fandom | Alice Vega

Hey guys! Happy Wednesday! Again!

Photo from feminspire.com

So in honor of Youtube’s Geek Week, I’ve been posting some geeky articles to help celebrate this amazing time. But as I thought about it, I realized ALL my blog posts are geeky. Sooo, I guess the only difference between this week and every other week is that I’m just yelling “HAPPY GEEK WEEK!” in every post. Whatever, just celebrate with me, damnit!

So I originally wanted to post this 3 days ago on National Friendship Day (Yes, it exists. Google it.) but that didn’t work out. So here I am! In honor of belated National Friendship Day, I want to talk to you guys about the magicalness that is My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

If you’re a fan of the show, GREAT! Hello my fellow Bronies and Pegasisters! If you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, well, then this goes out to you.

A year ago at Anime Expo, my best friend Angi cosplayed as Pinkie Pie. I’ll be honest, I really didn’t understand what the hype was about. I mean, MLP isn’t even anime. It’s a children’s show and it’s kinda cheesy. But hey, geeks flock to stuff like this so I guess I couldn’t be too surprised. After AX was over, I decided to watch the show to understand why it was so popular.

I originally sat down to watch ONE episode, but then I found myself finishing the first season. (Thank you Netflix!) This shit was ADDICTING! And anyone who’s addicted to any TV show or anime will understand my feels. When there’s a plethora of episodes and seasons available for FREE (or for $8 a month), you HAVE to watch all of it. You can’t just stop in the middle… who does that?! That’s unAmerican.

My Little Pony is an amazing show that teaches its viewers the magic of friendship. (See what I did there?!) But all corny jokes aside, this show really explores PLATONIC relationships between people..erm.. ponies, which a lot of children shows don’t tend to do anymore. Whether the lesson is about humility, sacrifice, or honesty, the show showcases all these lessons into colorful, fun, scenarios… WITH PONIES! It also addresses the issue of self identity. Each pony has something called a Cutie Mark. It’s a little emblem that appears near their butts (I don’t know how to make that sound politically correct) that define who you are. The six main characters of the show already have their Cutie Marks, but three supporting characters, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle, are on a quest to find theirs. In other words, these three young ponies are on a quest to discover who they are and what they can contribute to this world.

See?! Aren’t these themes just so relevant in life?! I think this is an amazing show for ALL AGES! A lot of people criticize the fact that the viewer demographic has an abundance of males ages 12-35, but who the hell cares?! Those guys are awesome for watching the show and I bet you anything by learning these timeless lessons about friendship, these guys probably treat everyone with respect. WHICH IS WHAT THE SHOW IS ABOUT!

My Little Pony has become such a phenomenon and has such a loyal and crazy fanbase that the fans have given each other names. I used them earlier, but let me explain. There are Bronies and Pegasisters. I mean, that’s as straightforward as you can get… Brony meaning fanboy and Pegasister meaning fangirl… but amongst this amazing community sparks a controversy in title. Before the name “Pegasister” came along, we just had the name “Brony.” So everyone, females and males, referred to themselves as Bronies. Some fans feel the term “Brony” should be gender neutral and we shouldn’t even be using the name “Pegasister.” I know this sounds crazy, but this is actually a big deal because this delves into a bigger, deeper rooted issue… gender binaries! Do people not want to be classified into “boys” and “girls”? Why does the term “Brony” sound better to some? What’s wrong with being classified as a female fan?

Well, I honestly don’t have the answers to all these questions, but here’s my short 2 cents about the topic. The term “Brony” CAN’T be gender neutral because it’s derived from the word “brother.” I thought about this a lot yesterday and I have to admit I’m a subject of pushing the boundaries of gender binaries. I mean, I use the word “guys” a lot, to indicate that I’m talking to EVERYONE. But in reality, the term “guys” is NOT gender neutral… the word “guy” implies males. The reason it seems to be gender neutral is because we live in a patriarchal system.

So what does this all mean? I basically just threw some shit at you to think about, obviously. Well for starters, I think I need to start using a different term in my blog posts. Does it make me sad? Eh… not really. If anything, it’s making me consciously think about my word choice. And I’m honestly not one of those people that’s gonna get all anal about it, but if anything, I hope I inspired you to think about these word choices: Brony vs. Pegasister. Does one connote more power and respect? Or are we thinking too much into this?

But to reiterate my whole point, you should be watching My Little Pony. And if you have kids, you should DEFINITELY be showing them this show. There’s not a lot of good content for kids nowadays that won’t kill their brain cells. This show actually has thought-provoking concerns and issues that will teach our future generation how to be… Oh I don’t know… GOOD PEOPLE.

And we need more of that in this world.

-Alice

If you know me, then it shouldn’t be a surprise that I’m a huge fangirl of everything awesome. I have different fandoms and I love them all equally. Sometimes I’ll have a phase where I’ll be obsessed with one fandom for a couple of months or years, and then I’ll switch it up. I guess I do it just to keep things interesting and spice it up a bit.

So you’re probably wondering: what the hell is a fangirl and what is a fandom? Well first of all, if you’re on the internet and don’t know the answer to at least one of the questions, then shame on you. But it’s ok – once you’re done reading this post, you might find out that you, too, have an inner fangirl/fanboy just waiting to come out.

Fangirl – noun
1. A rabid breed of human female who is obsessed with either a fictional character or an actor. Similar to the breed of fanboy. Fangirls congregate at anime conventions and livejournal. Have been known to glomp, grope, and tackle when encountering said obsessions.
-Credit: Urban Dictionary

First of all, that definition is a little outdated. I mean, who still uses Livejournal? (I haven’t signed onto mine in almost 6 years now.) If you used Livejournal, you were most likely writing fanfiction (like I was). Livejournal, in my opinion, was used for people in different fandoms to connect and share their love for the fandom. I’m not sure if people still use it though… It’s kinda like a Xanga now. Like, who uses Xanga anymore? That’s like using a midi file for your website in 2013.

And you know you’re a fangirl/fanboy if you’ve ever used the word “glomp” in a sentence. Remember those good ol’ times when you saw that word on t-shirts at almost any convention?! Ahh… those were the days.

But now “glomp” is so 2003.

In case you don’t know what “glomp” means, glomp is basically a tackle hug. Only anime fans would know what this means because most anime always has a character glomping another character. You know how some people act out what they see on TV? Yeah, kinda applies here. If you still don’t really understand what glomping is, here’s an image I found on google on how to do it right.

Scary, right? Especially if you’re the victim.

I always found it weird that not many of my friends really understood why I had so many obsessions and why I was so infatuated with the fandoms. I mean, if you find something you really love, like a sport, a book, a movie, etc., don’t you want to find out everything about it? For example, if you love basketball, don’t you want to watch ESPN and watch every highlight of everyday? Buy the games, wear the jerseys, tweet about it, tweet to your favorite player!? If you’ve done this, you can consider yourself a fangirl/fanboy. Because this is what fangirling is at the very core.

But I’d like to point out that there are different levels of fangirling. You have your extreme fangirls who sleep, breathe, eat their fandoms, and you have your mildly obsessed fangirls who don’t mind watching the series or movie over and over in the privacy of their own home but wouldn’t be caught DEAD at an event with other geeks in the fandom.

As you can see, there’s a spectrum and depending on how proud you are of your fandom, you may land differently on the spectrum than your friends.

As for me, I consider myself pretty extreme. I’m pretty vocal about what I love and I have no shame in telling people so. I go to anime conventions, I’ve cosplayed, I used to write fanfiction, I still READ fanfiction (both anime and Hunger Games), I’ve been to plenty of midnight premieres, I have a freakin’ Hunger Games tattoo, one of my sorority paddles is a Pikachu, and I follow all my idols on Twitter and tweet to them. And sometimes they tweet back! 😀

OH and I can probably quote some of my favorite Youtubers. Because I’ve watched their videos THAT much.

You can call me creepy all you want, but if you’ve already met me, I bet you didn’t know half these things that I do. I’m just good at integrating myself with society so that I don’t look like that awkward kid in the corner with no social skills. It’s definitely something I’ve had to perfect over the years. When I was a kid, I used to sing all the songs in my Rurouni Kenshin: Best Collection CD out loud to all my friends during recess.

Yeah, as if I wasn’t teased enough for being the asian kid.

So now that you know the art of fangirling, you may unleash your inner fangirl/fanboy out to the world. Let that fangirl converse with me sometime. Trust me, you’re not weird and you’re definitely not alone.

Hope everyone has had a great weekend! Happy Father’s Day to all the dads and moms out there!

-Alice

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