How'd You Become A Brony?

[un1c0rn]

End of june or so probably, my heart was a dark and rotten pit, spent time on 4chan/b a lot, there were a lot of pony threads at the time, which made me wonder why the heck would anyone watch a childs show. On synchtube I saw a my little pony room, acted like a failtroll, but was smothered with kindness. <shame>I don't even know why you defused that attempt with kindness, but thank you synchtube bronies. </shame> But that was the nth time I saw my little pony mentioned, so I thought I'd look it up on youtube.. It took me a while to embrace pony morale though and let others know I liked ponies, but it did help me see the world in a positive light again and helped me out of a dark cynic/depressed mental state. This did give me an inner conflict for the first 2 months though, my brony side vs dark side.

[@ppleBukker]

I first saw advertisements when the Hub was launched. I shrugged it off as any other girl cartoon. However, I started noticing different memes around the interwebs and I heard the term "brony" at a local football game. I thought if teenagers and grown men were watching this show, it would be pretty cool.

One day, I was at a coffee shop and a 13 year old came up to me and started talking to me about Youtube Poops. He eventually ask me about MLP: FiM and if I knew it. I told him I knew of it, but never really watched it. So, finally I lucked out and woke up early one morning and watched a full episode. From then on I was instantly hooked. My entire mindset changed and here I am.

[Kryptage]

A friend sent me a link on skype to "The Stare Master", Watched it, liked it but was iffy. I then watched the first 3 episodes....and then the next week was catching up before episode 18 aired!

[DJGaugen]

I was mutual with ponies at first, I didn't really care for me "If some people like it, it's good for them" kind of deal. I initially started off on DeviantArt where I seen a few grimdark images which peaked my interests, I then learned of the fanfic WHICH IS NOT TO BE MENTIONED. Cupcakes, hurr durr After reading that, I was a fan of nothing but the fanfic of that point, the show was still pretty mutual to me. After about a week into that I wanted to do a few drawings of my own, so I made vectors of the mane 6 based off the Gmod models (They looked horrible btw) and proceeded to do more and more fanart... before I had even watched the show , After a while I decided to watch the first episode, which I didn't really like at first, but I decided to give it a chance, since I had nothing better to do with my time.

What happened after that?

Take a guess. XP

[FlyingNinjaBannanas]

Saw a giant MLP thread on Minecraft Forum around March. Watched the pilot, then the next episode, etc.

Really, nothing special. Just an average conversion.

[DasDeer]

It all started when a friend of mine became a brony in April last year. At the time, he was pretty quiet about it, not because he didn't want us to know that he was a brony, simply because he had nothing to say about it.
So, in October last year he sent me a video when we were having a Skype conversation. I don't remember what video it was, but i think it was something including Pinkie.
It made me laugh, and thus led me to begin to watch.

[DrSorkenstein]

1. Watched a video by CR on tgwtg were he talked about G4.
2. Wait a week while discovering that ponies are everywhere.
3. Watches episode 1 with sound turned waaaaay down and the door closed.
4. Watches more episodes.
5. Gets caught by brother and sister while halfway through episode 6.
6. Disapproving looks.
7. Both leave, pony-thon continues.
8. Done watching episodes a few days later.
9. Finds EQD.
10. Gets a pony wallpaper.
11. Brony.
12. Sister evolves into Pegasister.
13. Everyone happy.

[Meelz]

AFAIK I just wanted a new cartoon to watch, all I heard was that FiM was cool. Didn't really know much about the following.
Took a look, really liked it, then found out about Bronies I'm like fuck yeah I'll join the herd.

[Navron]

Thought I shared my story here, but I guess not.

I first discovered the show in general when somebody linked the 300 Ponies parody on the funny videos thread on a MechWarrior forum back last June. From there I saw the plethora of other crossover movie parodies, and decided to show my coworkers in the Navy, although with this kind of explanation:

"Hey! Check out this video! This dude made a 300 trailer parody from possibly the gayest looking show out there, lol!"

Most of my coworkers found it funny, so I showed them a few other movie parodies.

Couple weeks later I saw the actual My Little Pony thread topic pop up on the forums. I initially thought people were joking and/or trolling when claiming things like, "I'm on episode 10 now! 9 has been the best so far!" When I realized they weren't joking, the inner hater in me couldn't believe it, so I made the comment, "See people, this is what happens when the boob and butt threads don't get posted on."

Couple more weeks go by, and now I'm on leave at a family reunion at the beach near the end of July. One day I was quite bored, so I decided, "Let's see what all this fuss is about," and I watched the first episode.

After some cringeworthy moments, such as the opening theme, I still had enough open-mindedness to at least see how the pilot episodes end.

After that I decided to check out another episode, then another, and another, etc.

After coming to the realization that I had watched the entire first season and was now watching short clips of the show on YT, I knew something had changed. I actually liked this show.

Since then my family has gotten hooked on it, along with a couple friends and coworkers. Most of my coworkers know I like the show, but only a couple of them have actually checked it out.

Most of them like the parodies and fan content though, and in the case of the MLR Charity Album, I was very surprised to see my chiefs and officers wanting to add that to my eval under, "Charitable/Humanitarian Projects."

In the end, I went from being a semi-hater to fully fledged brony, who's love for the show may actually help advance his military career. Go figure.

[SeventhElement]

Well I never really started out as a hater, I did start out as a skeptical "Oh god, not this crap again." with something that got a following around 4chan. I later found out that a few friends of mine were fans of the show and they peer pressured me to watch it. After much reluctance "Can't believe I'm going to waste all sorts of time on this show." Needless to say, time well spent. (lame story, I know)

[Triple_B]

On Funnyjunk, saw Equestria Girls, looked it up again when I got home; got hooked into the FJ Pony threads from #1 to.... Number 13? I think; yeah.

Got hooked on music some time during that thanks to.... Um, random stuff mostly. The rest is history.

[Senjan]

It all started somewhere in April when a friend of mine sent me the video of Applejack & Rarity making spooky sounds for 18 seconds (scene from Episode 8). I had never heard of FiM back then it gave me a very awkward feeling as a first impression. A few weeks later I was browsing around on SMWCentral and found a topic there about Friendship is Magic. Seeing how this new topic was the most popular in its subforum I got curious and had a look. I was certain they were all trolling when they said how great the show was.
I knew these people after working with them. I knew sarcasm when I heard it.

Or so I thought...

One of my friends on that site convinced me to give the show a try, and after much coaxing I finally gave in. I sat with my laptop facing the wall, scared of anyone noticing me doing this terrible act of watching my little pony. I was like "Oh dear god, what am I doing?" like 5 minutes in. But that slowly faded away as I took in the fantastic animation, the great voice acting and the absolutely amazing main- and background music.

Curious to see more, and having a friend to dicsuss the show with, I kept going. I started to enjoy the show more and more as I went on. But what really touched me was Episode 11, Winter Wrap Up. Normally I used to hate cartoon music because of how incredibly silly and awkward they could be (with most Disney songs as exception), but this...wow. I remember tapping my foot and singing along to the chorus the first time I heard it. A lifechanging moment (Yeah, I'm serious).

I guess that's how I turned into a brony. And until last week, I had been one in secret more or less.
After mustering up enough courage, I made a presentation about it in school (It was an art assignment to present one of your favorite animators and his/her work). There were mixed reactions, but thats what could be expected.

So yeah, that's my story. I'm grateful of FiM, because it has given me greater confidence and lots of imagination and motivation.

...Damn, I really need to learn how to post smaller. Sorry for massive text!

[randomblockfilms]

short and sweet. here we go!

[Late August 2011} friend told me bout some little girl show that was watched mostly males. im all like and so i don't really pay attention to what he is saying.
(Scott, if you're reading this, sorry but i was too focused on the storm drains. lol )

[late september 2011] youtube tells me he likes this video. and so i watch it since it was only 4 seconds long.

after watchin it im like. (probably cause the were all cute lookin' and stuff) (im a sucker for cute things)

so then i browse youtube and stuble upon Glaze's She's a Pony remix. again i looked like the picture above and i was pretty of curious to what this show was about. (lol and i thought Fluttershy in the background of that video was some evil character. Boy i couldn't have been more wrong)

so i watch the first season in like 2 weeks, which wasn't nearly as fast as some of you guys. then i learned there was a season 2! :D:D yay!

now i'm here. woo hoo!

[colortwelve]

Know Your Meme.

I think it's about as simple as that, it was around the time that the main entry was just starting to be one that has an all but permanent spot on the trending bar, and I got curious. So I read the entry, and didn't think much of it, but when I got to the image section (and this was back in the day when it was ALL image macros, virtually zero fanart, just funny shit) I could not stop clicking through. I went through all hundred or so pages of images, and considered myself entertained for the day.

But eventually, I decided to watch it, just to see A, why it was such a big thing on KYM, and B, to understand the image macros. I facepalmed immediately at the start of the first episode, but decided to humor it, and by the time I had reached Applebuck Season, I was hooked.

But what I think really got me into the community was Yaridovich's Synchtube channel. That place had everything, episodes, parodies, YTPs, and sometimes we just went off and watched random funny shit because yes, we did get bored of pony every now and again. But I think it was that channel that really made me a brony.

[Voracious]

I think it was back around a year ago. Found the video in my recommended videos list (don't even ask me how the hell it got there). Decided to give it a shot because the fact a girly show was in my list was annoying me.

A few hours later, I watched up to episode 20 (number of episodes out at the time).
I do think I don't need further explaining.

As for what got me into music, thank Omni. :U

[mrgeorgeftw]

one of my friends was a brony musician, he showed me an episode and i thought it was pretty good (i think it was lesson zero) so i went home and over a few weeks watched a couple of episodes when i found myself liking it more and more so i started watching t from the beginning and now i have every episode up to date :3
its not much of a story, but its home ^^

[SuperGiantRobot]

I'm not a 'brony' the term is idiotic.

[randomblockfilms]

I'm not a 'brony' the term is idiotic.

so you're a pegasister? ROLF JK!! ahaha. sorry man. had to do that. but iz cool, is cool. everybody haz their own opinions.

[Evdog]

I'm not a 'brony' the term is idiotic.

Dr. Who fans call themselves Whoovians.
Star Trek fans call themselves Trekkers/Trekkies.
People living in the U.S. call themselves Americans.
It's just another one of those.

[bartekko]

People living in Poland call themselves

NOW A FUN QUESTION.

If someone living in poland is a pole
what do we call someone living in holland?

[DrSorkenstein]

NOW A FUN QUESTION.

If someone living in poland is a pole
what do we call someone living in holland?

Dutch! What else? I mean it's not like you were implying something else...

[Doofcake]

Looong story.
I had my first contact with bronies... Well, probably when bronies first arose. Back then, I didn't know what to think of it. I was confused. Then over time I had more and more contact with them and I never saw them as bad people, I had no reason to. I absolutely DID NOT want to watch the show though. Then one of my internet buddies turned out to be a brony and whenever I talked to him, he often linked me funny videos and pictures of or related to MLP:FiM. I laughed, the stuff was funny, but my position on the show stood the same.
Then he linked me to some brony music and I absolutely LOVED it. After he linked me to BMDoubbleBass' compilation "Piecing It Together" I was simply blown away. I went ahead and downloaded the entire MLP music archive and listened to it every day. At first I tried to avoid any music that were obviously MLP related, but after a while I didn't care anymore, the music was too good. That still wasn't enough to make me watch the show, though.
Sometime in Autumn 2011, I noticed some hidden messages related to MLP on Reddit (there's a script to use MLP emoticons and hidden messages everywhere on Reddit, I had a script that showed alt-text which is used for those hidden messages). I thought the hidden messages were funny and found out about the mlp script that way. I installed the script to myself and began writing these messages as well whenever I found a secret thread, it was fun. At first, I had to go to the r/mylittlepony subreddit to get the codes for the emotes. While there, I decided to look at some of the interesting posts and read the comments. I loved it, I loved the community, everyone was just so friendly (and I have dysthymia, so happy stuff is what I need).
One day, in the beginning of 2012 (13th of January) I watched the first two episodes. I made a post on Twitter for fun, even changed my Steam avatar to Pinkie Pie just for that: https://twitter.com/#!/henry132/status/ ... 4244345857
I thought I'd change it back right afterwards, since I didn't think I'd actually watch any more episodes, but after I finished watching the second episode I wanted more, lots more and I actually accepted that I am now a brony. I continued to watch 4-5 episodes a day until I got to the latest. I kept listening to brony music every day. And I bought my first MLP related item near the end of January. Rainbow Dash, from a McDonalds Happy Meal. I've also bought Fluttershy and I got Daisy Dreams from a blind bag.
Now I'm slowly starting to make some brony music myself.

And that's the story of how I became a brony.

[the4thImpulse]

^^^ Great story!

I saw the sheer size of the fandom and wanted to investigate into how this could happen. My view on 'bronies' then was neutral, I figured then stand for love and tolerance they cant be too bad. I watched the season 1 ep 1 on December 29 2011 and the rest of the season wwas quick to follow. I was almost an instant fan!

[Sarphog]

How I became a brony, eh?

Well, it started with me noticing a lot of pony profile pictures on several forums, and then I started seeing them on Youtube. Gave in to curiosity, and ended up watching season 1 in 2 days.. Pretty basic way to turn into a brony

[North Kozar]

Looong story.

Wow, that's quite the story. Basically, the music got me into it as well. And indirectly, Nyan Cat and some people on a forum I post at. They had been talking/jokingly fighting over the brony thing, and I was like, 'wat is this werd term¿' and totally didn't think it involved something bronze. Not at all. Ended up at Alex S.'s glitchstep of the main theme and got kicked in the face by it. Which led to me reading up on it -- even though after it all I didn't initially want to watch the show. When I finally did, I was really glad, though. I was dealing with a lot of silly depression stuff and blah, and MLP totally helped me get happeh. Then as I discovered how incredibly talented the community was, it inspired me to start working on music again. Thus here I am.