Slang of the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fandom
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Vernacular of My Little Pony fans
A meme from the early days of the brony fandom. This meme would lead to the popularization of the phrase "love and tolerate" within the brony fandom, leading some to describe it as its unofficial motto.
The vocabulary draws heavily from the show's content, character names, and fictional universe of Equestria, and speakers often adapt standard English words with pony-themed prefixes or creating portmanteaus that blend pony-related terms with existing concepts. Notable examples include ponysona (a personalized pony character representing the creator), ponification (transforming non-pony entities into pony form), and music terms like dubtrot (a brony version of dubstep). Bronyspeak emerged as part of what researchers term bronylore, which builds upon the show's official ponyspeak where human phrases were recast in equine terms. The language encompasses direct adoptions from show dialogue (e.g. everypony as a substitution for everybody), portmanteaus, and snowclone variations of popular quotes from the show itself or from its derivative works.
Hasbro officially acknowledged the fandom and its distinctive language in 2011 through promotional materials referencing bronies directly. The vernacular has since attracted academic attention as an example of Internet-enabled folk culture; researchers have noted its functions in creating community belonging, establishing behavioral boundaries, and enforcing codes of niceness that prevent social rejection within the fandom. Studies have identified bronyspeak as both a gatekeeping mechanism requiring learning for full community membership and a continuous performance of group identity in online spaces. Researchers have also noted that bronyspeak extends outside of Internet communities, often pervading into real life via brony conventions or meetups.
"I watch it for the plot", one of the brony fandom's earliest Internet memes, that spawned the use of the term plot to mean flank.
Bronyspeak emerged and developed as part of what Bill Ellis termed bronylore, a distinctive form of web-based verbal and visual art created by the show's adult fanbase.[2] The vernacular speech system built upon the show's official ponyspeak, where human social phrases were recast in equine terms within the series itself.[3] For example, words like everybody and anyone became everypony and anypony.[4] The term brony itself was an early example of this wordplay, created as a portmanteau of bro and pony.[2] Similarly, the community coined brohoof to describe a ponified version of high-fiving (a portmanteau of brofist and hoof), where characters touched their hooves together in greeting. Words like everypony and brohoof became standard within the fandom's online spaces.[2][1]
Fans described their communication system as bronyspeak, conducting it almost exclusively in English with references to the show mixed in as "just a different register, solely created online."[5] Researchers described the incorporation of elements of oral urban slang in the fan-created language as a hybrid of official show terminology with transgressive digital communication styles. This evolution included playful use of abbreviations and emoticons, and also vulgar and adult terminology.[2]
2011–present: Growth, spread, and official recognition
Hasbro officially recognized the brony fandom and, implicitly, their distinctive lingo on May 27, 2011, when The Hub released a promotional video for the series called "Equestria Girls" done in the style of a music video parodying Katy Perry's "California Gurls". The song features the lyrics: "Our Bronies, Hang out too, 'Cause they know we're awesome fillies" accompanied by Spike shouting: "Come on, Bronies!" The exclusive online premiere of the video was given to Equestria Daily a day before the promo would air on television. According to Shaun Scotellaro, the e-mail he received from The Hub claimed that the reference to Bronies was done explicitly as a "tribute to our favorite Pony fans."[6]
In July 2011, a 26-page long bronyspeak dictionary called Mareiam-Websteed Dictionary[note 1] was published on Equestria Daily.[7] The New York Daily News reported on this dictionary, specifying words like Scootabuse with the definition "You should be ashamed of yourself." and zebra as "Cheap racism simulator." Other words included Cutie Mark Failure Insanity Syndrome, neighsayer, and horseapples.[8]
In March 2018, the suffix -creature as a more inclusive replacement for the suffix -pony (e.g. everycreature, anycreature) was introduced in the season 8 premiere "School Daze".[note 2]
Usage
An example of an emoticon used in bronyspeak, meant to resemble a pony's face
Some words in bronyspeak are terms adopted directly from the show, which tend to be equine versions of human terms.
Bronyspeak has gained academic attention as an example of Internet-enabled vernacular culture. Folklore researchers recognized it as a distinctive emic folk speech that simultaneously expressed institutional culture while seeking to be distinct from it,[12] which they identified as the hybrid nature of digital vernacular traditions that both drew from and challenged mainstream cultural norms.[2]
According to Ellis, the anonymous nature of Internet communication platforms facilitated bronyspeak's development, as participants used pseudonyms and online handles rather than their real identities. This encouraged rule-bending and aggressive linguistic play, which allowed the community to create increasingly transgressive terminology, for example, in words like clopping (a bronyspeak word for masturbation).[2]
Justin Mullis observed in his 2015 study of the brony fandom that its lingo represented part of what could be understood as "recreational religious activity".[6]
Venetia Robertson, in her study of the brony fandom, wrote that the use of brony slang by members of the community functions as signs of belonging and behavioral boundaries for members of the fandom. Robertson noted that bronies created catchphrases and snowclones from the lines of dialogue of the show, invented new terms like brohoof, and that the motto of the was "love and tolerate".[1]
Nicolai Hansen of the Copenhagen Business School wrote that the specialized language functions as a continuous performance of membership that is "embodied and continuously exercised". He also noted that the lingo serves as a gatekeeping mechanism, in which the dialect must be learned to fully belong to the community. Hansen also compared the lingo to that of Beliebers—fans of pop iconJustin Bieber—and characterized it as less sophisticated, describing Belieber language as "fangirl-language" and "chatter language" defined primarily by its deficiencies in punctuation, verb tenses, capitalization, and syntax, rather than as a creative linguistic innovation.[9]
According to Jon Coumes of The American Prospect, brony communities developed their distinctive language alongside "codes of community-enforced niceness" designed to ensure that "nopony" would experience social rejection.[13]
↑ The -creature terms are not widely adopted by the brony fandom and have not been mentioned in academic analyses of bronyspeak.
References
1 2 3 Robertson, Venetia Laura Delano (2014). "Of ponies and men: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and the Brony fandom". International Journal of Cultural Studies. 17 (1). SAGE Publishing: 21–37. doi:10.1177/1367877912464368.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Ellis, Bill (2015). "What Bronies See When They Brohoof: Queering Animation on the Dark and Evil Internet". Journal of American Folklore. 128 (509). University of Illinois Press: 298–314. doi:10.5406/jamerfolk.128.509.0298.
↑ Cantwell, Christiane-Marie (2020). "The Language of the Masses (of Online Media)". JournalLing. McGill University.
1 2 Mullis, Justin P (2015). Playing Ponies: A Critical Evaluation of Religious Elements and Gender Politics at Work in "Brony" Fandom (Master of Arts thesis). University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
1 2 3 4 Hansen, Nicolai Puggaard (1 June 2016). Fandom in the Digital Age: An exploration of value co-creation in online fan communities (Thesis). Copenhagen Business School.
↑ Howard, Robert Glenn (2015). "Introduction: Why Digital Network Hybridity Is the New Normal (Hey! Check This Stuff Out)". Journal of American Folklore. 128 (509): 247–259. doi:10.5406/jamerfolk.128.509.0247.
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