Yeah, like, it's so hard to even explain. With furries, it was easy. I liked (and still like) cartoon animals a hell of a lot, think they're cool, have even been SICK N TWIZTID enough to find them attractive, though I keep feeling like as I finally start to 'grow up' I feel myself being into that kind of stuff less and less, and just being hugely, honestly into cartoons and animation more and more. I definitely was in the thick of it a few years ago, though, but even then, I felt uncomfortable, even though I wanted furry friends. But it was easy to define the difference between myself and the rest of them; I liked cartoon animals in much the same way and to the same degree as them, but to me it was more like just 'something I liked a lot' and 'maybe something I wanted to be involved with the community surrounding', not something that I considered a 'lifestyle' or something REALLY IMPORTANT. Just like how you said about the bronies that 'come out' or w/e, it just seemed really weird and taking-it-way-too-far to me, even when I was neck deep in the stuff regularly. I guess I just had a 'thing' for cartoon characters in the same way some people have a 'thing' for balloons or whatever else you may see on some fetish show on A&E, and also underneath that childish (though still faintly existing) mind-quirk I really, truly loved, and even more now love, cartoons and animation in a very real and professional way. And then, 99.99% of other furrries just wanted to fap to artwork of buff human bodies with cartoon heads unfittingly plastered to the top while wearing collars and ears irl and swearing it's a 'lifestyle' while being into all kinds of gross sub-fetishes. It was a huge, stark difference.
But with bronies, it's... a little murkier. By all intents, I'm just exactly the same as the broniest of bronies. I'm really, REALLY into the show, I have had my hoof in the community since near the beginning (and I even like to use those cute little metaphors like hoof there, everypony, things like that), I've been following EqD since it was new, I've actually participated in creating artwork and will continue to for the forseeable future, I've even written a little, I've made great friends in it, and I even very ashamedly enjoy some of the more 'questionable' fanworks (I didn't at all for a few months when I first was into ponies and wanted to keep them pure, but then some things happened, that I could get into some other time if you were actually curious -- but it's not 'important' to me even if I enjoy it sometimes, if I had a good reason to, I'd drop it like a bad habit, I mean, the 'bad stuff' within ponies, not pony itself). The only thing I DON'T do is collect merchandise irl, but I've thought of getting one of those welovefine shirts and I honestly would love to have those wonderfully on-model McDonald's toys.
And yet... I don't know. I don't want to seem to the average joe like a generic 'brony' even if I kinda am in a lot of ways. I have some friends who have no interest whatsoever in it and that's perfectly fine (though when it gets to the point at which they blatantly hate and try to make me feel bad for liking it, that's too far imo). I may like some of the 'weirder' stuff but at the same time I can't stand it usually when people openly flaunt how into that kind of stuff they are, or creepiishly roleplay as the ponies in comments sections and whatnot (I mean CREEPISHLY roleplay, not normal rolepaly, which I frankly think I'd be really into to be honest). I do agree that it feels uncomfortable when hardcore bronies start treating it like something more than it is, just like with furries, when imo no matter HOW obsessed you are in it you should realize it's just an interest, and there are other cool things in the world besides just ponies. I swear, some people seem to feel like they could not exist in a world without ponies, when the world up to a year ago was just that. As much as I love ponies and always will, though, I know there are other fantastic cartoons on right now as well, and plenty of other stuff I like just as much, or nearly so, at least, so...
I actually didn't mean to sound like I was using 'convert' seriously. I was joking around. I think it's fine to use words like that IF you're being silly, like when the community was newer and nothing like that was ever meant seriously. Even the most hardcore of us were just guys who liked the show a lot, I don't think anyone by that point was quite so absorbed to think it's like a lifestyle or movement or whatever. But, yeah.... Well, gosh, I guess in a way it IS a little bit of a 'movement', in that it's really surged through the most caustic, twisted, depressing and apathetic parts of the internet and left a really happy rainbow-colored streak in them, and it's seemed to spread a whole hell of a lot of honest happiness, feel-goodness and open-mindedness all around. And that's wonderful, so wonderful, and I love that, and I hope it keeps growing and growing for those reasons. But still, y'know... it's not the end-all-be-all *thing*, it's just a thing, a really good thing.
And as far as meetups, you're like, 17, right? That's not that young, I keep meeting people online who're like 12-14 lately, it's freaky. Some pony fans, too. I think once you're around 18 it's pretty much like age starts mattering a lot less. I actually feel like I should be about 15 or 16 for a lot of reasons so knowing I'm 24 is just so weird, I don't understand how fast time passed for me -- but yeah, back when the community was newer I felt like one of the *younger* ones, it was crazy... but by now, I'm pretty old, like I am most places online. I have such crippling social anxiety though, I'd have a hard time making myself go to something like that, and if I did I'd want to be totally better so I seemed really confident and not awkward at all and 'represented fans of the show' in a better light than people always worry it's going to be represented. But I probably just shouldn't care and should just chill, but then again, if I did that, then I'd achieve exactly what I've just outlined. I wish it were easy.
Haha, look at our increasingly larger and larger back-and-forths. I kinda hope at least one stranger happerns upon them and becomes enlightened in the ways of the pony.
