With over 836,000 subscribers and over 105 million views across her channel, Jenny Nicholson has gained a reputation as a top video essayist on YouTube. Nicholson has been creating content on YouTube for over five years, mainly focusing on sci-fi and fantasy franchises such as Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and similar “nerdy” media. She also occasionally posts film reviews, script doctor videos, and content about 90s media. Praised for their charisma and charming humor, Nicholson’s videos often take beloved pieces of media and critically analyze them. What I believe to be her flagship video is “The Last Bronycon: a fandom autopsy,” a 71-minute video detailing the history of the Brony fandom and the events leading up to the last Bronycon, a convention for My Little Pony fans.
For additional context, the word “Brony” is a contraction of the words “bro” and “pony,” a tongue-in-cheek name for the adult male fans of the show. I would also like to add a small disclaimer that I am not a Brony. I am simply a fan of Jenny Nicholson’s videos and thought that this one was her most thorough and entertaining.
Nicholson’s videos often start with a small introduction into the topic followed by a numbered list, a self-aware trope Nicholson uses to organize her videos. The positioning of herself in front of a camera angled a bit down makes the video feel more casual and conversational, rather than being an educated on a topic. She is also surrounded by various pieces of My Little Pony (MLP) merchandise, further adding to the casual atmosphere of the video.
Nicholson starts off detailing the history behind MLP’s fandom. While the franchise was targeted towards young girls in the 80s and 90s, the 2010 animated series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic garnered interest from adults after a review of the first episode bashed it for marking the “end” of TV animation. A small subset of those adults were men from 4chan, an imageboard and forum website, who Nicholson explains unexpectedly liked Friendship is Magic. These “self-proclaimed hacker rebel Shadow the Hedgehog boys,” as Nicholson jokingly calls these men, became an ironic fandom of MLP (Nicholson, 2020).
The bulk of her video goes in depth as to how the MLP fandom, who coined themselves the Bronies, grew so large. Eventually, the irony of the Bronies liking MLP gave way to genuine appreciation for the show. Nicholson details how the Bronies were essentially kicked off 4chan and resorted to creating their own forum page called Equestria Daily (Equestria is the fictional land where MLP takes place), where Bronies could share their fan art, opinions, and more. Apart from fan content, links to watch the show live were also shared on the website, so it clearly received mass visitors every day. Because of this, featured fan art and content were constantly being posted. Nicholson describes this as a symbiotic relationship between Equestria Daily and its fans, where the site would always receive viewers so long as the fans would upload content (Nicholson, 2020).
Stuart Hall would describe this growing fandom as a regime of representation of MLP fans, or the set of images and ideas surrounding one piece of media (Hall, 1997). For example, when people think of MLP fans now, they most often think of the middle aged, white, male Bronies rather than the franchise’s actual target of young girls. This regime of representation has created a lot of discourse surrounding the gender, race, and sexuality of Bronies. Nicholson mentions how MLP was marketed towards women, but when the Bronies took over, women were once again ostracized among the male fans. Henry Jenkins III also talks about the marginalization of fan activity that is not seen in the mainstream, and just how dangerous a regime of representation is when engaging with the fandom (Jenkins, 1988). He uses the example of white male “nerdy” Trekkies (Star Trek fans) as the “average” Star Trek fan, and the same can be applied to Bronies. Nicholson acknowledges that most of the Bronies coming from 4chan present a very white, domineering, and egotistical persona online, and since they make up a large majority of the fandom, they represent it in some way (Hall, 1997).
Another idea Jenkins brings up is a fandom pushing against commercialization by creating their own canon (Jenkins, 1988). Nicholson says that Bronies had gone so far that they created Fallout Equestria, a crossover between MLP characters and the Fallout universe. This fanfiction went on to sell physical copies at conventions, garners sequels, and is considered the holy grail of MLP within the fandom. All this to say, Nicholson provides great insight into how the fandom turned MLP from a media franchise into something of their own. However, as Nicholson shows later in the video, later seasons of Friendship is Magic appeal much more to the Brony audience instead of children. For the 100th episode, Nicholson highlights the very drastic change in tone, such as including fan art, “canonizing” fanfiction into the real show, and including many Brony inside jokes (Nicholson, 2020). As a member of the fandom, Nicholson claims she was distraught when she found out just how incorporated the Brony fandom’s quirkiness had been into the real show.
Ultimately, Jenny Nicholson takes a stance to prove that the Brony fandom is more than just grown men obsessing over My Little Pony. It is genuine fandom that has evolved over time to become a community of fans who appreciate their parent media. Beyond the scope of this review, she explains the rampant homophobia in the fandom, the oversexualization of the animated characters, and the actual last Bronycon, which occurred in 2019. Nicholson reflects on her time in the fandom, which she seems to think has dwindled immensely after the last convention, and wonders whether the next generation of My Little Pony will end up “this Brony” again (Nicholson, 2020).
References
Nicholson’s videos often start with a small introduction into the topic followed by a numbered list, a self-aware trope Nicholson uses to organize her videos. The positioning of herself in front of a camera angled a bit down makes the video feel more casual and conversational, rather than being an educated on a topic. She is also surrounded by various pieces of My Little Pony (MLP) merchandise, further adding to the casual atmosphere of the video.
Nicholson starts off detailing the history behind MLP’s fandom. While the franchise was targeted towards young girls in the 80s and 90s, the 2010 animated series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic garnered interest from adults after a review of the first episode bashed it for marking the “end” of TV animation. A small subset of those adults were men from 4chan, an imageboard and forum website, who Nicholson explains unexpectedly liked Friendship is Magic. These “self-proclaimed hacker rebel Shadow the Hedgehog boys,” as Nicholson jokingly calls these men, became an ironic fandom of MLP (Nicholson, 2020).
The bulk of her video goes in depth as to how the MLP fandom, who coined themselves the Bronies, grew so large. Eventually, the irony of the Bronies liking MLP gave way to genuine appreciation for the show. Nicholson details how the Bronies were essentially kicked off 4chan and resorted to creating their own forum page called Equestria Daily (Equestria is the fictional land where MLP takes place), where Bronies could share their fan art, opinions, and more. Apart from fan content, links to watch the show live were also shared on the website, so it clearly received mass visitors every day. Because of this, featured fan art and content were constantly being posted. Nicholson describes this as a symbiotic relationship between Equestria Daily and its fans, where the site would always receive viewers so long as the fans would upload content (Nicholson, 2020).
Stuart Hall would describe this growing fandom as a regime of representation of MLP fans, or the set of images and ideas surrounding one piece of media (Hall, 1997). For example, when people think of MLP fans now, they most often think of the middle aged, white, male Bronies rather than the franchise’s actual target of young girls. This regime of representation has created a lot of discourse surrounding the gender, race, and sexuality of Bronies. Nicholson mentions how MLP was marketed towards women, but when the Bronies took over, women were once again ostracized among the male fans. Henry Jenkins III also talks about the marginalization of fan activity that is not seen in the mainstream, and just how dangerous a regime of representation is when engaging with the fandom (Jenkins, 1988). He uses the example of white male “nerdy” Trekkies (Star Trek fans) as the “average” Star Trek fan, and the same can be applied to Bronies. Nicholson acknowledges that most of the Bronies coming from 4chan present a very white, domineering, and egotistical persona online, and since they make up a large majority of the fandom, they represent it in some way (Hall, 1997).
Another idea Jenkins brings up is a fandom pushing against commercialization by creating their own canon (Jenkins, 1988). Nicholson says that Bronies had gone so far that they created Fallout Equestria, a crossover between MLP characters and the Fallout universe. This fanfiction went on to sell physical copies at conventions, garners sequels, and is considered the holy grail of MLP within the fandom. All this to say, Nicholson provides great insight into how the fandom turned MLP from a media franchise into something of their own. However, as Nicholson shows later in the video, later seasons of Friendship is Magic appeal much more to the Brony audience instead of children. For the 100th episode, Nicholson highlights the very drastic change in tone, such as including fan art, “canonizing” fanfiction into the real show, and including many Brony inside jokes (Nicholson, 2020). As a member of the fandom, Nicholson claims she was distraught when she found out just how incorporated the Brony fandom’s quirkiness had been into the real show.
Ultimately, Jenny Nicholson takes a stance to prove that the Brony fandom is more than just grown men obsessing over My Little Pony. It is genuine fandom that has evolved over time to become a community of fans who appreciate their parent media. Beyond the scope of this review, she explains the rampant homophobia in the fandom, the oversexualization of the animated characters, and the actual last Bronycon, which occurred in 2019. Nicholson reflects on her time in the fandom, which she seems to think has dwindled immensely after the last convention, and wonders whether the next generation of My Little Pony will end up “this Brony” again (Nicholson, 2020).
References
Hall, S. (1997). Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices. Sage Publishing.
Jenkins III, H. (1988). Star Trek rerun, reread, rewritten: Fan writing as textual poaching. Critical studies in Media communication, 5(2).
Nicholson, Jenny. (2020, July 21). The Last Bronycon: a fandom autopsy [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fVOF2PiHnc
Hi Daniel! First of all, wow. I found your topic very captivating, destroying every assumption that I have ever made about My Little Pony fans. I had no idea that Bronies existed nor that there was a large Fandom for My Little Pony. What I find most interesting about the topic is that the Fandom is composed largely of White adult men. In our readings on fandoms, particularly We Can Be Heroes: How the Nerds Are Reinventing Pop Culture by Laurie Penny, fandoms were presented as a way for viewers to claim text that was not necessarily meant for them as their own and correct what they felt were mistakes made by the original authors. These groups often included women and minority groups. This is a sort of pushback against the mainstream media and their target audiences, which White males are usually not excluded from. This Fandom, however, breaks this trend and is dominated by the group that fandoms usually arise in resistance to. This amazes and confuses me at the same time. I am curious as to how Laurie Penny would view this. Would she view it with skepticism because of their racial demographics, or would she praise them for forming their own community shamelessly? I am also curious as to how you, a non-Brony, feel about the Brony fandom. I feel conflicted about whether or not to support this fandom (not that my opinion matters) as I wonder if there should be a limit on what type of fandoms are appropriate. As intrigued as I am about the Bronies, there is something a bit unsettling about the thought of middle aged men celebrating an oversexualized version of a children’s television show. This raises the question of if there exists content that is off limits to certain groups and if so who controls the policing of fandoms that may arise.
ReplyDeleteDaniel, I love how unique your topic is! I had never heard of the Brony fandom and it was so intriguing to learn about this through your post. As someone who also did this prompt, I just wanted to share that the Youtubers we chose have similar video styles as they are very relaxed conversational videos. That is probably why they are so successful. In your analysis of the video on the Brony fandom, I immediately thought of how important audiences are in this analysis. Adorno and Horkheimer discuss this concept of audiences in their work. “But at the same time mechanization has such power over a man’s leisure and happiness, and so profoundly determines the manufacture of amusement goods, that his experiences are inevitably after-images of the work process itself” (Adorno & Horkheimer, pg.7) The creation of this fandom based off of the My Little Pony series was done strategically to captivate a specific audience and this allows for the audience to become consumers. Although yes, they try to avoid commercialization and make things “their own.” In the end, they sell. I think it would’ve been interesting to touch more into the role the audiences play also as consumers. I would’ve never thought that My Little Pony would be a show for adult men. I thought it was interesting to see the My Little Pony franchise itself give into the Brony fandom and even include elements that appeal to them more than their original intended audience. Overall, I really enjoyed your blog post on such an interesting topic. The role of audiences and how crucial it is to market towards them are thoroughly seen through this example. - Sandra Navarro Davalos
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