ABSTRACT
Hasbro Inc. is a toy company. They are best known for inventing Transformers, but they have a very popular line of G.I. Joe action gures for boys and My Little Pony colourful, plastic ponies with unique symbols
on their anks called “cutie marks” for girls. In October 2010, trying to boost the sale of their toys to 2-to 11-year-old girls, Hasbro launched an animated series about ponies called My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (MLP:FIM). But something very unexpected happened. Approximately a year after the rst episode of MLP:FIM was released, the programme gained a huge following of teenage and adult men, especially in the United States. Brony fandom – or “the Herd” – was born. Some Bronies took a liking to the series because of the animation or storylines, but some claim it means much more to them; it saved them from depression or even suicide, and made them better people when they adapted the show’s moral message to their lives. Some even developed a spiritual bond with certain characters. This chapter will discuss Brony fandom in general, about which there is some academic (Crome 2014; Robertson 2014) and fan-made documentary (for example, Malaquais 2012) material. The focus is on the smaller, particularly “devoted”, part of the fandom.
