Huh... thats a lot of old first cartoon fans who liked spike the dragon more than the ponies. (The first generation caused this show to happen in the first place)
As a female, my guess is that the communities in which MLP became popular are predominantly male (e.g. 4chan). I don't think MLP's appeal itself has much of a gender bias.
Additionally, from what I gather the women that like ponies, or rather to post about ponies, are generally Tomboys or more of a tough nature. There are also a good amount who are lesbians.
However, this is just from what I can see, please do not hold me to that. I'm sure there are some who are the stereotypical girly girls and enjoy this show.
I think the poll is this way because it's a web-based poll that's opt-in. On a site that started with a chunk of its original audience coming straight from 4chan. (Though I pretty much don't go to 4chan, so I can't say much about how many females are there. It just doesn't seem like there would be that many.) I think it's safe to say that women are more likely to be socializing about the show with their friends and enjoying it in their spare times with the same time that might be put into voting/commenting here on EqD. Or writing fanfics. Though that's more playing with stereotypical US women gender tropes than sex.
The poll is specific about picking one's sex rather than gender. Perhaps for the better.
Thing is, Equestria Daily is ultimately descended from the pony outbreak in certain "wretched hives of scum and villainy" which I'd presume had a predominantly male membership... So, the poll result is reflecting the audience this site inherited, not the show's overall audience (look at the MLPArena or several of the Pony RP forums and you'll see there is quite a healthy adult female following of FIM out there...)
Well, cartoons as a whole are generally considered to be more of a "guy" thing. After all, Faust was (and is) trying to change precisely that, so no matter whether she ultimately succeeds or not, the majority of fans are likely to be guys, at least at the beginning since the process will take some time in any case. (Yes, I consider season one to be "the beginning")
Though the "too few cute guys" angle... Huh. Might be on to something there. It does go at least some way to explain the rampant F/F shipping; The main cast is, after all, ENTIRELY female.
I consider all the ponies androgynous anyway so when characters with blatant and over the top male or female characteristics are shown it annoys me. For example, the fashion show episodes with ponies wearing makeup. Ugh.
My guess is that this show offers men the chance to do things that women are allowed to take for granted in society (emotions other than rage, compassions other than lust, joys other than obsession). It extends to men an olive branch in its content unlike any other series of it's type, and once the community formed around it guys realized that they weren't alone it wanting to be more than stone-faced cynical jerks.
Dangit I missed this poll. And yes Im female. Im also a fan of the 1986 G1 ponies as well as this G4 one.In my opinion it's 10 times better since it doesn't have a focus on just little girls. I wonder though, even if I am a young lady would I still be a brony? or just a pony?
Exactly what Beese said. Neckbeard/hentai/furry ratio of the online bronies is far too high for female fans to feel comfortable joining in, or at least it seems that way. It even bugs me, and I came over from /b/. I expect there are plenty of female fans who don't frequent sites like this.
Anyway, girl here, and I came for the shipping (well, I am a lesbian) but stayed because you're all pretty cool people. I think what everyone's saying about the pony obsession and this site in particular starting on 4chan really is what's making the gender ratio so lopsided. It can be... really uncomfortable for women on 4chan, so it takes a certain kind of mindset to enjoy it there, which not every woman has.
On the other hand, I've talked to a number of women in internet places that skew heavily female, like Livejournal and a couple of the forums I frequent, and there are plenty of women who love ponies, and even fangirl them and write and draw stuff about them.
Pony fandom is like opposite land for me. I'm so used to fandoms that are mostly women mostly writing and drawing m/m. And yet at the same time the plots of the stories that get written and the discussion of episodes and the like I see here is eerily similar to the things I see in female-dominated fandoms. It makes me pretty happy! We aren't really all that different!
Yeah, females aren't "weird" and when they see stuff that's odd they get disgusted and afraid of it and can't ignore it.
The very basis of more adult males liking MLP is weird. Add into that the ratio of shipping posts you see in a day and well, no wonder there's so many men compared to females.
Well, I can't say that this applies to every case, but every internet community I'VE been on was predominantly male. Somewhere in this mass of comments before, lies the truth.
I am not surprised by these results at all. The feeble female sensibilities aren't really designed to handle something so obviously barehanded-bearwrasslin'-manly as these tiny magical pastel coloured equines that act friendly towards each other and sing songs and make each other dresses and put on fashion shows and OHMYGODTHISISSOCUTE!!!
Ekhm... But anyway have some youtube data from a month and a half ago. This should be better in terms of avoiding chan-bias.
It avoids the chan bias some, but MLP still became a phenomenon via 4chan. A lot of the appeal in watching it is the comradery with fellow bronies, isn't it? The spark has to spread to female-dominated communities before there's the same level of enthusiasm, I think.
I diefinitely think the 4chan bias exists on this particular fan site. I found out about ponies from a week long internet escapade across the reaches of Know Your Meme, /b/, funnyjunk, Encyclopedia Dramatica and Wikipedia. I'm a college (art school)guy who spends a lot of his free time on the internet, so useless info gathering and discovery is kinda my thing. However, I'm not surprised to hear there are other developed female-based fan populations on the net.
It's probably ED's 4chan roots that have created the skewed demographic here, yeah. Established female MLP fans on the net (mostly nostalgic 20-30 something collectors, like me) have already created their own communities at places like the MLP Arena and MLP Trading Post. And of course, not all MLP toy fans are fans of the show, for whatever reason.
I'm a female that hangs out at the Arena a lot; I have no idea how I first found this site, but I started visiting so frequently that I eventually bookmarked it. :)
I believe the skew, since this site arose from /co/lts. Me, I'm actually not from 4chan at all, nor am I a shipper. What am I doing here, then? Well, this is still the best place for pony news and updates. Truckloads of neat stuff I found through EqDaily. 'Sides, y'all is good people. ^_^
not surprised about the m/f ratio at all. what I'm more surprised about is the amount of people in the survey, around 2000-ish. that's quite the amount of bronies.
But I'm technically female, although quite a bit gender queer. I actually like this site and others like it. I like being able to enjoy MLP in a more masculine environment. To me it makes it a lot more comfortable and relaxed (compared to female environment with even more drama and catty bitches)
For some reason...the g4 art and characters... The way they're drawn and written the porn doesn't weird me out like G1 stuff. I have no idea why. I'm not fluffed by it at all.
I have the same question, what are you calling female fans? Just ponies or...?
Precisely. Go to the MLPArena, the MLPTP, the hangouts for pony collectors - it's all women. I'd say the ratio is much sharper there, maybe 99% women to 1% men. This site is more of a 'branch off' from 4chan, and therefore has a great deal more male followers.
Although I like the layout of the site, as well as the content, I could do with much less neckbeardery in the commentary. "Look at that landwhale!", for example, doesn't exactly make women feel welcome. And it also makes me want to kill said commentator until dead. :)
I have a (female) friend steeped in the Transformers fandom and it's often entertaining to look at the ways that the FiM fandom seems to be the opposite equivalent - Transformers being a show geared towards young males with a large adult female fandom and plenty of m/m shipping.
The only thing these numbers tell us is that the visitors of Equestria Daily are predominantly male. It says nothing about the show's audience. Think about it like this: it's true that everyone who visits Equestria Daily watches My Little Pony but not everyone who watches My Little Pony visits Equestria daily. If you actually want to collect information on the general audience, you'll need a much broader, more random sample.
New (female) viewer here - found it via the awesome Ponycraft 2 vid (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJbAT1wzS8U). I noticed a lot of recent comments from guy gamers who started watching MLP because of that vid, so that may be one contributing factor. Love the show - super impressed at how well it's written!
Bi female here who's been lurking around since the first threads appeared on /co/ in October. I knew guys would be in the majority since this fandom mostly came from 4chan, but wow, us wimmins are really outnumbered here. I am amused that it's mostly guys here creating all these wonderful fanfics and such, especially with the shipping.
I am a female MLP fan and have been since "Rescue From Midnight Castle".
"Midnight Castle" might've been the reason that so many older males are fans of MLP, since that special was made by the same people who made the "Dungeons & Dragons" cartoon at that same time. Plus many male fans were/are fans of MLP, Transformers, JEM, and GI Joe which were all made by Marvel/Sunbow in the '80s (best syndicated cartoon studio EVAH!!!)
It's nice to see other people appreciate the genius mix of show tunes and action adventure that only MLP (and Disney) can provide;-)
I didn't see the poll when I came here either.
I'm astonished by all the male fans (considering MLP:FIM airs when most people are in school/work and it airs on The Hub which lots of cable companies don't have). I found ED through a link on TV Tropes MLP:FIM page.
I LOVE all the pony AMVs!!!! I agree with whoever said that thats what's bringing all the new fans in. I always wonder who's making all these videos.... are they guys or gals?
I thought this site was predominantly female, until I saw all the references to "bronies".
I'm beginning to think that MLP:FIM is the most popular show on The Hub. Cause I don't see ANY GI Joe: Renegades or Transformers: Prime AMVs at all.
*raises hand* Sistas represent!! Where are my 256 others? 8D
Yeah: cartoon-addicted, exceedingly obsession-prone, straight, therian/furry female weirdo here. Hell, I've needed to have at least one or two major obsessions at any given moment along with all of my dozens and hundreds of others for as long as I can remember just to...well, be me. I'm not into most of the shipping, but obviously respect others' right to enjoy the hell out of it. I guess I feel perfectly comfortable on this blog because, go figure...I'm no stranger to having and hanging around with guy friends.
I know that the 2,000+ people who responded to this poll during the short period of time it was open probably aren't truly a representative sample of MLP fans; surely there are proportionately more girls than just 12%...? And surely there are loads more fans who simply haven't accessed the site. Clearly most of y'all found this site through some other male-dominated one, which helps explain the results. Still, the entire FiM fandom does seem to consist of more males overall. Which I think is awesome. To be in a minority of MLP fans, as a girl, is...just wow. Lauren Faust is a miracle worker.
ED seems to be THE pony site, though. I mean THE place to get your pony fix--all the pertinent news, happenings, discussions, images, stories, links, etc. So, whatever the key demographics are, makes no difference to me; I LUFFS YOU! Besides, a fair percentage of the comments I see on the posts could easily have been written/spoken by a person of either sex.
...I only wish we gals had a catchy and clever little name like "brony" to identify us. Could go with Otaku Ascended's all-inclusive suggestion of "FiMfan," I suppose, unless I think of something better. ^.^
Ho-lee cow...poke. Come to think of it, most of my /other fandoms have tended to be either very predominantly female, or more of a mix than 87/12. So this is a bit different, and cool. I too see more similarities than differences, though. Guess it just goes to show that crazed fans are crazed fans, regardless of sex. ^^
@LordOfTheWrongs "Women aren't the ones who need a support group to watch MLP!"
Yeah, I agree. There is not a single person IRL that I can talk with about this show, and this site probably satisfies that need for lots of people (read: guys).
This comes to show that this show has an unintended audience. Ms. Faust has created a show that is for all intents and purposes the Sonic SatAM of 2011, a show geared for kids (or in this case, young girls) but appeals to everybody.
I would not be surprised if HUB ends up in total shock to find that their usual audience only comprise of a small fraction of the total audience of this show, once the surveys come in.
What the fuck is a Four Change? Can I fuck it? What color is it? Does it fly?
For completeness sake: I'm an omnigendered, asexual male who HAPPENS to be a tomgirl only for the sake that, like I said, I'm all of them. Mostly neutral, but that doesn't mean I can't like ponies AND transformers as much as science and Porygons. Census complete.
When I tell females about the show, it's all really hit and miss (one bitch said she LIKED the horror-horses from the 80's!), by males always seem to be interested and give it an honest chance, even if they don't become as completely obsessed with Pinkie/Dash as I am.
Like always, the internet is the exact opposite of real life.
And I think the X factor here is the ages. In a younger age group, I suspect the fanbase is mostly female. Not being in elementary school anymore, however, I have no proof.
Hi I'm male and I watch this show, but if my dad found out I'd be dead, he's too much of a wuss to watch this show. Prove that your a man by watching it !!
I'm a kid and a girl, so I'm the least rare of the bronies out there! :D I think most girls are scared of this site, due to all of the guys and their artwork. O o
I am a 18 year old male, I love computing and have a success full job, own a motorbike, have a lot of friends and always busy stoning with them on my weekends watching adventure time and eating KFC. But I still have that 22 minutes a day on my lunch to watch my little pony. I don't know why its so good to watch, I have never used 4chan or another site before, I heard about it from one of my female friends.
I think... 3 is the magic number, its the number of episodes it took me to get hooked, any non believers, get them to watch 3 episodes and they will not turn back. regardless of gender.
PS I hate the older generations they make me cringe.
I'm female but I just found MLP 2 weeks ago on youtube and then started watching all the episodes. I'm really into shipping fanfic and horror fanfic though. I love the show but I love the fanfic almost more.
95 comments:
Huh... thats a lot of old first cartoon fans who liked spike the dragon more than the ponies. (The first generation caused this show to happen in the first place)
ReplyDeletewell, this site DOES cater to males quite a bit, if we're being honest.
ReplyDeleteIt's because real men watch ponies, women arn't real men.
ReplyDeleteIt's magic.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure it's that second one. What with all the f/f shipping and grimdark gorefests, an' all.
ReplyDelete@Ebon Mane
ReplyDeleteHey, I *like* the f/f shipping. Don't go putting words in my mouth. :<
Hey, there's still 257 of us out there! I for one am full on brony, female style!
ReplyDeleteAnd I have never cared for the older pony generations.
@Phoe
ReplyDeleteDue to your comment I am strangely aroused... Also I hate G1 through G3.
As a female, my guess is that the communities in which MLP became popular are predominantly male (e.g. 4chan). I don't think MLP's appeal itself has much of a gender bias.
ReplyDeleteWomen aren't as prone to obsession as we are. That's my guess.
ReplyDeleteI'm a girl and I'm obsessed with ponies..but I'm lesbian so I'm probably more of a guy than a girl anyway lol.
ReplyDeletewow, that is exactly the opposite of the entire population of ponyville
ReplyDelete@Thomas
ReplyDeletewe are yin to the ponyvilles yang
I would expect that fewer female MLP:FiM fans are active on the internet and on this site in particular.
ReplyDeleteThe show has made for that. Fan-service and no more.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's Lauren's doing. I think it's hypnotic tones from Tara's voice.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised almost 1/8 is female...
ReplyDeleteI think it's the whole "there are no girls on the internet thing". After all, I'd bet most of us DID come from 4chan.
ReplyDelete"there are no females on the internet"
ReplyDelete"anyone claiming to be female is lying"
-rules of the internet
-4chan
Always be skeptical - or you will be spammed w/ nsfw. Of course it's not 100% true but it's better to be safe than sorry.
Additionally, from what I gather the women that like ponies, or rather to post about ponies, are generally Tomboys or more of a tough nature. There are also a good amount who are lesbians.
ReplyDeleteHowever, this is just from what I can see, please do not hold me to that. I'm sure there are some who are the stereotypical girly girls and enjoy this show.
One of my female friends tried to watch it based on my recommendation. She didn't like it and said it needed more action and cute guys.
ReplyDeletehmmm, something is going on here
ReplyDeleteWhen I saw a reaction .gif thread on /b/, I thought it was pobably some rather blatant innenduo or some really bick-shitting subliminal shit.
ReplyDeleteThen I watched an episode.
Then bAv was a brony.
This actually bugs the shit out of me.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Mizu. Polls of that sort should be up for a week. Age, gender and things you can use. Statistics that's interesting in knowing :)
ReplyDeleteWomen aren't the ones who need a support group to watch MLP!
ReplyDeleteI think the poll is this way because it's a web-based poll that's opt-in. On a site that started with a chunk of its original audience coming straight from 4chan. (Though I pretty much don't go to 4chan, so I can't say much about how many females are there. It just doesn't seem like there would be that many.) I think it's safe to say that women are more likely to be socializing about the show with their friends and enjoying it in their spare times with the same time that might be put into voting/commenting here on EqD. Or writing fanfics. Though that's more playing with stereotypical US women gender tropes than sex.
ReplyDeleteThe poll is specific about picking one's sex rather than gender. Perhaps for the better.
Thing is, Equestria Daily is ultimately descended from the pony outbreak in certain "wretched hives of scum and villainy" which I'd presume had a predominantly male membership... So, the poll result is reflecting the audience this site inherited, not the show's overall audience (look at the MLPArena or several of the Pony RP forums and you'll see there is quite a healthy adult female following of FIM out there...)
ReplyDeleteWell, cartoons as a whole are generally considered to be more of a "guy" thing. After all, Faust was (and is) trying to change precisely that, so no matter whether she ultimately succeeds or not, the majority of fans are likely to be guys, at least at the beginning since the process will take some time in any case. (Yes, I consider season one to be "the beginning")
ReplyDeleteThough the "too few cute guys" angle... Huh. Might be on to something there. It does go at least some way to explain the rampant F/F shipping; The main cast is, after all, ENTIRELY female.
@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteI consider all the ponies androgynous anyway so when characters with blatant and over the top male or female characteristics are shown it annoys me. For example, the fashion show episodes with ponies wearing makeup. Ugh.
Men are naturally more emotionally clingy, wemon are less controlled by emotional urges.
ReplyDeletefreakin wemons, how do they work?
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that this show offers men the chance to do things that women are allowed to take for granted in society (emotions other than rage, compassions other than lust, joys other than obsession). It extends to men an olive branch in its content unlike any other series of it's type, and once the community formed around it guys realized that they weren't alone it wanting to be more than stone-faced cynical jerks.
ReplyDeleteDangit I missed this poll. And yes Im female. Im also a fan of the 1986 G1 ponies as well as this G4 one.In my opinion it's 10 times better since it doesn't have a focus on just little girls. I wonder though, even if I am a young lady would I still be a brony? or just a pony?
ReplyDeleteI showed A female friend this site and that Just happend to be time when Pony lingerie story was up
ReplyDeleteWe havent spoken in 12 days
Thanks a lot, Jerk
@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteYou can be an honorary brony if you want.
We're an inclusive community ^_^
Exactly what Beese said. Neckbeard/hentai/furry ratio of the online bronies is far too high for female fans to feel comfortable joining in, or at least it seems that way. It even bugs me, and I came over from /b/. I expect there are plenty of female fans who don't frequent sites like this.
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of friend could she be if she won't speak to you anymore because of THAT? That's pathetic.
ReplyDeleteThis probably doesn't apply to MLP in general, just this website because... Well, yeah, DUH. What do you think you're doing here?
ReplyDeleteOh hey, we have about the same gender ratio as starter Pokémon. /random
ReplyDeleteAnyway, girl here, and I came for the shipping (well, I am a lesbian) but stayed because you're all pretty cool people. I think what everyone's saying about the pony obsession and this site in particular starting on 4chan really is what's making the gender ratio so lopsided. It can be... really uncomfortable for women on 4chan, so it takes a certain kind of mindset to enjoy it there, which not every woman has.
On the other hand, I've talked to a number of women in internet places that skew heavily female, like Livejournal and a couple of the forums I frequent, and there are plenty of women who love ponies, and even fangirl them and write and draw stuff about them.
Pony fandom is like opposite land for me. I'm so used to fandoms that are mostly women mostly writing and drawing m/m. And yet at the same time the plots of the stories that get written and the discussion of episodes and the like I see here is eerily similar to the things I see in female-dominated fandoms. It makes me pretty happy! We aren't really all that different!
Yeah, females aren't "weird" and when they see stuff that's odd they get disgusted and afraid of it and can't ignore it.
ReplyDeleteThe very basis of more adult males liking MLP is weird. Add into that the ratio of shipping posts you see in a day and well, no wonder there's so many men compared to females.
Girls?
ReplyDeleteIn my pony?
@Anonymous
ReplyDeletewut
Dude, I've talked to at least two different women who could go on and on about guro all day (in a positive way). Doesn't get much weirder than that.
to be honest, i'm surprised of the numbers, i tough it was going to be like 95% 5% or something like that
ReplyDeleteWell, I can't say that this applies to every case, but every internet community I'VE been on was predominantly male. Somewhere in this mass of comments before, lies the truth.
ReplyDeleteDude, don't you guys realize?!
ReplyDeleteFaust is helping out the ponies to film My Little Humans. THIS IS ALL JUST A CASTING CALL TO SEE IF WE CAN COOPERATE WITH PONY LIFEFORMS
I am not surprised by these results at all. The feeble female sensibilities aren't really designed to handle something so obviously barehanded-bearwrasslin'-manly as these tiny magical pastel coloured equines that act friendly towards each other and sing songs and make each other dresses and put on fashion shows and OHMYGODTHISISSOCUTE!!!
ReplyDeleteEkhm... But anyway have some youtube data from a month and a half ago. This should be better in terms of avoiding chan-bias.
http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/3579/data1.png
http://img840.imageshack.us/img840/4193/data2.png
It's cause we're 20% cooler!
ReplyDeleteIt avoids the chan bias some, but MLP still became a phenomenon via 4chan. A lot of the appeal in watching it is the comradery with fellow bronies, isn't it? The spark has to spread to female-dominated communities before there's the same level of enthusiasm, I think.
ReplyDeleteI BLAME NANOMACHINES!
ReplyDeleteBut I blame nanomachines on everything I can't explain.
You'd prolly get more balanced results if you left polls up for longer than two days.
ReplyDeleteNonsense! I love this site! =D I visit here, well, daily! :3c
ReplyDeleteHaha, that's ridiculous. I kind of expected this, but not with that MUCH of a difference.
ReplyDeleteI am a girl. And I was recommended the show by three of my guy friends.
After getting past all the pink and cutesy, I've been won over too. xD This is awesome. and ridiculous.
I diefinitely think the 4chan bias exists on this particular fan site. I found out about ponies from a week long internet escapade across the reaches of Know Your Meme, /b/, funnyjunk, Encyclopedia Dramatica and Wikipedia. I'm a college (art school)guy who spends a lot of his free time on the internet, so useless info gathering and discovery is kinda my thing. However, I'm not surprised to hear there are other developed female-based fan populations on the net.
ReplyDeleteHey, Sethisto.
ReplyDeleteCan you do polls over on Equestria After Dark? Do this one. I'd like to see how the results compare.
My girlfriend is afraid of the older generation ponies so she was inherently turned off by the concept of ponies.
ReplyDeletewoah!more than 200 female fans!...but it's not enough! c'mon sisters, join the club! :3
ReplyDeleteIt's probably ED's 4chan roots that have created the skewed demographic here, yeah. Established female MLP fans on the net (mostly nostalgic 20-30 something collectors, like me) have already created their own communities at places like the MLP Arena and MLP Trading Post. And of course, not all MLP toy fans are fans of the show, for whatever reason.
ReplyDeleteI'm a female that hangs out at the Arena a lot; I have no idea how I first found this site, but I started visiting so frequently that I eventually bookmarked it. :)
...damn. Now I'm wondering who the other 256 of us are. XD
ReplyDeleteI believe the skew, since this site arose from /co/lts. Me, I'm actually not from 4chan at all, nor am I a shipper. What am I doing here, then? Well, this is still the best place for pony news and updates. Truckloads of neat stuff I found through EqDaily. 'Sides, y'all is good people. ^_^
ReplyDeletenot surprised about the m/f ratio at all. what I'm more surprised about is the amount of people in the survey, around 2000-ish. that's quite the amount of bronies.
ReplyDeleteI didnt see the poll in time to vote...
ReplyDeleteBut I'm technically female, although quite a bit gender queer. I actually like this site and others like it. I like being able to enjoy MLP in a more masculine environment. To me it makes it a lot more comfortable and relaxed (compared to female environment with even more drama and catty bitches)
For some reason...the g4 art and characters... The way they're drawn and written the porn doesn't weird me out like G1 stuff. I have no idea why. I'm not fluffed by it at all.
I have the same question, what are you calling female fans? Just ponies or...?
@Escrime
ReplyDeletePrecisely. Go to the MLPArena, the MLPTP, the hangouts for pony collectors - it's all women. I'd say the ratio is much sharper there, maybe 99% women to 1% men. This site is more of a 'branch off' from 4chan, and therefore has a great deal more male followers.
Although I like the layout of the site, as well as the content, I could do with much less neckbeardery in the commentary. "Look at that landwhale!", for example, doesn't exactly make women feel welcome. And it also makes me want to kill said commentator until dead. :)
@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteUh, hang around LJ sometime. We females can get VERY obsessed over fandoms.
I liked G1, but not any of the others. Except now. 8D
I have a (female) friend steeped in the Transformers fandom and it's often entertaining to look at the ways that the FiM fandom seems to be the opposite equivalent - Transformers being a show geared towards young males with a large adult female fandom and plenty of m/m shipping.
ReplyDeleteOf course, you have to account for the fact that a lot of the male FiM fandom ISN'T into shipping and stuff, though. My guess, "cute girls doing cute things" tends to appeal more to males (and lesbians) whether or not they're actively looking for romantic overtones in it. It's the same phenomenon that makes "moé" popular (you may boo and hiss if you like).
@Anonymous
Also, this. Women are PLENTY "weird" - the assortment of female-dominated fandoms demonstrate this easily.
The only thing these numbers tell us is that the visitors of Equestria Daily are predominantly male. It says nothing about the show's audience. Think about it like this: it's true that everyone who visits Equestria Daily watches My Little Pony but not everyone who watches My Little Pony visits Equestria daily. If you actually want to collect information on the general audience, you'll need a much broader, more random sample.
ReplyDelete...
ReplyDeleteI'm one of the only girls.
And this is why FiM is manly. ;)
ReplyDeleteNo offense to the woman and girls, though.
I love this show very much! <3
ReplyDelete69 comments and not one kitchen joke.
ReplyDeleteSo much proud
New (female) viewer here - found it via the awesome Ponycraft 2 vid (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJbAT1wzS8U). I noticed a lot of recent comments from guy gamers who started watching MLP because of that vid, so that may be one contributing factor. Love the show - super impressed at how well it's written!
ReplyDeleteStraight Female here totally obsessed!
ReplyDeleteBi female here who's been lurking around since the first threads appeared on /co/ in October. I knew guys would be in the majority since this fandom mostly came from 4chan, but wow, us wimmins are really outnumbered here. I am amused that it's mostly guys here creating all these wonderful fanfics and such, especially with the shipping.
ReplyDeleteI am a female MLP fan and have been since "Rescue From Midnight Castle".
ReplyDelete"Midnight Castle" might've been the reason that so many older males are fans of MLP, since that special was made by the same people who made the "Dungeons & Dragons" cartoon at that same time. Plus many male fans were/are fans of MLP, Transformers, JEM, and GI Joe which were all made by Marvel/Sunbow in the '80s (best syndicated cartoon studio EVAH!!!)
It's nice to see other people appreciate the genius mix of show tunes and action adventure that only MLP (and Disney) can provide;-)
I didn't see the poll when I came here either.
I'm astonished by all the male fans (considering MLP:FIM airs when most people are in school/work and it airs on The Hub which lots of cable companies don't have). I found ED through a link on TV Tropes MLP:FIM page.
I LOVE all the pony AMVs!!!! I agree with whoever said that thats what's bringing all the new fans in. I always wonder who's making all these videos.... are they guys or gals?
I thought this site was predominantly female, until I saw all the references to "bronies".
I'm beginning to think that MLP:FIM is the most popular show on The Hub. Cause I don't see ANY GI Joe: Renegades or Transformers: Prime AMVs at all.
@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteSpike doesn't count as part of the main cast? (I admit he doesn't count as "cute guy" in the sense being talked about, but still...)
is a girl (that likes other girls)*
ReplyDelete~*KA*~
*raises hand* Sistas represent!! Where are my 256 others? 8D
ReplyDeleteYeah: cartoon-addicted, exceedingly obsession-prone, straight, therian/furry female weirdo here. Hell, I've needed to have at least one or two major obsessions at any given moment along with all of my dozens and hundreds of others for as long as I can remember just to...well, be me.
I'm not into most of the shipping, but obviously respect others' right to enjoy the hell out of it. I guess I feel perfectly comfortable on this blog because, go figure...I'm no stranger to having and hanging around with guy friends.
I know that the 2,000+ people who responded to this poll during the short period of time it was open probably aren't truly a representative sample of MLP fans; surely there are proportionately more girls than just 12%...? And surely there are loads more fans who simply haven't accessed the site.
Clearly most of y'all found this site through some other male-dominated one, which helps explain the results. Still, the entire FiM fandom does seem to consist of more males overall. Which I think is awesome. To be in a minority of MLP fans, as a girl, is...just wow. Lauren Faust is a miracle worker.
ED seems to be THE pony site, though. I mean THE place to get your pony fix--all the pertinent news, happenings, discussions, images, stories, links, etc. So, whatever the key demographics are, makes no difference to me; I LUFFS YOU! Besides, a fair percentage of the comments I see on the posts could easily have been written/spoken by a person of either sex.
...I only wish we gals had a catchy and clever little name like "brony" to identify us. Could go with Otaku Ascended's all-inclusive suggestion of "FiMfan," I suppose, unless I think of something better. ^.^
Ho-lee cow...poke. Come to think of it, most of my /other fandoms have tended to be either very predominantly female, or more of a mix than 87/12. So this is a bit different, and cool. I too see more similarities than differences, though. Guess it just goes to show that crazed fans are crazed fans, regardless of sex. ^^
ReplyDeleteI originally saw it on kym a month ago and i was hooked on the first episode been obsessed evr sense.
ReplyDeleteMLP is ours now. No girls allowed.
ReplyDelete@LordOfTheWrongs
ReplyDelete"Women aren't the ones who need a support group to watch MLP!"
Yeah, I agree. There is not a single person IRL that I can talk with about this show, and this site probably satisfies that need for lots of people (read: guys).
This comes to show that this show has an unintended audience. Ms. Faust has created a show that is for all intents and purposes the Sonic SatAM of 2011, a show geared for kids (or in this case, young girls) but appeals to everybody.
ReplyDeleteI would not be surprised if HUB ends up in total shock to find that their usual audience only comprise of a small fraction of the total audience of this show, once the surveys come in.
What the fuck is a Four Change? Can I fuck it? What color is it? Does it fly?
ReplyDeleteFor completeness sake: I'm an omnigendered, asexual male who HAPPENS to be a tomgirl only for the sake that, like I said, I'm all of them. Mostly neutral, but that doesn't mean I can't like ponies AND transformers as much as science and Porygons. Census complete.
When I tell females about the show, it's all really hit and miss (one bitch said she LIKED the horror-horses from the 80's!), by males always seem to be interested and give it an honest chance, even if they don't become as completely obsessed with Pinkie/Dash as I am.
Like always, the internet is the exact opposite of real life.
And I think the X factor here is the ages. In a younger age group, I suspect the fanbase is mostly female. Not being in elementary school anymore, however, I have no proof.
87%+12%=99%
ReplyDeleteDerp?
I care not for women that are unmoved by bitter sweet Dash/Pinkie shipping.
ReplyDeleteI'm a girl, not a tomboy nor lesbian either...
ReplyDeleteSimple reason: Most people on here are from 4chan.
I, who am not from 4chan, don't visit this site that often, nor do I participate in its posts that much.
So...yeah xD. I'm sort of surprised that the female count is THAT low, but eh. Ponies appeal to both genders, and that's what matters.
All the female FiM fans hang out at LJ.
ReplyDeleteMy Little Pony: Friendship is Male. :P
ReplyDeleteHi I'm male and I watch this show, but if my dad found out I'd be dead, he's too much of a wuss to watch this show. Prove that your a man by watching it !!
ReplyDeletehaha
ReplyDeleteso many bronies compared to fillies! XD
But it feels good to be a girl and into My Little Pony. It's not loaded with make up and OMG SHOPPING. <3
I'm a kid and a girl, so I'm the least rare of the bronies out there! :D
ReplyDeleteI think most girls are scared of this site, due to all of the guys and their artwork. O o
IT IS SPIKE FAULT DOWN WITH SPIKE
ReplyDeleteI am a 18 year old male, I love computing and have a success full job, own a motorbike, have a lot of friends and always busy stoning with them on my weekends watching adventure time and eating KFC. But I still have that 22 minutes a day on my lunch to watch my little pony. I don't know why its so good to watch, I have never used 4chan or another site before, I heard about it from one of my female friends.
ReplyDeleteI think... 3 is the magic number, its the number of episodes it took me to get hooked, any non believers, get them to watch 3 episodes and they will not turn back. regardless of gender.
PS I hate the older generations they make me cringe.
I'm female but I just found MLP 2 weeks ago on youtube and then started watching all the episodes. I'm really into shipping fanfic and horror fanfic though. I love the show but I love the fanfic almost more.
ReplyDeleteI knew it!
ReplyDelete