It was Saturday. A normal Saturday like all others, but for certain people it wasn't just a normal Saturday. It was pony Saturday, the day of the week where the fans of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic would watch the new episode that would be put out. Many of these fans would watch the new episode on TV, and others would use the internet to view the show. These fans were known as the "bronies", and they had become an internet phenomenon. They swept across the net, bringing their beloved ponies to every corner of the online world.
Amazing art, music, videos, and writings were created by these "bronies", and they created their own colonies upon the web where they could be together. They enjoyed the television show they held dear together, but something darker lay beneath. Unable to accept the ponies and their fans, other internet users became hateful. They disdained everything about the show and the "bronies" and resorted to hate. With disdain in their minds, they searched for anything related to the ponies or the "bronies", leaving their hateful opinions. They argued with the "bronies", and they tried in every way possible to make fun of them. Before long it was a war.
On websites like Youtube, long, pointless arguments would take place in the comment sections. Haters would leave their hateful and sometimes not even sensible comments. All it took was one simple comment, and the "bronies" would attack in full force, replying and revoking everything the hater had stated. They'd try to tear apart all of the haters' comments, show them why they were wrong, but the haters would not care. They would continue to post hateful comments, sometimes even going so far as to make videos.
The war raged on, neither side giving up on their beliefs. Soon enough, the amount of outspoken haters and "bronies" grew, and the war became much larger. Each side did more and more to try and prove that they were right, to try and make the other side angry, and to try and exterminate their opposition.
At first, the fight was tolerable, and the internet gods did not think much of it. But they soon became fed up with the endless arguments. One day, the arguments and the hate and fighting became too much, and the gods blew a fuse. The world rumbled as the gods unleashed their power, and any self-proclaimed "brony" or "hater" was transported to Equestria, where they all took on a pony form. The bronies and the haters were placed on a different side of a large field. The field in between the two sides was littered with small wooden barriers.
Bronies fell from the sky, only now they were in pony form. Each one had a unique look, matching their human form. The haters had the same fate, falling from the sky in the form of a pony. All of the haters had black manes, while the bronies had more bright colors. This was the only characteristic that could distinguish the two. As all the disorientated humans-turned-ponies tried to figure out what had happened, a deep voice bellowed out from the sky.
"I am the god of the internet. I have grown tired of your constant bickering, so I have brought you here to fight. If the 'bronies' win, they may continue to put ponies on my internet. If the opposition wins, then ponies are banned. You will have access to a catapult and whatever you can put in it. You will have five minutes to prepare. Good luck." Each side of the field was populated by a different group. Although they did not know how they had gotten there, or what exactly was going on, the bronies weren't about to argue with an omniscient voice in the sky. As they became accustomed to walking on four legs, the bronies began to organize themselves. At first it was a wave of idle chatter, but soon enough they elected leaders.
The bronies divided into four factions. The bloggers, the artists, the musicians, and the writers. Each faction had a leader. At the head of the bloggers was Sethisto. Since only one leader could be chosen for each faction, all the other well-known bloggers had to step back. For the artists, there was no leader to be chosen. The votes were too mixed and no leader was able to be chosen, so they joined with the musicians. Since there were two factions in one, two leaders could be chosen. With an almost unanimous decision, Mic the Microphone and The Living Tombstone were elected as leaders.
The writing faction had a harder time. At first there was the question of whether Knighty, the creator of one of the largest fanfiction sites should lead, or a well-known author. Many authors stepped up to try and take the leader position, and many almost got the spot. However, after careful consideration, anybody who tried to get the position was labeled as "overrated" within a couple minutes, and voted against.
A pony by the name of Short Skirts And Explosions almost stepped up for the position, but he didn't want to be the leader. He was more of a background pony.
After much debate, it was finally decided that Knighty should take the position. With the leaders elected, the bronies organized themselves into their groups, preparing for the attack. To the surprise of the internet god, the bronies co-operated well, and didn't bicker among themselves.
The bronies knew that they would need one, head leader that would lead all the bronies. As they were deciding, Twilight Sparkle trotted up to the brony crowd.
"What's going on over here?" asked Twilight.
All of the bronies turned to face her. Many of them squeed, while others yelled out, "TARA!"
Twilight took a step back, but the bronies ran forth and grabbed her. She was instantly elected as leader of the bronies. Tara Strong smiled, now she was truly the queen of the bronies.
Meanwhile, the haters yelled at each other while trying to pick a leader, and the only thing that kept them together was the common disdain of ponies and their fans. They all spoke about how much they hated the "ponyfags", and each time they gave the same three reasons. Eventually, through all the talk, a pony with the Fox News logo for a cutie mark stepped up and took the position of leader. None of the hater ponies really minded, they just wanted to fling things at the "ponyfags".
As the five minutes of preparation dwindled away, the internet god prepared to hit his gong. The air lay still and quiet as each side anticipated the beginning of the fight.
Suddenly, the gong sounded. It rumbled over the sky, and both sides scrambled to find objects to fling at the other side. There were no rocks nearby, and frankly the only thing that could be found was grass. There was nothing to put into the catapult.
The bronies looked furiously for something, anything to attack with, but couldn't find anything. As they looked, a large glob of red words landed on their side and exploded. The blast sent a few bronies falling to the ground. They tried to figure out where the large glob had come from, but before they could figure it out, more globs were raining down upon the bronies.
On the hater side, the ponies took the word "ponyfag", reproduced it a couple thousand times, and molded them into a ball. Then, they took the ball and launched it, creating the red glob that soared through the air. Before the bronies could realize what kind of fight this actually was, the haters had already moved on to their second phase.
"Gather the social disapproval!" yelled Fox News. The hater ponies took all their social disapproval and loaded it into the catapult.
"FIRE!" The social disapproval launched out of the catapult, and as it flew through the air it took the form of articles, videos, and spoken words. All these mediums of communication rained down on the bronies, knocking out a couple of them. Sethisto wouldn't have it.
"Alright bronies, fire social approval!" The bronies loaded Lauren Faust's acceptance of bronies into the catapult and fired. It flew through the air, taking down most of the enemy fire, but the haters' words continued to rain down on the bronies.
Meanwhile, Twilight led the bronies in collecting all their love and tolerance. The bronies, under her leadership, collected all the charity work they had done and put it into a large ball. They loaded it into the catapult and fired.
To their dismay, the haters shot a ball of ignorance about the show into the air, and the two balls smashed in the air. All the bronies expected their ball of love, tolerance, and charity to prevail over the haters, but the haters had added a special ingredient to their ball. Indifference. Indifference to anything the bronies did.
"Quickly!" said Fox News, "Fill the catapult with ignorance and vulgarity and FIRE!" The haters did as they were told, easily filling the catapult up with all their ignorance and vulgarity. The words that filled the catapult made no sense when put together, and as they hit the bronies, all they could do was respond with intelligence and composure.
The haters simply ignored the intelligence and composure and waited for one of the bronies to make a mistake. Suddenly they saw it, a ball of rage and intolerance-of-haters. Instead of ignoring this ball, they harnessed its power and used it to double their efforts, firing even more vulgarity and ignorance. The bronies were losing stallions left and right, falling beneath the onslaught of unrelenting hate.
"Time to end this," started Fox News, "FIRE THE STEREOTYPES!" Without hesitation, the catapult was filled with false assumptions and uninformed points. Within moments the skewed information was raining down on the bronies, and no matter how much reason they shot back the haters continued to fire their falsities.
The bronies crumbled underneath the words. Words like: Gay, autistic, untalented, pedophile, jobless, loner, annoying, and others. No matter how many bronies stepped forth to put things like straight, normal, talented, working, popular, and cool into the catapult, the haters ignored it all. Their attacks focused on the few that met any of their standards, and the rest of the bronies suffered. Some of the bronies attacked with rage and hating of their own, but that only strengthened the hater attacks.
Mic The Microphone and The Living Tombstone called upon their fellow musicians and they loaded the catapult with amazing music. With a smile, they launched it, knowing the haters could not refute that they would find at least one song that they liked. The Living Tombstone watched as his musical brilliance flew threw the air. Surely his music would defeat the haters' dislike of anything brony-made, and the internet would be brought back to the good ol' days. Mic The Microphone teamed up with his close friend JackleApp to make an amazing song that they fired at the haters. They were sure that their combined rapping and music making skills would crush the opposition and the enemy's efforts would become obsolete.
But the haters had a different plan. They filled their catapult with blinded dislikes, and before the music could reach them they fired their hate, destroying the music in mid-air. Next it was the artist's turn. They launched their amazing pieces of art into the air, and unlike the music the haters did not have to listen, but only look. They would be forced to look at the drawings, and they would have to find at least one that pleased them.
Instead, the haters raised their standards of art to god-level, ignoring all of the masterpieces. The paintings landed harmlessly around the haters, and instead the haters responded with poorly made hate content. The bronies attempted to fight back the same way the haters had, but some of the bronies attacked the content that the haters were throwing at them. They used their own hate of the content to fight back, but when they fought hate with hate they only strengthened the haters. The bronies continued to lose stallions.
While the bronies fired all the reason they had, the haters ignored it. Instead, they fired their own complete fallacies at the bronies. All they had to do was focus on the outspoken minority of the bronies, and they would affect the rest of them. The haters knew they had the win.
The bronies were diminishing, soon the haters would take over. It seemed as though all hope was lost, the haters would not stop hating.
No matter how much sense the bronies tried to put into the haters, no matter how much sense they shot at the haters, they did not fall down. While the bronies continued to suffer, the haters could unrelentingly hate without any repercussions. It seemed as though as long as they hated on ponies, they were barred from being anything they attacked the bronies with. If they called the bronies idiots, they thought themselves immune to being idiots themselves, and the brony attacks weakened.
Nothing the bronies fired at the haters did anything. They just continued to attack. Soon, they would be able to cross the battlefield and take the win.
A young pony named The Only stood behind the brony army, watching as the hate rained down upon them and destroyed the ranks. Sethisto and his group of bloggers tried to give the haters valid reasons as to why hating on the show was not necessary, but the haters had already been corrupted to think that anything related to My Little Pony must be destroyed, and the fans must be terminated. Sethisto was ready to give up, and run away to find Trixie, for the bronies were in Equestria, after all. Cereal Velocity had been heading a small group of bronies, but within the first few minutes of the fight went off in search of Rarity.
The Living Tombstone had already given up on the haters, as no matter how much musical talent he flung at them, they refused to accept it, simply because of the brony label it had on it. Mic The Microphone used his rap to try and appeal to the haters that enjoyed amazing word play, verses, and flow, but the haters shunned it for the same reason they shunned The Living Tombstone.
Eurobeat Brony even tried using his amazing voice and music to try and appeal to the haters, but they overlooked all his talent. Even the most popular song, Discord, could not faze the haters, even though Daniel Ingram himself had recognized the song, and it was featured in his interview for The Rolling Stones.
All the artwork that the bronies put forth were no use, and even though the comics were funnier than most of the comics in the Sunday newspaper, the haters refused to laugh or look at the art. The bronies were sure that their comics would bring da lulz, but alas, it didn't. Slowly but surely, any creative content the bronies could put out was ignored, and the hate continued. Any reasons that the bronies could give that supported the show were also ignored, and instead responded to by the haters' reasons to hate the show. However, even though the haters' reasons had nothing to back them up, they held on to their convictions. Even Twilight had given up, and abandoned the brony army for fear of being devoured in the hate.
A pony by the name of The Only stood behind his brony brothers and sisters, watching as they fell beneath the hate. He could not stand to watch, and all the weakened bronies did not have the will to fight. He didn't know what he could do to help, but he knew he had to try. At first he went to the catapult, but then a realization dawned upon him. He stepped out from the crowd of bronies and called out to them.
"Bronies!" Their heads turned toward him. Even the outspoken members who had been fighting hate with hate turned to look at The Only.
"I have a message." The hate continued to rain down, but The Only was a unicorn. He formed a force field around the bronies while he spoke, blocking the hate outside. He cleared his throat.
"Friends, bronies, and other, we come here today to battle the haters, but we have been doing the opposite the entire time. We have somehow locked ourselves in the hating circle, in which the haters shower us with hate, and we respond. No matter how hard we try, we will never be able to change the haters."
"But this is not necessarily a bad thing. We cannot change the views of the haters just as much as they can't change our views. They will continue to hate ponies and we will continue to love ponies. There is no point in trying to convert a hater who clearly does not want to join us, and frankly, we shouldn't WANT these people in our herd. Have you seen the way they act? With vulgarity covering their sentences, awful grammar, and no manners whatsoever. They have no clue on how to conduct themselves properly, so why should we invite them to join us. It is people like them, whom if they were to join the bronies, would be the members that make us look bad."
"There is no reason to argue with the haters, or to fight against them. At the end of the day, even if we are homosexual, mentally ill, and stupid, what have the haters gained? Nothing. They simply have the 'satisfaction' of knowing that their hate is correct, but that is meager. Nothing happens if they are right, nothing at all. They simply revel in their hate and waste their time, while we benefit. We can gaze upon the wonderfully drawn masterpieces, listen to the amazing music produced by the multiple artists, and watch everything that the community of bronies creates. Not to mention we get to watch one of the best cartoons in the twenty-first century. In the end, no matter what happens, us bronies always win and the haters always lose."
"Sure, they call us names and make mean comments, but what does that really do? They can shun us from forums, but we can simply create new ones for bronies only. Don't you see? The haters are making us unique, making us a group separate from the rest of the internet. Being a brony wouldn't be half as fun if everybody were one. Being different, and a part of a group, is fun. And even if the hate is offensive, we cannot expect ourselves to be immune to hate, for it is simply a fact of life that if something exists, there will be those who dislike it. There is nothing wrong with being a brony, and no matter what the haters say there will never be anything wrong with it. There is no reason to justify why you are a brony to a hater, they will never understand and you shouldn't have to explain. Liking the show is reason enough, and that should be implied by the title of 'brony'."
"When somebody parodies bronies or the show, or maybe pokes fun at it, we mustn't become angry. How can we not expect to be parodied and made fun of by comedians? It is so very easy to parody a group of males that watch a show that society views as 'girly'. Therefore, when a comedian or other pokes fun at us or the show, we must take it with a grain of salt. It is simply a joke, and if we become angry at the simplest of jokes, we are not secure in our community. Overreacting to the parodies and the jokes is what we shouldn't do. Instead, we should learn to laugh at ourselves, because nothing can ever be perfect. We will never be able to fix all the problems in our community, so we will have to deal with them."
"If we want to have the best community we possibly can, we must all learn to be friends. When talking with a fellow brony, treat them like you would a close friend, and do not allow yourself to forget the very motto of bronies. Love and tolerate. This does not mean you must love and tolerate everything, but if you cannot love and tolerate something, don't comment about it. It is like the old saying, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it. We should allow all bronies and haters to hold their opinions without pestering them, and if there is a disagreement there is no need to violently argue about it. Simply share the reasons why you hold your opinions, and be kind. However, there is no reason to flaunt things that the rest of the bronies do not wish to hear. Just like the haters do not wish to hear about ponies, some bronies do not wish to hear about certain things, and we should respect their wishes."
"As for haters, do not worry about them. They are simply internet-dwellers who have refused to watch ponies or dislike them, but feel left out. For the brony community is strong, and it is fun to be a part of it, but those who do not enjoy the show cannot join us. However, they don't want to feel left out of the brony phenomena, so they turn to hating it. They look from negative attention which we readily give them. If we wish to relinquish the haters, we simply have to stop responding. Just ignore them, and tell them that they are wonderful people when they try to make hateful comments against ponies or bronies. When a hater tries to start a fight, or makes a hateful video, just ignore it. Eventually the haters will realize that the bronies don't give a buck about them, and stop their hate."
"We may not be able to eliminate all the haters, and there will ALWAYS be hate, but we shouldn't care what they have to say. As for us bronies, we should not try to force anybody to become a brony. If one does not show interest, do not press them, and respect their wishes. We should allow areas that are not dedicated to ponies to remain pony-free, and if we happen to meet a fellow brony on the website we are browsing, engaging in private conversation is never a bad thing. Some people simply do not like the ponies, and we must respect that."
"I dream of an internet where bronies will simply disregard the hate and acquire ponies. This is an internet where the haters realize that their work and effort is wasted, that they will not receive the negative attention they seek. I dream of an internet where bronies live in harmony and let the rest of the world do whatever it wants. Because inside our communities, we are strong. We do things that the world has never seen before. We create art, music, and novels that rival those made by professionals. We produce content so fast that sometimes it is difficult to keep up, but this is a good thing. I dream of a world where bronies will realize that they are a fantastic community, and simply being a part of it makes you a part of the family."
"What I am trying to say is that, the brony community is an amazing thing, and we should not care what the haters have to say. We have nothing to prove to the haters, so we shouldn't bother to try. There is no reason to prove to the hater why they are wrong. Whether or not they are wrong makes no difference. Even if the show was 'girly', which it isn't, does it really change whether or not we should watch it? I hope that one day my dream can come true, and that the war between the bronies and haters will end. I hope that this day will come soon, and that no matter how much hate is thrown in our direction, we just continue to do what we do and enjoy the amazing show that brought us all together. Even when we become angry with the areas of our fandom that make us look bad, we must remember that there is nothing we can do to fix that, and move on."
"In the end, we are a gigantic family, and we should all love every second that we are a part of it, because there is so much greatness that comes out of the community. In the decades to come, anything that gains a following outside the intended demographic or creates a large internet following will be compared to bronies. We've made such a big impact on the internet already that we don't have to worry about dying, because we will be spoken about years into the future, not to mention that we've shattered the stereotype 'for girls' and broken all the social boundaries. So even when the bronies have died out, we will have made our mark in history. The only thing left to do is to simply enjoy the ponies and enjoy being a brony, and not to care about the hate. This is a world I dream of."
The Only stopped speaking. For a few seconds the crowd of bronies stood in complete silence. Hate continued to bounce off the force field. One pony stomped his hooves on the ground, and within moments the entire crowd went wild. The Only smiled, he hoped that his message had truly came across to the bronies.
The internet god smiled. He knew that the bronies had changed, and that he would not have to worry about any more fights on his internet.
He released the bronies and the haters back to earth.
The Only and the internet god awaited the day patiently, awaiting the day when a dream would hopefully become a reality.
