Six different kinds of sandwiches were laid out on the table of the Delta Terrace lounge – each was wrapped in cellophane and decorated with a drawing of a pony.
Around the table, a group of UCLA students gathered on Saturday morning to watch the mid-season return of one of their favorite TV shows, “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.”
The students are bronies.
The show’s target demographic is young girls who play with the Hasbro toys that the show is modeled after, but it’s garnered an adult following of people who call themselves “bronies,” said Donovon Guadagnin, a third-year Japanese student who founded the Bronies at UCLA club.
So I decided I’d spend time with the bronies this month and figure out why this show about magical ponies appeals to a group of college-age people with majors and interests as diverse as biology, computer science and comparative literature.
That’s what this column is for, by the way. Every few weeks I’ll do something on campus that’s new to me, or quirky, and share my experience with all of you. It’s my fourth year at UCLA, but l have yet to stray very far outside of my comfort zone and understand what the UCLA experience is like for the thousands of other students and faculty on this campus.
My first step to understanding bronies was to figure out the premise of the show, so I watched the pilot episode before attending Saturday’s viewing. It centers around six animated female ponies – some are unicorns, some are pegasi (or winged horses) – and they are the best of friends. The main characters are intelligent, and they keep the kingdom of Equestria from falling apart by using the power of friendship.
Guadagnin founded the club last quarter because he is a transfer student and wanted a way to find others with the same interests, he said. It started with just three people, but as of Tuesday, 20 people had liked the Facebook group, and between six and 10 people regularly attend meetings and events.
UCLA’s bronies have come to love the show in different ways, and in quite a few cases, it was an unexpected love.
Sid Lem, for example, kept getting annoyed at the mention of the show on websites and forums he visited. Finally, the sheer number of posts about it piqued his curiosity, and he decided to watch an episode.
On Saturday’s viewing, the third-year political science student sat in the Delta Terrace lounge with some other members of the club, just a few hours after the episode’s first run. He was wearing a shirt with an image of and quote from Twilight Sparkle, one of the ponies. (There was also a unicorn horn that came with the shirt, but he had to draw the line somewhere, he said.)
“Ready?” someone in the room asked.
“Wait,” Lem said. He took the small stuffed pony on the table and placed it on the arm of his chair, facing the big screen TV. “Now I’m ready.”
He was joking, I think, but Lem has developed a respect for both the show and its fandom since he started watching.
The show has inspired PMVs, or “Pony Music Videos,” that fans create
After we watched the episode, they showed me remixes of the show’s songs, a pony-themed adaptation of the opening credits to “Casino Royale” and countless videos and illustrations that fans have created completely from scratch.
The fan-made art is so impressive that sometimes people see it first and then start watching the show so they can understand PMV’s better, Lem said.
“Fandom is really amazing,” Lem said. “It makes you feel like you want to get involved.”
The club is planning on having events this quarter to create artwork related to the show and engage in My Little Pony role-playing games, said Chantal Ing, a fourth-year biology student and the club’s event planner. The events up to this point have consisted of weekly social meetings and a few episode viewings.
Ing is the one who made the pony-themed sandwiches, and she’s proof that although many bronies are men, women who fit the characteristics of a brony adopt the title as well.
“(‘My Little Pony’ is) showing that girls can have adventures … (and) slay dragons,” Ing said. Her favorite character is Rarity, a generous pony who is into fashion and makes a business out of it.
“Girls’ shows don’t have to be poor quality. Guys can be into girl things and look up to girl characters.”
Of all the stories I heard about the members’ paths to their brony status, third-year applied linguistic student Melody Wang’s was my favorite.
“One of my friends came over, we were bored, he said let’s watch ‘My Little Pony,’ and I threatened to punch him in the face,” Wang said.
But then she watched the show with her 18-year-old brother (who was already a brony), and found herself gasping at one of the climactic moments.
Now she’s the club’s secretary/treasurer, and she’s even written an academic essay about the show.
During the viewing, we saw the 10th episode of Season Three, in which the girls band together to convert the evil Discord (voiced by John De Lancie, who played the character Q in Star Trek – this is another source of the show’s popularity) into a positive character, all by making him their friend.
Surprisingly enough, I kind of liked the show. The protagonists are empowered female characters who embody the best values of friendship, and their weapons against evil are the “elements of harmony.”
I found myself telling the group that my favorite character is Rainbow Dash – her trademark characteristic is loyalty. She’s spunky, a little bit tomboyish, and she can clear the sky of clouds.
After the episode and the fan videos, Lem had me take an online quiz to see which character I am. I was surprised to find out that I’m Princess Celestia, the fair, wise and beautiful ruler of the Equestria. OK, so I might have presented a better version of myself in my answers, but I still gloated about this for a while, reveling in my newfound royalty.
“What we say is you joined the herd,” Ing told me as I was leaving.
I laughed, ready to get back to adult life.
That is, until I got home, opened Netflix and started watching the rest of Season One.
Have a suggestion for what Kohli should do next on campus? Email her at skohli@media.ucla.edu