Slashdot Mirror
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."
So on the hierarchy of nerddom, do we consider them lower than Furries?
I mean, they're like the pedophiles of nerddom, so I would think so.
I understand completely. This gives me a brain destroying case of cognitative dissonance.
On one hand, we have people who are clearly suffering from a clinical fixation disorder, complete with fettishistic compulsiveness...
And yet that compulsiveness causes them to attempt to improve the conditions of other people's lives, in a truly philanthropic fashion, and are deadpan serious about it.
Its like seeing bowel parasites that confer immortality.
Or honest politicians, honestly campaigning for real public good.
The usual stint from groups like this is "our fettishism is perfectly normal even though it imposes upon our daily lives in cleary deleterious ways! You simply HAVE to accept our brand of living as normal, when by the numbers, it clearly isn't!". We see this from furries, who dress up in costumes and do...(redacted).. and (redacted), and and generally make their presence as annoying pervasive as possible, frequently overwhelming message boards and game communities under cearly unsolicited image spam and flamewars.
But in this case? Nope. Not the outcome.
So, with trepidation, I approve of this tactic. Just don't activate the orbital friendship cannon, and please avoid the use of "everypony" in sentences.
Not everyone shares the... uniqueness... of that particular obcession.
I heard that this scholarship is only available for Brony Geldings and you have to attend all classes at CalArts in full Brony regalia complete with halter.
Would you say the same if it was NAMBLA instead of Bronies?
Brohoof to fellow bronies.
This is the sort of thing that makes our fandom so great.
The last thing I want around my kids are a bunch of adult men who never emotionally advanced past the 3rd grade.
No, no, I have plenty of better hobbies than watching a show for little girls.
Bronies truly are the creepiest fandom out there.