#nethesem-writes

How To Come Out As A Brony

Don’t come out as a brony.

I understand the appeal of wanting to “come out” as a brony - you like a thing, and you know it’ll get your some strange looks, so you want to simply get it out there and established so you can get on with being a brony without people asking what you’re doing.

But really it just makes it look weirder than ever, and is more likely to generate flak because you’re making a big deal of it, as if it’s your destiny or something.

Sure, Brony can be a big part of someone’s life, the big appeal is the identity and liberation being part of a fandom brings, but ultimately, it’s not a religion or way of life.

So what do you do instead?

Just brony on. By that I mean, post what you want, reblog what you want, etc etc. If you see a cool pony picture, go ahead and post it. If you’re feeling self conscious about it, provide context - so add a comment saying “This art style is beautiful” or “This is sickeningly adorable!” to draw attention to the art itself, rather than the subject.

Tumblr is fairly easy, because people know about fandoms, but I wanted to do this on facebook, where the majority of my friends list were unfamiliar with fandoms and memes, and would be like “wtf man?”

To solve this I brought it in slowly, like, over the course of a year. I posted my favourite music that was very accessible to non-pony fans (so original, not remixes) and other visually impressive work, scenes from conventions showing a lot of people having a good time help a lot too.

I kept these posts infrequent, maybe one a week tops, and then built it up by posting artwork I liked and talking about other aspects of fandoms. Having some internet buddies on Facebook to provide comments helped a lot too, so people could see it wasn’t just me.

If people ask, keep the explanations simple. It’s one of the cartoons I like. It’s got a big internet following, and they make loads of amazing art and music. There’s a big community for shows like this.

Don’t try and explain the psychology and romantic aspects of the fandom - they probably won’t get it, unless you’re a master wordsmith.

So here’s the thing, Fandoms are both good and bad for the creative.

Anyone can join a fandom, and if you make content that oriented toward said fandom, you instantly have a relatively large and very targeted audience.

This is great for creatives - especially when you’re starting out. While you should always create for yourself first and foremost, having an audience to cheer you on can still be a massive help.

But the fandom is fickle. They’re with you so long as you’re producing what they want. And the fame you gain inside a fandom is more or less useless outside of the fandom.

So from this perspective, the fandom is also a trap for the creative.

As far as I can see, the best use of a fandom is to use your time there as a practise run to hone your skills. Enjoy your time. Enjoy the audience.

But if anything, consider it the Alpha-phase of your creative career - You may well need to wipe the slate clean to start a career for real, or at least be prepared to separate from your fandom work.

So I got into an argument earlier today with some people using Autism as a slur, the conversation host had straight up asked them not to, and they brushed it off.

So when I straight up told them to stop being twats etc, they were like STOP BEING OFFENDED SO EASILY YOU CAN'T HAVE PEOPLE HOLD YOUR HAND WORDS HAVE MORE THAN ONE MEANING BLAH BLAH BLAH

And I'm like "Oh wow, so here I am on the other side of the fence..."

And then I thought; Actually no... Autism doesn't have multiple meanings, any additional meaning you're referring to is entirely your own invention and not backed up by a dictionary - so no, it doesn't have multiple meanings. And someone in the room, specifically the conversation host, has asked you not to use the word in that context.

Quite frankly, I don't care when people use Autism as a slur, because I'm listening for context, rather than words - although I will specifically state that I don't like it. However, in private chat rooms where the humour is bluer and there are no holds barred, I see it a lot.

But what rubbed me the wrong way here is that after being specifically asked not to use the term as a slur, they completely ignored the request.

That's it buddy. Now you're being an asshole. The language you use amongst your friends is none of my concern, and if I waltzed into your space and told you to watch your mouth, you'd be quite within your rights to tell me to go fornicate a cactus.

But we're not in your space. We're in, at least neutral space, if not someone else's space. And that means that to be a decent human being, when someone says "Can you tone it down please?" it literally costs you nothing to say "Sorry dude, didn't mean offence."

When you're back home, you can talk however you like. But in the presence of less familiar people, civility costs nothing.

I partake in a fair bit of the things that define a bony; I watch the show, I engage in the community and attend meets, among others. Why is it then, that I don't like identifying with the term and moreso, what should I call myself?

I mean maybe it's possibly down to negative stigma and a lack of self esteem that sees me avoid the label as a defence from being 'dragged' with whatever has given the negative connotation, but then I ask, what do I do now? What can I do?

I'm questioning whether I'm really a brony now. Sometimes I look at things others do. I see them happy and excited, and sometimes I think "you do that. You have your fun, enjoy yourself" because as you said in a video before, the fandom attracts those who haven't found an outlet to share their passion and interest. I was one of these, but I now find myself shying away from these things, like a 3rd party embarrassment. Things that people might see as tame, I see as a bit too 'out there'.

Am I losing the spark of the fandom? Or have I just moved with(in) the fandom to a more relaxed scene, but with huge doses of criticism and that-other-word-that-begins-with-C? I'm a bit lost.

Okay number 1:

There is no obligation to call yourself / identify as a brony.

Identifying with a label has nothing to do with being a fan / being interested in something. You don't have to call yourself anything at all, or you can sometimes be a brony depending on what mood you're in.

Dodging negative stigma is focusing on the negative... and the thing is that there's negativity everywhere, so if you let that rule you, it's not a fight you're going to win. I know it's easier said than done, but clearing your mind of negativity and focusing on positive things is ultimately the solution this. It also leads to a greater sense of self-esteem, which leads to confidence.

I think your problem might be that you're looking for an absolute.

You want to say definitively "I'm in" or "I'm out".

As I've said before, you don't have to like / accept all parts of a fandom. You can see cute art and be like "I am ALL ABOUT these adorable miniature pastel equines." And at the same time you can be like "That tabloid news article we all know about but will not mention is FUBAR and I've got no association with that dude, fandom or not."

To use a tech analogy, I use an Apple MacBook Pro for my productivity workstation. Automatically it's assumed I'm an Apple Fanboy.

Hell naww. I like working in OS X, and I love my MacBook, but Apple have got plenty of things wrong. There's stuff that's wrong with this laptop. There's parts of it I don't like.

But I'm still allowed to like and enjoy using my MacBook.

Stop looking for absolutes and learn to balance, and take in moderation, and suddenly everything becomes a lot easier...

Okay bear with me here, because I'm sure that baiting title has triggered a sharp intake of breath. Your hands are already curved over into claws, prepared to issue an angry retort at full speed, with all the fervour of a retiree writing a letter of complaint to the local paper about the kids playing football right outside your house.

So hold up for a moment... let's think about this. There's a lot of competition and fighting between fandoms, weeaboos, geeks, sports nerds, all the rest of it... but really, we're all the same. We all exhibit the same behaviour...

A lot of posts I see are often complaining that bronies take all this flak for liking a little girl's show while guys are enjoying girly anime like Sailor Moon without so much as a second glance.

Well firstly, those guys liking anime do take flak for it, but they're very distributed, make them a difficulty target – while the bronies band together, making them both a closer community, but also a larger and easier target.

But the other thing is a Western Cartoon / Japanese Culture divide...

You say to an average western person you're into anime and they think;

"Oh that's that japanese thing... yea I don't know what that is, never seen it, and not going to... so whatever."

You say you're into MLP – that's a western cartoon. And they know exactly what it is. So misunderstanding or not, they react accordingly.

My Little Pony is also quite specific... You want to tell someone you like Sailor Moon and Card Captor Sakura, you just say you like anime... job pretty much done, despite how absurdly broad the term 'anime' is.

But you want to tell someone you're a brony, saying you "like cartoons" doesn't really cut it... because we know "cartoon" is incredibly broad.

So we say My Little Pony and it sounds weirdly specific and deliberate, like that's the only thing in the world we like.

Super important one today.

In solidarity with Bronies against Bullshit's sisterpost~