"Bronies"documentary on Netflix...

[flyawayraven]

Yay, more focus on the straight white male side of the fandom, while everyone else gets ignored or brushed under the rug because they're not 'omg special' enough. I really couldn't care less if some guys like little toy ponies. Hardly a topic worth making a 'documentary' over, except that obviously is this society straight white guys  must have their finger in every pie and be the most important aspect of, well, anything. Colour me surprised.
SO over the brony hype.

Could not have said it better myself.

[LadyMoondancer]

It's not so much that there's malice behind most of them.  It's more like constant self-congratulation.  I know there are guys who get teased for liking "girl stuff", and that's wrong!  But it's like there's this smug undercurrent of "us liking MLP is proof that it's COOL now", rather than "wow, we sure were wrong to just blow off everything 'girly' all these years.  I wonder what else we missed?"

[reanna-mator]

It's not so much that there's malice behind most of them.  It's more like constant self-congratulation.  I know there are guys who get teased for liking "girl stuff", and that's wrong!  But it's like there's this smug undercurrent of "us liking MLP is proof that it's COOL now", rather than "wow, we sure were wrong to just blow off everything 'girly' all these years.  I wonder what else we missed?"

I gotcha. No, that is true and while it's not true all the time I go to a brony site, it is there just the same. There just aren't many large fandoms that don't have their problem subgroups, are there? It seems like the more huge and bloated a fandom gets, the parts of that fandom that are hard to deal with grow disproportionately more loud and get more attention than the ones that are just there to have a good time... because the ones there to have a good time aren't causing any fuss worthy of attention. It's a mess, and don't get me wrong, sometimes the brony fandom makes me facepalm for sure. >.<

[MJNSEIFER]

. The doc also seemed to have a lot of dudes making sure you know they're totally not gay, okay! Which annoyed me. But the doc was made by bronies for bronies, and was exactly what I expected. The pre-gen bashing made me sad but was also not surprising. The only surprising bit of that is that, apparently, Lauren Faust had some involvement in the lyrics and we wouldn't have FiM without her interest in G1, so...

I agree with you about the "I'm not gay!" stuff, I haven't seen it yet, but I agree that it's stupid to get defencive about looking gay - if people ask, and you're not gay, just say "no" and move on, don't get defensive about it.

I have already heard that Lauren helped with the lyrics - hence, the song was more likely to be joking, and making fun of past gen hate, rather than actually hating them as a best case scenario, and at a worst case scenario just pandering to bronies by ignoring her own love for the eariler generations (not that all bronies hate the older generations - I am proof of that), but it's more likely to be the former, and the pre-FIM haters, and the pre-FIM fans are taking it at face value.

Trust me, Lauren is still/always a fan of pre-FIM, and if she never was, then she's obviously an amazing actress to have to pretend this long.  A lot of people seem to be missunderstanding Lauren's views on pre-FIM, and the short version is she was a fan of it (mostly G1, but the others too), but people tend to get the wrong impression of her, which saddens me.

The things I can think of when people missunderstood her are;

1. The whole "Shows for girls left a bad taste in my mouth" review (she was saying she liked MLP because it wasn't like those kind of shows, not that she hated it because it was one of those shows).

2. Saying that she "always wanted to make things in MLP better" (you can be absloutely obsessed with something, and still want to make it "better".  It doesn't mean you hate it - I posted a much longer version of this elsewhere on the forum explaining it from my own experience).

3. That she only liked the toys not the shows (she has said she liked the shows, and even got some of the inspiration for FIM from them.  When she says "she came up with stories from her playtime" doesn't mean she just played with the toys from nothing, but was inspired by the show.  Keep in mind she probably has to repeat this a lot, so she probably gives the "rushed" version in some interviews.

4. Putting her pony toys into storage (she's just putting them away for now, they'll be out again one day - it's not like she's throwing them away).

5. Insulting Majesty on a tweet about the above (she did not insult Majesty, she just joked about how her toy Majesty is not in perfect condition, and compared her to the character she inspired, as all G1s got were compared to who they inspired.  I agree she could have worded it better, but she probably just assumed we'd all get that she was joking.)

Sorry about the shift in topic, but it means a lot to me, as she is actually a lot more underapreciated in the brony fandom than non-bronies realize, not as underapreciated as Bonnie of course (who obviously deserves more praise), but take it from a brony that the fandom does not respect her as much as you'd think it does (even though some do), so I don't want the rest of the whole fandom (i.e. not just bronies) to turn against her too. 

PS: To LadyMoondancer: I agree with you, those kind of bronies are the kind I don't want to be.  In fact my reaction was closer to the example to what you said they should have taken from FIM.  In fact, I was already okay with "girly stuff" (to the extent I was barely noticing it was girly, if that makes sense), but FIM and it's fandom convinced me to be more "open", but that's it.

In fact, whenever they say "It's cool now" I tell them "It was always cool".

[Shiromisa]

It seems like brony fandom cites Lauren up til the point where she disagrees with them, and then they ignore her. Like her statement about wanting to make a show for kids and their parents--apparently they interpreted that to mean "adults are my target market now". Buh?? 

[Ice Crystal]

I have already heard that Lauren helped with the lyrics - hence, the song was more likely to be joking, and making fun of past gen hate, rather than actually hating them as a best case scenario, and at a worst case scenario just pandering to bronies by ignoring her own love for the eariler generations (not that all bronies hate the older generations - I am proof of that), but it's more likely to be the former, and the pre-FIM haters, and the pre-FIM fans are taking it at face value.

Trust me, Lauren is still/always a fan of pre-FIM, and if she never was, then she's obviously an amazing actress to have to pretend this long.  A lot of people seem to be missunderstanding Lauren's views on pre-FIM, and the short version is she was a fan of it (mostly G1, but the others too), but people tend to get the wrong impression of her, which saddens me.

I know she's a fan. Like I said, if she wasn't, she probably would not have worked on FiM (or put as much heart into it, if she did). If it weren't for Hasbro, the mane six would still be Twilight, Applejack, Surprise, Firefly, Sparkler, and Posey as she intended. And I know a lot of fans misconstrue what she says. Shiromisa's example is a good one. All she meant was that she didn't want FiM to be a mind-numbing experience for parents as many cartoons are. She wanted it to be something parents and their children could enjoy together. Somehow bronies took that to mean, "She made the show for us. Adult men", and as with your examples, they misread praise and nostalgia for G1 as her decrying all things feminine.

She also seems very fond of bronies and obviously dedicates her time to them even though she is no longer working on the show, ex. this documentary, designing new non-pony fighters for Fighting is Magic after Hasbro sent them a cease and desist, attending conventions (or she used to. idk if she does anymore). Stuff like that. So I'm certain those lyrics were pandering, and the lyrics were gentler on G1 than G3 (and "G2"). I really shouldn't be surprised even though she worked on them because this documentary was paid for and put together by bronies.

I didn't like Bronydoc but I think a lot of our criticisms of it are things that should have been expected. They raised money for this documentary therefore they got to pick and choose what went in it. They wanted to paint a pretty picture of a very specific part of the fandom, so they left out all the nasty business, glossed over female fans, and bashed pre-gen MLP. A neutral party did not take interest in bronies and make a documentary about them. Bronies made a documentary about themselves. (I guess you could say whatshisface took an outside interest in them... I forget his name. Discord's VA. But seeing as he is now a somewhat regular voice actor on the show, he does have some stake in the fandom and keeping the fans happy for the sake of his career).

I bet if the Arena set up a Kickstarter we could make an even better documentary about this side of the MLP community. A sequel to My Little Obsession.

Speaking of, it didn't seem hard for the Brony doc to get on Netflix. I wonder, if the creator is interested, if My Little Obsession could get on there too?

[Lightning Twirl]

Seriously?!  What's it called?

Cloud Weaver! :hugs: Welcome back, havnt seen you in a while!

I have a few friends who call themselves bronies and it was either hit or miss for them. Personally I consider myself a collector and fan of the show, but not a brony or pegasister. I enjoy the company of bronies since every one I have met iso far is very loving and nice. I saw the documentry too, my husband collapased laughing when in the animation they mentioned

Spoiler

"and the !"

I sort of enjoyed it but I feel like the opening could have been different. The little rhymy animation was cool! I have the staff commentary blueray I still need to watch, I love hearing what lauren has to say plus i love in the background how theres her toys! I wasnt too impressed with it but it was at least a little enjoyable. I wish they could have added more female fans and even hardcore mlp toy collectors in there too, and plus different types of bronies not just white people as well. I fel like the doc didnt explain the show too well, my friend watched it and was confused as to what mlp was xD I admit there was a few parts where I was really bored but I can say I can relate to the british guy with AS having an easier time making friends because of mlp. I saw someone in the doc that I saw at Nightmare Nights last year!! The doc made it look like theres only a few types of bronies, in my opinion.

Post Merge: February 01, 2014, 12:36:08 AM

Now to be picky, one thing is disliked was how in an animation, "G1 was made to sell toys with no real plot, G2 was....er girly or something? (dont remember what they said) and G3 was just (crowd gasps in discust)" Now this is all a matter of opinion buuut I can dissagree with all of that, G1 has plot to me and I love the characters, G2 are not bad to me, and G3 isnt too bad! I watched some of the G3 movies and they arnt too bad either! I like how they didnt mention G3.5. They should have talked more positive about all the gens and had lauren defend G1 more. I dont like how most, not all,  bronies bash on G1 or other gens when they helped influcece lauren to create the characters for G4 they love so much! They could  have gone in depth with G1 even though its a doc for G4. I really want to watch My Little Obsession now!

[content edit ~ many thanks ~ hathorcat]

[Zapper]

BINGO.

If straight white men are interested in something odd it's NOTEWORTHY.  However, no one wants to do a documentary about women liking Transformers.  Which there are quite a few of us.

This is my reaction too.  If guys like MLP, I am fine with that.  But to pay for a documentary . . . about yourself . . . over something that everyone would shrug off if it applied to women.  (Women make up 41% of the buyers of the current Transformers comics . . . How many times has that been in the news compared to "OMG bronies!"?)  It just doesn't sit well with me.  It seems very self-aggrandizing.

Maybe we just need a convention just for us Transisters (men can call themselves Transisters as well as it is a gender neutral term) and claim full ownership over the next TF show, shunning little boys who like such womanly stuff as Transformers. TF is for grown women now, can't you see all the references they put in just for us? Knock Out had something going on with every character on TFP, why would they do that for you? Go and play with Bob the Builder or something else stupid for boys.
And now that TF is finally cool we should work on that documentary in which we celebrate ourselves!

[Rosencrantz]

took me a moment to get the electronic pun. Nice.

[MiRaja]

BINGO.

If straight white men are interested in something odd it's NOTEWORTHY.  However, no one wants to do a documentary about women liking Transformers.  Which there are quite a few of us.

This is my reaction too.  If guys like MLP, I am fine with that.  But to pay for a documentary . . . about yourself . . . over something that everyone would shrug off if it applied to women.  (Women make up 41% of the buyers of the current Transformers comics . . . How many times has that been in the news compared to "OMG bronies!"?)  It just doesn't sit well with me.  It seems very self-aggrandizing.

Maybe we just need a convention just for us Transisters (men can call themselves Transisters as well as it is a gender neutral term) and claim full ownership over the next TF show, shunning little boys who like such womanly stuff as Transformers. TF is for grown women now, can't you see all the references they put in just for us? Knock Out had something going on with every character on TFP, why would they do that for you? Go and play with Bob the Builder or something else stupid for boys.
And now that TF is finally cool we should work on that documentary in which we celebrate ourselves!

ilu. 

Transisters is new to me, but I told my roommate ( the even bigger tf gal nerd than myself.) and she loved it. 

[LadyMoondancer]

BINGO.

If straight white men are interested in something odd it's NOTEWORTHY.  However, no one wants to do a documentary about women liking Transformers.  Which there are quite a few of us.

This is my reaction too.  If guys like MLP, I am fine with that.  But to pay for a documentary . . . about yourself . . . over something that everyone would shrug off if it applied to women.  (Women make up 41% of the buyers of the current Transformers comics . . . How many times has that been in the news compared to "OMG bronies!"?)  It just doesn't sit well with me.  It seems very self-aggrandizing.

Maybe we just need a convention just for us Transisters (men can call themselves Transisters as well as it is a gender neutral term) and claim full ownership over the next TF show, shunning little boys who like such womanly stuff as Transformers. TF is for grown women now, can't you see all the references they put in just for us? Knock Out had something going on with every character on TFP, why would they do that for you? Go and play with Bob the Builder or something else stupid for boys.
And now that TF is finally cool we should work on that documentary in which we celebrate ourselves!

ilu. 

Transisters is new to me, but I told my roommate ( the even bigger tf gal nerd than myself.) and she loved it. 

I'm screaming with glee.

Also, Knock Out forever.  <3

[BabyMedley]

They raised money for this documentary therefore they got to pick and choose what went in it.

I'm afraid this is not true. Bronies donated money, and Mike Brockhoff and Laurent Malaquais went and used it to make the movie they wanted to make. They are not bronies...they are just filmmakers who thought bronies were interesting. They have gone on record that they wanted to tell stories...so they put in the stories they thought were interesting. Bronies as a fandom could only submit themselves as possible subjects. That's it. There was one brony on the film staff, Nick Ha, and he was an editor. I know him personally, and he didn't get much say in what stories or information made it into the final film.

A neutral party did not take interest in bronies and make a documentary about them.

That is actually exactly what happened. See above.

[MJNSEIFER]

Maybe we just need a convention just for us Transisters (men can call themselves Transisters as well as it is a gender neutral term) and claim full ownership over the next TF show, shunning little boys who like such womanly stuff as Transformers. TF is for grown women now, can't you see all the references they put in just for us? Knock Out had something going on with every character on TFP, why would they do that for you? Go and play with Bob the Builder or something else stupid for boys.
And now that TF is finally cool we should work on that documentary in which we celebrate ourselves!

Do it. 

[KarentheUnicorn]

I really don't care to see the whole thing honestly and it's all based on the animated short.

It's setup as 'Pony University' - (remind me never to go that university).

Can you say, pretentious...Presenting yourself as MLP History University professor and not knowing the facts about the brand and only have the ability to research the brand of MLP by what newbies tell you...that's insulting, especially in a documentary.

[gabumon]

Wait wait, this thread is about Transformer Fans now!??!  What did I mISS!??! LOL. 
Love Transformers.  Transformers Animated is my favorite series.

And Bronies Documentary.  Haven't seen it yet.