by Pashoo » 06 May 2012 22:30
It's been brought up several times, and probably will be, again, but in truth, it all boils down to the same theme: Stereotyping. Now, it's human nature to seek knowledge, and to learn. We fear the unknown because it is the lack of knowledge, lack of security. To know a person, learn about them, is to know their intentions and assess one's own standing with them, whether they are a friend or foe. Eventually, you as a person can assess the proper courses of action to ensure a favorable outcome. This ties together the pursuit of knowledge (understanding a person) and the security of knowing (to know how they can affect you.) Security in knowledge.
To know every person, their intentions, hopes, dream, their personality and tendencies, provides a sense of security, that you know each person's potential and tendency to change the world around them, to change your world. Of course, knowing every person in existence would be silly, if not downright impossible to achieve in one lifetime. Then, of course, human nature dictates that we would be forced to live in constant fear of the strangers in our life, torn between regarding them with extreme caution, or familiarizing with them, learning about them. This indecision eventually led to the creation of stereotyping. By observing the most superficial traits of a being, we draw conclusions. We feel like we know them without actually having interacted with said individual. We infer that this person must be the same as all the others with the same superficial traits and create for ourselves a false sense of security in knowledge. After all, every stereotype has a basis, no matter how small. Essentially, stereotypes are a way for us to get to know a person without having to get to know them, thereby reassuring ourselves in our lack of knowledge.
That being said, bronies, deviate from most common stereotypes. We're something different, unknown. Because of this, the fear of the unknown makes itself apparent, without the safety net of stereotyping to fall back on. In an attempt to 'know' the entirety of bronydom, some people gather what they can of already existing stereotypes, that gay people like girly things, or that only freaks like children's toys (of course, while these stereotypes aren't always necessarily true, they already exist.) According to these two assumptions alone, if they were true, then that would mean that all bronies were gay freaks.
Some bronies ARE gay, and maybe some of us ARE freaks, and maybe some of us really ARE gay freaks, but we're all people (or ponies) the likes of which many of these people have never truly gotten to know.
Now, I'm not saying stereotypes are necessarily a bad thing. Like I said, all stereotypes have some basis, regardless how small. But on that same note, the reason some people look at bronies so oddly is because of the fact that stereotypes exist.
But when someone looks past all preconceived notions, past the coke-bottle glasses of a nerd who spends his time library because he can't face his parents at home, or the concentrated stare of a jock in math class, desperately trying to keep up his grades so he can pursue the sport he loves, when someone can look past all the Pinkie Pies in your sketch pad and see the person behind the wall of pretense, well...
It just makes it all the more worth it.
</philosophy> aaaaaaa wall of text.
Oh my god. This is a signature.