The Dark Side of the Bronydom (Sourced from https://www.facebook.com/notes/bronies/the-dark-side-of-the-bronydom/372281496147119 14:34 PST)

And nopes, I do not mean R34, adult topics on pony stuff or hardcore roleplayers. Those are the least of our concerns. Sadly there are things far more dangerous and negative on this fandom than just that simple stuff.



But what’s the point of all of you knowing all of this? What’s the point of doing a pretty harsh negative rant about the “heads” of the Bronydom, or the things happening in the background that are hidden from the public view?

I could complain and whine about all the dark stuff happening now a days; about how some people are doing money based monopolies, or how friends for those folks are turning a fandom based on friendship and love into a reputation contest, or how others are trying to tag the whole fandom into a gender/sexual preference cause, or how people are sick with power and believe that controlling others will give them status or make them better somehow, or that most people on the fandom state: “I don’t want any drama” and thus they support “drama makers” into doing whatever stuff that affects the fandom, etc, etc, etc… What’s the point of you learning all this stuff? There is no purpose on that. What good will come if you learn all the dark stuff if you can’t fight it or want even to move a finger to do anything to correct the situation?

That’s why I decided to let this go for good, and give the fandom a chance to correct itself instead of publicly denouncing people and projects that do harm the fandom.

I remember that on the beginning we had such great times, fan game projects that were good, epic PMVs or pony animation videos that were not just mini-flash animations based on cars or whatever stuff. I remember when pony tunes were great and released alongside PMVs, quality music, not all the time but quality tunes and quality musicians. I remember when MLR was a good place to hang out and learn music. I remember when official parties were involved with the community, and not just with few people that take the spotlight and could get in trouble those official parties. I remember when we shared great art and drawings, instead just whatever pony meme with low quality. I remember when Mr. Ingram needed help and the whole community answered, I even created his wiki page. I remember when any FIM news was received like it was the most important thing of the day, and now we select and ignore all kinds of notes and news all the time, we even got into newspapers, now its like it doesn’t matter. I remember when Bronies page on FB was featured as TOP1 of WTF fandoms in Smoosh and was featured on several Radio Podcasts and even a Newspaper in Australia. I remember the friendship and good times we had on several places like synchtube, ponychan, fimchan, rainbowdash.net, etc places before they got full of spammers and people hungry with power. Lots of things were good on the beginning and this fandom was going to be a great fandom different from the others. Now a days I see no difference against the other fandoms, we have the same trolls, the same negative people casted away from those fandoms, the same videogames livestream stuff that steals the time of musicians and artists in order to just get reputation instead work done, etc. But also we have people trying to raise armies on the fandom and turn it into a banner for gender issues, or medical conditions, or trollers, or secret cults, or money interests, etc. This fandom was supposed to be about friendship, love, tolerance, respect. Not to become like all other fandoms and even worse on some areas.



I could brief you about all the stuff that is wrong, about who are the ones doing wrong on the fandom and why. I even have logs, evidence, proofs, videos, testimonials from their “friends” and coworkers. But what’s the point of you learning something you can’t fight or you will deny ? Some good Bronies have left the fandom because they learned all of this. We have lost lots of good members and people here. Also I cannot state all the things that are wrong as lots of official parties lurk here and are subscribed to the page and I don’t want them to learn about this or become self-aware of the stuff they are involved to. Some of them have “sides” and support some “factions” on the Bronydom, they are aware of some of this stuff, some of them have been warned about lots of this stuff by people that thinks they have the right to do so as if they represent the whole Bronydom or think they do without submitting it to votes or asking opinions about that to anyone. So it’s better if official parties remain un-aware of all of this or at least don’t get the full picture of their part on this. There is no point then to warn you or inform you about all this stuff. This fandom is supposed to be about joy, love and friendship. That’s why most of us joined it. I myself wanted to spread the happiness that I felt with the fandom and the series. But after being involved almost since the beginning I become aware of all of this negative stuff, and its jut no longer fun for me. I wanted to inform all of this to you in order to try to help the fandom to get on track, but I realized it’s just impossible to do, so what’s the point of spoiling all of this to you?



Season 2 ended now, and harsh times are rising for the Bronydom again, the time on which we do not have episodes airing is the harshest, and most people focus themselves onto projects as they do not focus on current episodes, pony gags or art. After S1 ended lots of negative stuff appeared on the fandom, and this will be the case again.

So I figured out that instead of informing you about all the evils on this, it’s better to give you tips on how to ignore all of this and try to get the most of the Bronydom until S3 ends.

Try to enjoy ponies, pony fan games, and enjoy pony art, pony music, pony memes, pony music vids and animations. Avoid all other stuff behind those as it does imply lots of negative aspects.

How to avoid the Dark Side of the fandom:



    If you want to attend to a FiM convention, subscribe just to the Convention you are attending to, on mail list or Facebook. Try to avoid Twitter as you learn lots of dark stuff there, and the more cons you are subscribed to, you start learning more and more of dark aspects of the fandom.
    If you find some VIP name that repeats itself lots of times on negative topics or conversations, try to avoid topic and never ask who is that person, or you’ll get a full briefing about all the dark stuff that person is doing.
    If you received the request to merge projects with whatever, first check who you are merging with, some guys want to claim all for themselves and sometimes merging with someone that won’t help you on other things that are not “popularity “or “spreading the word” might get you into trouble if you want to claim your project as your own later or go separate ways, or they might even hijack your project. Lots of people on the fandom do this approach, try always to refuse to merge or be part of some other project if they won’t help you with yours.
    If someone offers you to become part of a group to combat against some site, always say NO, they will tweak the truth in order to get you to act against others. Later they will abandon you if you are no longer useful to them or if you don’t get enough visits/reputation. They want all the reputation and power for themselves.
    If you are asked constantly donations just ignore the post or unsubscribe to the source that is posting such material. Lots of people that I cannot call Bronies see this as a business and get tons of money that they won’t use for the projects, but for themselves. Lots of them play a reputation game on twitter and live streams shouting each other and congratulating each other because the projects and donations, thus it becomes a chain of spam about "donate for whatever project". Not all donation projects are correct or good, if constantly asked for donations from one source, unsubscribe and ignore for the better good. Subscribe to Donation projects such as Bronies for Good that do use donations for charity.
    If you don’t like Role-play and troll behavior, stay away from those sources. I know there are not lots of places that are free from all of this, but try not to engage on discussions against them or visit those places. Same for the ones that like troll stuff and role-play behavior, stay on the places on which that stuff is accepted, you must respect in order to get respect. We have lots of parents and family guys that don’t care about this stuff, do not force them to get their kids to stop watching FiM just because of this.
    If you are head or staff of a Con, it’s always better to find a “Anime” con near you to assist you on this instead of asking other Brony cons for resources. This will avoid lots of misunderstandings. You don’t need to be in touch with all cons all the time at the same time, that does not bring you more benefits or attendants to your Convention, reputation games neglect content and organization. Also try to merge with Conventionrs near you in order to maximize "profit" and attendance. We already have 2 Cons that hate each other and are done on the same state and almost at the same time.
    If you are victim of haters or trolls, just ignore, do not respond to any of them, if they want to bring the “where is the love and tolerance” just ban, block or remove. They are using our core values to try to troll us.
    If you are an official party just try to interact the minimum amount with people on the fandom, engaging fully all the time with them will cause 2 things: Others to be jealous and consider you to be in a “faction” depending on the people you choose to answer to or ignore. Or will get you in trouble with the company you are working for because the more you get along with someone, the more you tend to reveal things you are not supposed to (DISCORD incident, DEMO SAMPLES incident, Web Help incident, Cons incidents, etc) or violate agreements in your contract that prevent you to show in fan events without permission just because.
    If you are subscribed to some groups that only advert merchandise all the time just unsubscribe or leave groups, most of the merch announced is from their friends only and they tend to ignore others, you’ll avoid lots of complains from others on those groups regarding preferences and merch monopolies, etc.
    If you happen to find a musician or artist that states things like “I’m only doing this to get reputation on the fandom and launch myself on other places” just ignore and unsubscribe if possible. This is not a fandom that serves personal interests or gets you reputation while you are not even fan of the ponies or the show.
    Lots of live streams, lots of live streams. Here it depends on what you like, there are live streams about music, there are live streams about gaming, there are live streams about interviews, etc. My advice is to ignore all live streams on which they say they compose tunes and instead of that they are just navigating on 4chan or doing whatever gaming session. If you like video gaming just attend to the ones confirmed for that. On general basis i recommend you to attend only to the ones with interviews and statements, as recently the music live streams are everything but that. Lots of this live streams are Rep games, so it’s not worthy of feeding them with “hey my live stream has more viewers than yours” stuff, while live stream session does not worth wasting even minutes of life time.
    On social networks stuff, try to avoid groups and twitter accounts from supposedly Brony VIP people parties or Brony VIP groups, you’ll find lots of negative stuff there and major spam issues. And people saying negative stuff about other groups or people. Or also youll check other negative aspects inherent in all human beings.
    On the news side, try to get into all the places you can Equestria Daily, My Little Pony News, Derpy Hooves News, etc. Do not get stuck in one as from time to time you’ll see a rant against other news site or against other artist, or they will even ignore content that favors other sites. It’s best to have the whole picture and not just one source to tell you what to think and what to do. Same applies for music and art scene.
    If you are victim of cyber bullying because ponies, just create new profiles for ponies or block and ignore the ones that are bothering you.
    If you are a graphical artists or musician, focus on your art or style, get tutors for it if you need that, but do not engage on reputation games and exchange of popularity by ads/shoutouts. You’ll learn it pays nothing and you will only help others to get on the top while you sink faster. Work on your own stuff, don’t wait for others that are your “friends” to spread your things and call those first quality then they are not.
    If you are part of a project respect the ones that created that project or manage it, don’t try to divide the resources supporting them just because you don’t agree on the way the things are done.
    Do not dig onto monopolies, or misused funds, or factions. That will only hurt you a lot and you’ll maybe end up hating the Bronydom. As already happened to lots of good fols that i miss already.
    If you are a musician, artists or VIP. Do not forget the ones that helped you to become what you are now on the fandom, i know this means nothing to most of them, but there are some folks that ignore their origins in order to get more reputation. Always speak with the truth when asked, give shouts to the ones that you left behind from time to time.



Well that’s all the things I can say to you. As I mentioned earlier R34, adult stuff(and gore) and roleplaying are the least of our concerns those exist on all fandoms, and you can’t avoid those from happening. But you can enjoy the fandom if you avoid stuff that will lead you to dark corners. I’ve explained you some tips on this, and why you need to do that, those are not complains, those are FACTS. You can enjoy the fandom avoiding lots of stuff stated here. And I hope it works for some of you. I’m not going onto details of all because that is sad and you don’t need to know that. Some of you were waiting for this article to be released for a long time, I’m sorry I could not deliver all, but at least I delivered this one that I think is far more positive than the other one, and will help you somehow to deal with all of this.



Lastly i want to thank Sibsy, Daniel Ingram, Erica Pitt, Andrea Libman, Michelle Creber, Tara Strong for being there with us since the beginning and collaborating with the fandom and the community lots of times. You are big influences for us and helped Bronies Pages on Facebook to become what they are right now.