My Little Pony

I agree with the aggressive and unnecessary part!  But it's more that people have a knee jerk reaction of "you like something that is aimed at small girls, that must mean you want to attract them and do nasty things" - a rather poor assumption based on a very dim view of men (I guess we've kind of earned it, but prejudice affects all genders and it always sucks) as I've never actually heard of any of our brony types doing that.  On the contrary, more often supporting childrens charities and such.  (Obviously, I know the most notorious pedo in recent history did both.  Awful.)

Rule 34 exists yes, but one has to remember the definition of rule 34 is "if it exists, there's porn of it, no exceptions".  It's far from just MLP, it happens with everything, and I don't see it as a reason to target us over other things - anime for example has its fair share as well!  Even let's say, Doctor Who does.  It's not like I saw a bunch of people who are into making lewd art of horses and thought "hey yeah I'll associate myself with that!".  Just really acknowledging that it exists, like it does of everything, before anyone else does.  People like to highlight it to make us look bad because, well, that's what the internet does.  But I'm not going to distance myself from it just because a dark corner exists, because then I'd have to distance myself from everything that exists.  There is so much good in the MLP community it far outweighs the bad.

TBH I've seen a couple of the classic episodes and even they didn't seem too bad.  G1 seems pretty dark here and there.  G3.5 they lost their minds (and obviously reaslised as it was short lived then came the massive reboot), but G3's Christmas special once you get past the really sickly first 10 minutes.. well I think you have to already be well down the rabbit hole to enjoy it but I ended up kinda liking that one

Good to hear though!  I think most everyone has an interest that is a bit quirky or open to p**staking, indeed some would say goth is one of them, so it's nice to treat fans of what you don't like/understand how you'd wish to be treated as a fan of what others don't like/understand.  To be fair, I used to cringe at cosplay actually, didn't help that my only exposure to cosplay was cringe threads (much like many people's only exposure to bronies, furries, 'autists' (to borrow from 4chan) and other 'easy targets').  So you get a distorted view.  Going to a convention completely turned that on its head, I have huge respect and admiration for it now.

Yeah in any of these subculture kind of things you get elitism and the "No True Scotsman" kind of stuff.  What you do is find the inner circle who is in it for each other through thick and thin, I find that they're the ones who don't really try to step on each other for attention or try to dictate what a true brony/goth/furry/trekkie/whatever is.

Thanks, sometimes the deep end helps But I'm very fortunate in that although like any brony I get a lot of s**t online if too obvious about it in the wrong places, IRL no one seems to bat an eye and I have really good friends who don't make a fuss.  I'm under no fantasy that things don't get said when I'm not there, that's just human nature, but people are kind to my face at least!  (*touches wood before I jinx it and end up bullied into thinking the edge of tall buildings look awfully nice*, lol)

Well I'm really glad you didn;t get offended by my reply as I have a tendency to offend everyone all the time even when I explicitly try not to D: haha :)

"I've heard far worse reactions, ranging from okay that's weird to thinly veiled accusations of paedophilia and/or zoophilia"

Well, that sounds aggressive and unnecessary. But I can see why it sometimes happens, as you wrote in your first post:

"There are um, infamously less tasteful corners (don't ask)"

The problem is when you associate yourself with a movement which has such dark corners, they spill over in the general public's view. Not saying that's right by the way - but that is what happens.

I'm a big goth / metal-head so I constantly get people thinking I'm going to turn their baby into a goat and then sacrefice it to Cthulhu... with pentagrams, lots of pentagrams. But no! I'm just a big softie really.

I haven't seen the show since my sister used to watch the old show with my Grandma when she was little and obviously I couldn't change the channel when others were watching the TV D:

I used to give bronies a lot of s**t but have since grown up a little. In the goth / metal scenes there are a lot of very elitist people and I fell into some bad behaviour.

As soon as I realised that tradgoths (traditional goths) called eberyone else "baby-bats", and that the baby-bats grew up into goths and started calling the next generation "emos"... I began to realise that a lot of the prejudice was complete hog-wash. Guess that goes for your circle too.

Massive respect for the social bravery though! I think I'll stick with ma' trench coat. Always happy to meet new people and hang out though.

None taken, to each their own!  I've heard far worse reactions, ranging from "okay that's weird" to thinly veiled accusations of paedophilia and/or zoophilia... I think it's fine to be repulsed by it like any other personal taste and it's always a nice bonus not to be attacked for it ;)  (I'm not normally one to bring it up on non-pony forums, aside from the odd Facebook post ususally when a little too "merry" - it's usually a quick way to get dogpiled - but figured it was worth a shot here.  However this message board is far deader than I realised on signing up)

The show itself is pretty well done (hence the cult status) and not the rainbow puking horses many imagine but yeah you'd be best off staying away from conventions then, they have their fair share of furries.

Not familiar with Cats.  Sounds cool though, I always love the efforts people put into their cosplays and generally having fun (and being much braver than me)

Age wise there is no "too old", it's often said in the MLP fandom (particularly given that the target audience of young girls is actually a minority in the 'brony' branches of it) that age is just a number.  There have been 50somethings at the past couple of cons I've been to.  I'm in my 30s along with several others I know :p  But yeah doesn't sound like your cup of tea, fair enough!

Thought it worth throwing a topic out there in case there were any lurking about.

To be honest I veer away from it like the plague, mainly due to the fact that I'm already awkward as **** and when I suddenly end up surrounded by people who look like horses puking rainbows I get overloaded D:

This isn't meant to be insulting by the way, and so you can laugh at me a little I'll tell you I have always U-turned when I have seen any adults or other human beings dressed as any kind of animal. Literally terrifies me on some kind of spiritual level.

When I was a kid I once had a football party (I don't know why, I hate football!) at the local leisure centre. The leisure centre had a 'mascot' Ally the alligator. Well, I kicked some balls that day. Not the ones I was supposed to >_> but yeah, genuine horror

I'll tell you who I love though, if we're talking conventions and cosplay and stuff. Have you ever seen the Cats (like from CATS the musical)? They go to random conventions and dress up like the cats from Cats. They do an amazing job with their costumes, honestly some of them could actually perform it! They're lovely and clever.

I'm just too old for the bronies thing. Also as I have mentioned I'm terrified of 'big' plushy animal costumes. The Cats are ok as it's all face paint and spandex. Big fluffy animals though? Forget about it, can't handle it.

No offence intended, just a personal thing ;)