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The Bronies Get Their Own Charity
blackbearnh writes "There's a long history of media fandoms organizing fundraising campaigns, donating blood, and doing other charitable activities. However, even large and well-established groups such as Trekkies/ers and Star Wars fans usually work with established non-fannish charities like the Red Cross or Toys for Tots. Some may see them as a plague on the Internet, the Brony community has taken their charitable endeavors to the next level by going to the trouble of creating a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt public charity. The Brony Thank You Fund received word from the IRS last week that, after nearly a year of work, they had been granted tax-exempt status. The Fund is currently raising donations to endow a permanent animation scholarship at CalArts, and is the same group that made news last year when they became the first fan group to purchase commercial time on national TV, for a 30 second spot praising My Little Pony and encouraging donations to Toys for Tots."
The modern face of charity.
My faith in humanity has reached an all time low.
Brohoof to fellow bronies.
This is the sort of thing that makes our fandom so great.
I guess it's good they're doing charity, but it's just so creepy.
GNAA first post
No, thank you.
one of my close friends is a furry and today he used the word brony. i had no idea what it meant. i completely get it now.
is it a prank? rebranded furries? an ironic hipster meme collapsed under its own weight and is now self aware? inquiring minds want to know!
/me Goes off to Google brony... comes back scarred for life.
See what happens when IRS officials get sidetracked investigating conservative groups? :-)
Sarcastically creating a scholarship so students can learn make more soul-crushingly-commercial toy-selling animation hardly qualifies as charity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWhDb5u2El4
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Lies, furries are more ancient pervasive and subversive then bronies. They also cover a gender neutral segment of society. They will always be here. Were this is probably a passing fad and will be absorbed into GLBT-dom or be absorbed into furrydom itself.
"Bro"nies by it's very nature is sexist.
It is just another -ism and this is the first time male rebellion against its archetypal image isn't resulting in mass lynching, sterilization, and imprisonment for insanity.
Interesting... Did you know that 85% of female bronies dislike or are at best neutral to the term "pegasister"? Bro is gender neutral in this day and age.
The Fund is currently raising donations to endow a permanent animation scholarship at CalArts
The Klingon Language Institute also has a scholarship so fandom born scholarships are not unheard off.
"modify your life such that it now revolves around that show, and you feel compelled to convert others to your obcesson"
So, what were you saying about Chicago Cubs fans here in central Illinois?
Watched the show at the behest of a friend. Liked it, it was very enjoyable. Told a different friend about it.
She got about ten times more into it than I did. She started a meetup group in New York, then created a brony *convention*. She invited me to come up and help.
So I did. And I met a bunch of new, fun people in the process.
I always liked the show, but never took it as far as some of the other fans. The whole thing ended up causing me to meet a large group of fun, quirky people, so overall it was very positive.
I haven't been too involved in the past year, since a ton of drama started up and I got tired of hearing about it. I'll probably still watch the show, but my days of flying up to NYC for cons is over.
Though I'll likely be up there to visit friends in the summer. Oh, and Rarity is best pony. Sorry folks. :)
I was not even informed that there were girl bronies. Interesting.
However they do infest a few boards I visit, so I have had some interaction with the males.
The only reason I have a 6 digit ID is because I hung around as an AC for some time before bothering to register. :)
They should raise awareness for auti- oh wait...
Interesting... Did you know that 85% of female bronies dislike or are at best neutral to the term "pegasister"? Bro is gender neutral in this day and age.
maybe they don't like it because it sounds retarded, not due to any gender identification.
That's great, but boy oh boy are bronies self-congratulatory.
Either a weird pony official religion or a pony political party.
until this story appeared. This could be the inspiration I've needed for a new video!
On one hand, the concept of the "bronies" seems good enough, based on good and decent qualities and a form of compassion that is all too rare. But, on the other hand, the concept of guys who are into living life according to the principles put forth by "My Little Pony" makes me want to scream "FAGGOTS FAGGOTS FAGGOTS" at a deafening pitch for hours on end. Especially when you consider that the whole thing was nothing more than a vehicle to advertise a bunch of toys.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Furries have also raised over one million dollars for charity since the start of the century.
These guys need serious professional help, not derision and ridicule.
Well, Ok... They are hilarious, but still, they need help.
if they had called themselves the "Brony Patriot Thank You Fund", we'd have a different story.
I know the original comment was a troll, but I'll state for the record that the Fund will have no say in the administration of the scholarship, CalArts will run it just as they do all their other scholarships. In fact, the IRS was pretty adamant about that point.
Daughter (who just graduated high school) watches My Little Pony (the current incarnation, not that horrible 1980's crap), and I've seen a couple episodes, and ... you know ... kids could be watching worse things. The writers don't talk down to the viewer, the dialog is fast and witty and sometimes genuinely funny, and they don't beat you senseless with the moral.
She was part of a brony group in high school, but about half of them quit when the other half got.... wayyyyy too into it. But that's not necessarily a reflection on the show. Geeks can take anything and make too much of it. (Ahem...)
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Hi Everyone,
I feel there is a lot of misunderstanding about Bronies so I want to help shine some light into this.
I'm a proud Brony. I'm a guy in my 30's, work full-time in the field of engineering, have a broad range of hobbies and yes I'm a bit of a geek. When I first hear about 'Friendship is Magic' in late 2011 I had exactly the same thoughts as everyone else, but I checked it out on YouTube and found it to be a surprisingly high-quality show. I thought initially I was the only person in my town that liked it, but there are thousands of Bronies just in my state in Australia.
But what makes this show special is how social it is. From the art, music, regular meet ups it's a great way to make friends with other fun people. From my involvement over the past 18-months I'm proud to say that this community has supported many worthwhile community projects (such as projects in Uganda, Burundi, and Tanzania). Now that the Brony Thank You Fund is an official charity is another great development from this great fanbase.
The Brony Thank You Fund put out an ad on the same network as the actual show a while ago. Worth checking out.
Brony Thank You Ad
I highly recommend people take a look at John de Lancie and Michael Brockhoff's documentary about Bronies. I guarantee it'll be entertaining.
http://www.bronydoc.com
Yes we go against certain gender stereotypes in society. But what are stereotypes really? If I really genuinely like something, especially something that is as positive as MLP, then I say 'rm -rf Gender-Stereotyping-For-No-Good-Reason' to that!
We don't bar women into Engineering or Computer Science, so in 2013, what is really so wrong with adults liking a cartoon show that emphasises friendship, fun and positivity towards everyone?
To all of the Bronies reading this (and there are millions of us), Bro-Hoof!
will be absorbed into GLBT-dom
Tell me, what is gay, lesbian bisexual or trans sexual about watching a TV show about ponies?
Why on earth would a completely unrelated group absorb what is mostly straight guys followed by mostly straight women.
or be absorbed into furrydom itself.
There's nothing anthro or fursona or any of that in MLP. Again, they are quite different.
You may as well suggest that Star Wars is a passing fad and will be absorbed into the broader Star Trek fandom.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
What has happened to my country?
It turned queer. Next year heterosexual marriage will be outlawed
Mentally handicapped people help charities out all the time.
then there is a problem.
Here it is in context:
> In short, you can like my little pony all you want. But when you go so far as to modify your life such that it now revolves around that show, and you feel compelled to convert others to your obcesson, then there is a problem.(emphasis added)
What about religious people whose lives revolve around the religion and they try to convert others to the religion?
Brownies !
Although I have strong theoretical objections to extra-judicial executions, in the cases of bronies I would be glad to make an exception.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Interesting... Did you know that 85% of female bronies dislike or are at best neutral to the term "pegasister"? Bro is gender neutral in this day and age.
maybe they don't like it because it sounds retarded, not due to any gender identification.
...and "Bronies" doesn't sound retarded? Really?
I'm a child of the '80s, and as much as I still enjoy some of the animated cartoons (Voltron, Transformers, G.I. Joe, Masters of the Universe, Mighty Orbots, Blackstar, etc.) and other kids' shows (Pee-wee's Playhouse, Mister Rogers Neighborhood, Sesame Street) of that era, I have to say that newer shows are generally good, and in some cases better than some of the stuff that we watched "back in the day."
The freakier the stuff you're into, the more you're willing to pay to support it.
But if a guy likes a girl thing, it's clinical fixation disorder.
When a guy is too much involved into effeminate behaviors, it's usually pretty good indicator that he's gay.
...I'd like to apply now for a Browncoat scholarship
More people here should see comments like the above, and realize how much they are obsessing and wasting time over arguing that other people obsess and waste too much time.
When I got to work this morning, I wasn't surprised that the two bronies in my programming group mentioned this story when they first got in. Their short response, "Wow, people waste too much time on the internet arguing about a TV show they don't even like," before moving on to shop talk. Maybe some of you have a problem if you spend so much time talking about a fandom that the people in the actual fandom wonder why you are wasting so much time on it.
I don't watch the show myself. But considering how depressing it can be seeing people getting so judgmental of people, based on a strawman in their mind that is unconnected to reality yet about a topic so trivial, maybe now is a good time to find something more cheery. It would at least be a more productive use of time trying to explore how stupid people can get.
..then I woke up, realized I'm a 26 year old man, and got on with my life.
Where do I fit in on the obsession chart?