Unless you’ve been living under a rock or on a rock farm, you probably already know that bronies — adult fans of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic — do not always live the lessons about kindness and caring central to the children’s cartoon. There are the MAGA bronies. There are the Nazi bronies. There are the Rule 34 bronies who design pony flesh-lights and sex dolls (we won’t link to that). However, much like how the renewed Black Lives Matter protests have led to frank conversations about institutional racism in Hollywood and the music and comedy industries, it has also led to reforms in the brony community.
The Atlantic reports that the owners of Derpibooru, the most popular brony fan-art site, has changed its previously lax policy regarding racist content as a direct response to the Black Lives Matter movement. On June 4, Derpibooru administrators tweeted an official statement saying that “our new policy is that images that appear to have been created to incite controversy or antagonize others in relation to current events will not be welcome on the site. This means that we will be immediately deleting any new uploads that we believe promote racism or attempt to downplay the Black Lives Matter movement.†This statement came after prominent brony creators like Wootmaster and Lightning Chaser faced downvotes and harassment on their BLM art and called for intervention.
If one fandom can take a firm stance against rampant racism and toxicity in its community, there is hope. That’s one small trot for bronies, one giant gallop for stan culture.