Attack of the Annoying Brony Chuds

May 17th, 2025

Full disclosure, this is mostly me having a vent. This isn't targeted at anyone specifically, nor do I want to create any drama with said individuals. This is just something I wanted to get off of my chest for a very long time. I'm not going to hold any thought back, however, and if for any reason this leaves you violently upset with me and my takes, then that is on you. I'd say have some introspection, I'm not here to sway a stubborn summer ant. I also apologize if the formatting is off. I have honestly not written something like this before, so if anything seems a miss, then that is on me. Expect a lot of exposition.

There's a niche pony related Discord community I'm a part of. I'm not terribly active in, though that has mostly to do with me being in so many damn servers. Still, I decided one day to give a peek & see how things were going. It was then & there I read such a dog water take in the server's vent channel. It was some manure take on Bluesky users being snowflakes. What's hilarious is that this rant spun off from someone bringing attention to the rampant AI abuse on Twitter (and no, I'm not calling it X; sod off). It went along the lines of Bluesky being a hugbox of angry political reactionaries that would rather vent politics than create content. It's an obvious angry generalization; It's not hard to conclude that people just want to escape the grasp of an abusive, ugly Muskrat for greener pastures. I can at least attest to this, since that's more or less why I left. But this whole exchange I read just reminded me as to how parts of the Brony Fandom has become so damn vitriolic.

My time in the MLP fandom was interesting, to say the least. I remember back in early 2011, reading a journal on DeviantArt to give the show a shot. I had just graduated from High School a year prior, so I was a little lost myself. The saccharine, yet earnest vibe of the show won me over pretty damn fast, which isn't shocking because I was already an animation fan. The enthusiasm in the cartoon was starting to reach real heights, showing I wasn't alone. Point is, I'm an old fart that later witnessed a lot of dramatic events in the hay day; pun intended. The 4chan bans and DerpyGate controversy sticks out to me particularly well, because these events may have solidified the fandom's anti-censorship stance. I'd like to think that the general vitriol from an increasingly hostile internet also fueled things. There was the obvious general dislike with the Brony fandom, more or less serving as a punching bag to take the place of Furries at the time; with some furries even punching down. Combine that with the “SJW discourse” gaining steam in 2013, the GamerGate debacle changing landscape of 4chan in 2014, and the political discourse of 2016, and you start to see a more aggressive fandom take shape, especially within /mlp/. Some fans turn to the far right behind the scenes, and I was none the wiser to see at the time.

Anime time skip to the insane year of 2020, and shit pops off. Covid lockdowns and the BLM protests were in full swing, and we start to see the divide bleed in the fandom. The Atlantic publishes an article on the Brony Fandom's reckoning with racism & the Nazis. The brony fandom's own Great Schism, if you will. The staff of Derpibooru had eyes on them from the article, especially with the infamous Nazi Pony OC, Aryanne having her own following on the site. The drama reached a climax the moment Derpibooru made the initial announcement to ban any and all Nazi art on the site. It lead to its first backlash, with some big artists threatening to leave with Do Not Posts & account deactivations. It was disheartening because some of those artists wanting to defend Aryanne were people I once looked forward to. Some in the camp were either far right turds, or oblivious free speech advocates crying foul, much like they did in the past with DerpyGate (See? I told you it would circle back). Sadly, Derpibooru fell in line with the initial criticisms and started to backpedal on the absolute ban. While some cheered & others already made up your mind, a sizable chunk from the other side of the argument saw this as betrayal. You had even more artists outright leaving in digust. Many requested their DNPs, and years of art nuked from orbit. Tragic, but it was hard for me to blame them at that point. The vitriol reached its peak with users in the forums slinging insults and threats. Moderators on Derpibooru took the most brunt of the situation while higher staff were absent. It was a complete and colossal shit show, and forever left scars on the website.

I suppose that brings us to the now. The fandom as a whole has been on a slow burn. This was already partially due to Friendship is Magic ending a year prior to the Derpibooru schism, though the decline was felt more because of the drama. That, and G5 being underwhelming and abandoned, but I digress. Despite Derpibooru still standing with an active user base, it's a far cry from the early days. The site never truly resolved the divide, and the worst of the worst still persist. Even with that, Friendship is Magic has its own weird, but fun resurgence on the wider net. Nostalgia, TikTok users, and even China of all places. However, with all that was left unresolved, and with the current political climate, I wonder if another schism is still brewing. My time in that Discord server I mentioned exemplifies that. Same with the reaction to Derpibooru making a Bluesky account. It was lukewarm at best, putting it lightly.

Looking back, It's pretty obvious that I didn't want to stick around. I was already starting to see the writing on the wall with Trump winning the first presidency. I am not a political guy; I'm not what you would call smart, but I do know bullshit when I smell it. I was already starting to see the cracks within the Brony fandom at that point. The increasingly frequent transphobia, the dick riding of "Dorito Mussolini," and the Aryanne circle jerk was all so tiring. I would pivot away & eventually become a furry because of it, though VRChat also played a role in that (a story best saved for another time). Obviously the fandom at a whole isn't bigoted, but the fact that there are bigots within is pretty ironic on many levels. I would like to hold out hope that some of the absolute free speech advocates in the fandom would have some introspection from the Derpibooru drama, but I couldn't hold my breath on that. Too many moronic cowards that should have been told to fuck off eons ago. It's very much like the larger anti-woke crowd bitching about DEI in media. They're never smiling, always angry; even if or when they win. Circling back to the Discord readings I did, it's pretty rich seeing a bunch of contrarians cry about Bluesky users. It all boils down to a lack of character with these people. They never grew as a person. They chose to remain shitty, and now they're trapped in the hole they dug themselves in. It's some real loser shit.

If there's any takeaway from this, it's to not let yourself turn hollow like these fucking people did. Dump the Kool Aid, touch some grass, go help people. Shit has been rough for the lot of us. I'm willing to admit that there's been times where I would wallow in defeatism because of the current state of the world. However, I always remind myself that there are people out there with an actual soul that do give a damn. Real strength comes from helping others. Not from being an Annoying Brony Chud.