentaries more so there is that. The other two are a little bit better for the most part and I do remember showing my aunt the documentary done by Saber and we both enjoy it for what it was at the time.

[@JamesP7]

Only one I ever saw was Alex Side reacting to the Saberspark documentary. I don’t see any issues with it, besides it making me sad how many of those creators have left and acted like the fandom was awful or something when it wasn’t. You could ask TLT about MLP stuff and he’s be like “who?”. Hate people who abandon what they enjoy just because it’s no longer profitable/socially acceptable to enjoy/partake in it.

[@JasmineBrowneyes]

Man I vaguely remember watching and participating on a random livestream (Livestream the website) where a group of bronies were streaming episodes of the show leading up to the season 2/3 premiere. No one was being weird, we were all just making quips and just chilling. I was just making dumb references to Asdfmovie. Fun fact: Legends of Equestria is still up. One of their servers is going to sunset though due to low player counts.

[@screwed_up_screwball]

3:38 MOTHER BEARING HIPS SHUNKS THAT'S NOT WHAT THEY'RE CALLED

[@revelare_xvii6269]

Dumbsville is the reason I know this “documentary” exists.

[@Rapunzelpumpkin]

YAYY!! I love your vids

[@Kuudiwad]

I am in the documentary for like a fraction of a second in the crowd of the German Bronycon✨👌

[@caitlinabbott7895]

12:51 "Saberspark" Oh, yeah, I watch that guy

[@Ghostfoxkori]

Some “psychologists” don't deserve their psychologist status

[@GunnarClovis]

I didn't care for the Bronies doc as a kid, but I really liked Ashleigh Ball's "A Brony Tale", which I saw at a special screening in a Seattle theatre (with my mother), which was quite embarrassing but I still remember it being good. I haven't been able to rewatch either doc in many years now due to them not being on any streaming service I've had. It's well and high time I face the high tide and sail onto the high seas...

[@mammamiawhygod2091]

that intro tho

[@Technilogica2019]

oh yo i sorta vaguely remember watching "the brony chronicles" i don't feel like "bronies" had any malicious intent, part of me wonders if it was intended to have the same cheesy vibe that seasons 1 and 2 had, but i still think it's definitely a product of its time like not intentionally homophobic, a lot of them not immediately equating being gay to being morally wrong (that one guy saying "smart heterosexual men" definitely put up a red flag, but a lot of the bronies themselves i feel like weren't very likely coming at it with that same lense) its not much improved nowadays, especially for me since i live in the southern US, but in that time it could potentially be dangerous to be outed as queer, which is part of why i feel like people were so defensive, it was a matter of actual safety since if their parents thought they might have been gay, they could be kicked out or face abuse. even still, there's people even just in my own group of friends that can't be out to their parents as a matter of safety, even now in 2024, for those very same reasons. (and having met some of their parents since we used to do theatre together, i can confirm that would NOT be safe, one of them is a raging alcoholic) i don't really know what the outcome would be, but i also can't safely be out to anyone in my family _except_ my parents and an aunt on my mom's side (extended family, super close friend of hers from hs who also stayed in the area) so if i was a macho masculine man in 2010 in contact with all my family, and i happened to become a fan of my little pony, i would kinda HAVE to get defensive for my own safety though i do think it says a lot how times have changed since then to the point a lot of people just don't really think about that, potential abuse for being queer wouldn't really cross a lot of people's minds, still got a long ways to go especially Down Yonder Yeehaw but idk, it's comforting to be like "oh dang where we are now is nowhere near the same as back then" lol tldr us _Queers_ were MUCH more of a punching bag a decade ago than we are now, but bc of that we now have the privilege of looking back and not even considering that "IM NOT GAY" was actually a matter of not getting beat, kicked out, or thrown in a camp

[@MsMvsc]

6:53 they prob didn't focus on him bc he's a huge r34 artist lol

[@vval-px9ju]

I only saw the ‘let’s go and meet the bronies’ video n never the documentary itself. Further exposure to that side of things were the anthologies and brony reacts

[@jimjordy3019]

COMMON SHUNKS BANGER! I wonder how John feels about the fact that a lot of kids we’re first exposed to him being a chaos noodle for hasbro money. I’ve been watch a lot of seasons 8 and 9 recently and you can really hear his enthusiasm for putting up with pony garbage die, while still delivering a fantastic performance. True testament to the performance, they should kidnap him and force him to do season 5 work

[@cinnabunz1532]

I remember watching this for a little bit as a kid for like 5 minutes before getting bored and doing something else. I liked that one animated music video by Jan animations though

[@beaucoupspaceship2349]

I actually loved this show and I even showed it to my friends and they "eventually" gave it a go and loved it too. I didn't really talk to other people before that. Not a lot of people understand it. And that's okay.

[@Pretzel_draws]

3:44 the way I had to pause the video and just think about my life.

[@orangejuice1988]

i am so glad someone else felt weirdly validated by the first doc. i remember watching it and being like “omg im so glad im in this community”. I was about ready to wave my lunar empire flag/ blast Proud to be a brony/ idk some other early fandom reference. even though i was literally the exact target audience of mlp at the time lol

[@AlternativeSack123]

The whole gay aspect of it was well intentioned at the time I just think they didn’t stop to consider how it would come across to someone who was actually gay. The point they kept trying to stress is that it’s silly to enforce these strict gender expectations and men can enjoy traditionally “girly” things just as women can enjoy traditionally “masculine” things. It was a very outdated mentality and the whole brony phenomenon did kinda challenge it, they just should have thought it through a bit more and not alienated their gay audience. Also fun fact, I’m pretty sure Ashleigh Ball’s documentary was actually filmed before the John de Lancie one. The convention she ends up going to is the second ever Bronycon which happened in like December 2011 or January 2012, a few months before the big Bronycon.

[@oilking-bo3gt]

0:22 why bro why 😢😢😢😢 I dont know if i am a fan of the new Animation

[@bethanysingsmrs849]

I just find it really weird how in order for a bunch of men to like a cartoon targetted towards little girls, they had to make it edgy and masculine. Like why cant they just learn to enjoy feminine shows without making it all marvel humor, edgy and masculine. There is nothing wrong with femininity, there is nothing wrong with grown men enjoying a feminine show. But like jenny nicholson said, they basically took over the fandom and you had new episodes starting to cater more to these adult men rather than the original audience. I still enjoyed mlp all the seasons. But, its like women can enjoy shows targetted towards men and no woman takes over the fanbase, like a girl can enjoy marvel shows, and she can enjoy star trek ect. None of theese shows try to make things more feminine for the girl. And its seen as cool for a woman to like a masculine show. But its seen as weird when a man likes a feminine show so then they overcompensate by making the show as meme 4-chan worthy as possible. Its just misogyny at the end of the day.

[@Thrackerzod8]

I feel like some people in the fandom ended up forgetting how the characters were in the show because of the many shit the fandom did in the early 2010s, when they think of Mlp it's only about the 4chan memes or some old youtube videos.

[@forgettablename6436]

I'm so glad I see a lot less hate for queer content and creators in the fandom these days. I swear to god the amount of homophobia and transphobia was *insane* and this documentary did *not* help me much as a kid trying to figure out his sexuality growing up lol. I remember watching this documentary as a kid, thinking it was super cool, then rewatching it a year or two later and felt embarrassed to like the show lmao.

[@can-of-pringles]

I remember watching the brony documentary as a little kid, but I honestly didn't remember much from it

[@carlosfromearth]

@shunks You brought me so back to the good ol’ Brony days. I ran a convention in Sacramento to named Sac Brony Expo and I wanted to know if you’d like to set up an interview of sorts where we can dive into what the landscape was of being a Brony in the height of it? If you’re down, let me know! Being able to talk to someone about the olden days would be great!

[@FreckleShark]

7:53 today it’d be Content Creators (not just artists), politically incorrect mare enthusiasts (those folks who really like anonfilly and guns) and people who want G4 back 😂

[@drypenny3561]

Wait Ashley's theme from WarioWare is in this video so you're also a WarioWare fan along with MLP? Also if so have you played Gold, Get It Together, and Move It?

[@hammahsamich]

me when i have that exact same derpy is best pony shirt

[@Sheepy765.]

My dad showed me this when I was little and I didn't know what to think of it at the time. Fast forward to however many years later and I still don't know what to think of it, I'm a fan of FiM but I've kind of shied away from the brony community so maybe the docs contributed to that.

[@fllowerknight]

8:31 is that trisha paytas and social repose

[@dvoremay6683]

Honestly, I loved this when it came out, but I always viewed it from a Fandom perspective. I never really thought much about how it was like an officially produced doc and not just a thing made by bronies doing a thing.