“It’s mostly just us getting together as friends,” mathematics junior Jeremiah Magni said. “At 12:30 or so, after going over future plans for what we are doing at open house or our next event, we watch the new episode.”
Kat Gore
Special to Mustang News
Sitting up on Fratessa Tower in the architecture graveyard, the Cal Poly Bronies and Pegasisters Club listened with rapt attention as one of their members read a fan fiction story he wrote about the television show “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.”
The day began by watching the new episode of “My Little Pony,” followed by a hike to the architecture graveyard.
One of the club’s creators, architectural engineering graduate Alton Dehaan, said bronies (think: “bros” meets “ponies”) and pegasisters are people who are fans of the television show “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” and therefore consider the fandom a part of their own identity.
DeHaan said he and a friend created the club in January 2012.
“The feel for the club that we wanted to achieve was just like when we were little kids,” DeHaan said. “Wake up early, run downstairs, pour yourself a bowl of excessively sugary cereal and watch cartoons for five hours.”
DeHaan said prior to the club, there was a Facebook page for people at Cal Poly who were fans of “My Little Pony.”
“We kind of figured, ‘Hey, we might as well try to get an actual meetup going instead of talking about it online like nerds,’” he said.
They put posters up around campus, figuring eight or 10 people would show to their first meeting, DeHaan said. Thirty-nine people ended up coming, and the club is still going strong with 126 members in their Cal Poly Bronies and Pegasisters Facebook group.
“The feel for the club that we wanted to achieve was just like when we were little kids,” DeHaan said. “Wake up early, run downstairs, pour yourself a bowl of excessively sugary cereal and watch cartoons for five hours.”
“I’m not going to make outrageous claims that it’s the greatest show on television or a life-changing event— it’s not,” DeHaan said. “It’s a great cartoon show.”
But “My Little Pony” is more than just a cartoon. It has inspired a whole “My Little Pony” fandom, which communicates something broader about the fandom movement in our society.
Lewis Call, associate professor of history, teaches a history of science fiction class at Cal Poly and has studied fandoms.
“The existence of all these different, individual fandoms indicate that people are no longer ashamed of their particular cultural interests,” Call said. “If anything, it’s the opposite now. They’re proud of it.”
Call said fandoms also indicate a change in the way people consume media. Consumers used to be passive; they watched TV or read something, but now through fandoms, they can engage in popular culture in an active way. One way is writing fan fiction, where fans create stories themselves instead of waiting for a new episode or book to get their fandom fix.
Mathematics junior Jeremiah Magni is the current Bronies and Pegasisters Club president and has been involved with the club since it was created.
The club meets every Saturday at noon in Clyde P. Fisher Science (building 33), room 286, Magni said.
“It’s mostly just us getting together as friends,” Magni said. “At 12:30 or so, after going over future plans for what we are doing at open house or our next event, we watch the new episode.”
That describes a regular meeting, but the bronies and pegasisters often do activities together as well, such as the upcoming pink elephant gift party on Feb. 22, and a Montaña de Oro hike on March 1.
“We’re not just a bunch of nerds going into a dark room to watch the show every week — we actually go out and do community service events,” Magni said.
The bronies and pegasisters have put on various donation drives and trotted down trails and beaches to perform clean-ups.
Magni said that 15 to 25 people generally attend each club meeting. The members are mostly juniors and seniors, because they joined the club as freshmen when it was first created. About 75% of the members are men, Magni said.
Magni said he has an appreciation for the show’s animation and childhood feel. “My Little Pony” is well-produced, he said, and everyone should try watching an episode.
“I understand that it’s not some people’s cup of tea, but you may watch the show and say, ‘Hey, this is pretty good!’” and get hooked on it,” Magni said. “The show really has a Saturday morning cartoon feeling, because that’s what it is.”
DeHaan said he likes “My Little Pony” because it reminds him of the shows he watched when he was a little kid.
Former Cal Poly student Jules Bertrand has been a member since the club’s first meeting and been a fan since she saw episodes on YouTube.
“It’s funny and well-written and has good characters,” Bertrand said. “If you like cartoons, I suggest giving it a try.”
Biological sciences junior Matthew Naffziger is a club member and treasurer.
“It has good animation, good storytelling and it kind of has a nostalgia feel that takes you back to when you were a kid,” Naffziger said.
Even though it seems “girly and a little weird,” Naffziger encourages people to give “My Little Pony” a shot.
Dehaan said the club has given people a way to socialize with real people in real life.
Bronies and pegasisters are here to stay, and so are fandoms. Call expects to see more fandoms emerging around shows and films.
“There are so many of them that it is becoming more mainstream and practically everybody in our culture has some book, show or film that they are really into — whether it’s “Harry Potter” or “The Hunger Games,” Call said. “As new fandoms coalesce around these books and films and other cultural artifacts, people will start to feel like no matter what they are into, there is a fan community and it is likely to become a mainstream phenomenon.”