This week, Lillian Ritchie and I explored the Brony fandom community — in essence, we both remembered hearing negative press 5 or 6 years ago and wanted to see what we could find. As it turns out, Hasbro (or their legal representation) has done a pretty decent job of clearing out the negative posts and has created a public-facing company that is pretty ‘clean’ and ‘happy’ and mostly brand-centric, promoting rainbows, unicorns, sunshine, and smiles all around.
What’s most interesting here is that a fandom that was once a fairly middle-aged male dominated culture, has not much changed other than what is and what is not allowed to be shared. It’s a very self-policing environment that appears to thrive off of the accolades and ‘hoffs’ that members give one another. It appears to be a polite and supportive culture where members can ‘freely’ post within the rule-sets that are dictated on the site.
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