Tag: Cloppers

For those who don’t know, I have made quite a few posts about children finding “adult” content related to “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.” (Each word in “I…posts” is a separate link. That might not be obvious, depending on where you’re reading this.) (EDIT: I found another post.)

But recently I found another post decrying bronies who make and consume such content, and it made me think about all these stories. (Forgive me for beating a dead horse [that idiom is doubly appropriate in this case], but after all, it was part of Pinkiepony’s original motivation for “Down with Molestia” [my reblogging/response].) (When I checked the original source of the post, I discovered that it was related to “Down with Molestia” as well [see the tags]. Come on!)

My initial reaction towards them is confusion: How exactly did these children find such content? If my experiments (two separate links) are accurate, it would be very difficult to find such content. And what exactly was this content that they found?

These questions are not likely to be answered, because these are passing incidents that people don’t want to revisit, which is understandable. But that evokes my next reaction: concern and maybe even fear. I fear that people will take these claims for granted, without bothering to investigate their sources or the circumstances surrounding the events in them. Things hit the fan when ill-substantiated beliefs (not exactly rumors, but close to them) get out of hand. Take Tumblr’s new terms (two separate links) as an example. As another, more serious one, take the whole thing about how a certain vaccine supposedly causes autism.

Okay, the consequences of these claims about children finding this content probably aren’t as extreme as outbreaks of disease (yes, they did happen because too few children were vaccinated!). But what are the consequences? Content being removed. Most of the Tumblr blog removals I’ve seen were due to posting depictions of underaged characters, but the latest, that of “Ask Princess Molestia,” was different. If you notice, Pinkiepony’s e-mail to Hasbro about “Ask Princess Molestia” (and “The Fall of Equestria”) addressed the potential for children to access the works. There is still doubt as to whether this e-mail actually did lead to the removal or not, but I think this is indicative of what might come.

livingtombstone:

dnotive:

So, word reached me that APM got hit with a C&D after enough people prompted Hasbro to take action on the subject. This is likely to be the only thing I will say in response to it, unless I get prompted for more,  so here ‘goes.

Folks, the fandom is changing.

We can no longer conduct ourselves as though we’re part of some indie, underground, cultist movement. “Brony” is now a word in mainstream cultural vernacular, and whether we want to admit it or not, there are a lot of eyes pointed toward us now.

You are a lot more visible than you think.

This really hit home for me when I was at the most recent Bronycon in August, and a girl, no older than 8, came up to me, and told me she knew who I was.

While the roots of our isolated little culture may have been on 4chan once upon a time — the veritable, scummy “good ol’ boys club” of the internet — we have long-since evolved past that, and can no longer adamantly cling to our ribbing, inside-joke laden, adults-only behavior of yesteryear. The days of being able to openly share adult materials has ended.

That said, I do not, personally, want to see the abolishment of porn, or fetish art, or silly Gmod videos of ponies making out doing dumb shit, or whatever else have you — these are things that I feel people are entitled to enjoy at their leisure, however is it also my belief that, in order to continue sharing these things, it is imperative we construct safe spaces to do so.

As adult fans of a children’s show, we are obligated to be responsible stewards for our content. This is a duty that can no longer be ignored or skated around.

While most of the DWM rhetoric that went around this last tear had a lot of people rolling their eyes, we can’t ignore that it is all-too-easy for kids to accidentally stumble across suggestive, or even explicit pony images, even with safe search on. So while I’ve come to disagree with most of the talking points of the DWM/PARC bunch, I cannot easily fault them for at least wanting to try to make the public face of the fandom cleaner, and more kid-friendly. While, yes, there is also a certain element of parental responsibility that should come into play as well, I’m not certain how reasonable it is to expect parents to be diligent about filtering porn out of something that ought to be pretty benign, like My Little Pony.

We’ve really been on borrowed time since day one, and the removal of the APM comic should serve as indication enough that we, collectively, need to be more cautious about how, and where adult materials are shared. I’m all for letting people enjoy what they want, even if it’s subversive fetish pony porn, or weird, rapey jokes (whatever floats your boat, man,) but we can no longer remain ignorant of people accidentally coming across those kinds of things, especially when the people that might accidentally encounter it belong to the show’s main demographic.

This whole thing should be clear proof that the show’s target audience matters more to Hasbro than bronies do (as it should,) and they will protect them.

These are just my 2 cents.

I second the motion, anyone who is part of the fandom should read this

Yeah, this is so true… Hey, wait a minute!

My main reaction to this is: You mean, you weren’t already doing this?

I haven’t been in the fandom for that long, but it seems to me that it had become a “generally recognized” Internet phenomenon by the end of 2011. I’m surprised that it’s taken this long for people to understand that such mature content (sexual, violent, etc.) is in fact visible to others. And even if we were still “underground” we would still have the same obligations concerning this content, as any purveyor of not-safe-for-all-ages content does.

(I seriously doubt that Down with Molestia is heavily focused on making ponies family-friendly for children. Yes, that is part of Pinkiepony’s original intention [my reblog]. But based on what I’ve seen, the movement as a whole seems pretty mum about clop or other mature content in general. Even the fact that it’s been renamed “Ponies Against Rape Culture” supports this.)