We are living in the goddamned end times. I just know it. I’m not too religious, but the prophecies of the Book of Revelation are everywhere. The sun is scorching the Earth. Justin Bieber is the Antichrist. Miley Cyrus is the Whore of Babylon. But where are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, you ask? Well, sometimes things get lost in translation.
Because they’re really PONIES.
Can you sprinkle a turd with pixie dust and call it a movement? Bronies seem to think so. If you haven’t heard the term, get caught up. But the quick and dirty is this: My Little Pony are toys made by Hasbro since the 1980’s. I had them. They were cute and they smelled like plastic birthday cake. In 2010, Hasbro introduced a new generation of the toys and as a handy marketing tie-in, a show called My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Hasbro has a long history of this. GI Joe. The Transformers. Jem and the Holograms. Insipid little cartoons that were basically 20 minute commercials for their products. But this show found an unlikely legion of fans: adult males in their early to mid-20s. Hence, Bronies.
This weekend I watched a documentary on Netflix, Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony. The film is fan produced, so it’s very pro-Brony and total clopaganda. I augmented my findings with some online research. I’m now sure of two things.
One: I may never have sex again. These bronies have killed my lady boner. The more I learn, the more my vagina gets very sad. She is now in full mourning and will only wear black panties. Even looking at pictures of Ryan Gosling could not coax her out of hiding.
Two: This is not hipster irony. Or even your average creepily virginal fandom. This is, 100%, a religious movement that is growing at an alarming rate. We MUST corral this herd of idiots before it’s too late.
In an informal survey, as many as 12 million Americans identify as Bronies. To put that in perspective, there are only 10 million Scientologists WORLDWIDE. These ponyboys have a MASSIVE online presence, attend conventions, and spread their message of Magical Friendship. They even have their own lexicon. “Everybody” becomes “everypony”. A fist bump is a Bro-hoof. And their tagline? I’m gonna tolerate and love the shit out of you.
Well, hay, Nicki, that doesn’t sound so bad, does it? I mean lots of parents and even psychologists think the Brony message is a good one. It’s better than all that violent video gaming isn’t it? Better than looking at porn all day?
Do not google My Little Pony Rule 34.
OK, are you back? After your eyeballs finish rupturing, let’s continue. It would behoof you to listen next time. Sure, the porny ponies make up a small part of the fandom, along with the furries and the boys who wear tails that don’t require glue. Psychologists are quick to point out that the vast majority of bronies are white, heterosexual, college-educated males. Some have gone so far as to praise the Bronies for ushering in a new era of masculinity. Some call it the New Sincerity Movement.
Is this supposed to make me feel better? Look, my dismay has nothing to do with worrying about pedophiles living in their parents’ basements. I am really fucking FREAKED OUT that the hope of our collective future is spending their time making cupcake memes and farting rainbows and deluding themselves into thinking that it’s somehow relevant. I’m not having a knee-jerk reaction to gender bending, I’m having a visceral reaction to the utter pointlessness of it all.
And this is not revolutionary gender-bending either. Shit, David Bowie did it 30 years ago with a lot more swagger. At least Ziggy Stardust got laid. And if we’re going to start relaxing gender roles, can we at least start somewhere more significant? Like maybe we can stop calling God “Him”?
And what about this universal love? Are you seriously trying to tell me that we should love everyone, no matter what? “Hey Hitler, are you going to BronyCon?” That’s a terrible message! That’s why the stupid show is marketed to kids in the first place. By the time we reach middle school, most of us realize that the world is filled with assholes and the last thing they deserve is a fucking hug. This is a vapid philosophy devoid of logic.
That’s my problem. This is not….ANYTHING. There is a vast whistling emptiness at the heart of youth culture today. Some say things like Bronyism are a natural response to post-911 America. Some have compared them to hippies during the Vietnam War.
Hand me a beer, ya’ll, because my head is going to explode.
Hippies were fighting against something. Hippies were pushing back against authority. Hippies were trying to build a less materialistic, more free and open culture. Who really benefits from the Brony movement?
Fucking HASBRO, that’s who.
Let’s take a look at this beneficent company, shall we? It’s the largest toy company in the world. Nearly all of their production has been outsourced to East Asia, in factories they neither control nor oversee. We all know how that goes. They decimated ancient Indonesian forests for their packaging until Greenpeace jumped their shit. The state of Rhode Island gave them 1.6 million dollars to create more jobs, and instead they cut 10% of salaried employees. Meanwhile, CEO Brian Goldner just renewed his contract for an obscene amount of cash.
I mean, c’mon. This is the company that thought lawn darts were a good idea. This is the company that still packages Easy Bake Ovens in pink boxes and markets them exclusively to girls.
So while these manchildren are spreading their message of friendship and inclusion, they are sacrificing their gifts on the altar of corporate greed, and urging consumer culture ever onward and upward. Blow me, Bronies.
This is the endgame of twenty years of drugging our kids with Ritalin and food additives. Search Bronies on Youtube. Look at their pasty, living-in-captivity faces. Their doughy, hyperactive bodies. Their vacant eyes. Their utter soullessness.
And nobody wants to say anything bad. Parents don’t want to be anything but accepting nowadays. Nobody wants the kids feeling bad about themselves. But guess what, feeling bad about yourself is not necessarily a bad thing if you are doing something profoundly stupid.
Trust me, I know. I felt bad about myself for twenty years, and then I grew up.
Grow up, Bronies.
Grow. The. Fuck. Up.
Go outside. Have sex with a girl, or a guy. Make some art that isn’t derivative. Read a fucking book. Eat a fucking vegetable.
But mostly, grow the fuck up. You’re not unique, or important. None of us are. We are all just warts on the asshole of the world. At least some of us know it.
I’ve sat through the cults of Christianity and CrossFit, but this is just too much. We are ripe for extinction. We are in fact, devolving.
Every generation has its moment when they pass the torch to the next generation. Not me. I’m hanging on to it until they prove they’re worthy. I’m not letting these dipshits play with fire.
