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Description
We usually try to avoid tackling controversial “issues” in Critical Miss. This is a space for tired Pokemon jokes and odes to my phallus, not political discourse. But after hearing about the appalling treatment of so-called “Bronies” at the hands of callous female My Little Pony Fans, we’ve decided we have to make our voices heard.
At cons, not only are Bronies subjected to numerous unwanted sexual advances, some critics have even questioned their motives for attending such gatherings in the first place. Every year, male fans face the same, insipid accusations that they attend cons simply because they know they’ll be the center of attention, and the leers of female pony fans will somehow “satisfy their hollow egos.”
Women, imagine if you were attending a convention, and some petty little tit claiming to be a kind of geek gatekeeper were to question your right to be there based only on your gender. How would that make you feel? Pretty terrible, right? Never mind that questioning other people’s geek cred and worrying that “attention seekers” might be stealing your limelight is a giant, flashing sign that reads “I have poor self-esteem,” the extra scrutiny placed upon genuine male fans is likely to drive them away, leaving only the “attention seekers” you claim to detest.
Please, ladies. The hate has to stop.
In other news: Sexual Harassment Fluttershy has replaced Stupid Sexy Mudcrab as my favorite character.
At cons, not only are Bronies subjected to numerous unwanted sexual advances, some critics have even questioned their motives for attending such gatherings in the first place. Every year, male fans face the same, insipid accusations that they attend cons simply because they know they’ll be the center of attention, and the leers of female pony fans will somehow “satisfy their hollow egos.”
Women, imagine if you were attending a convention, and some petty little tit claiming to be a kind of geek gatekeeper were to question your right to be there based only on your gender. How would that make you feel? Pretty terrible, right? Never mind that questioning other people’s geek cred and worrying that “attention seekers” might be stealing your limelight is a giant, flashing sign that reads “I have poor self-esteem,” the extra scrutiny placed upon genuine male fans is likely to drive them away, leaving only the “attention seekers” you claim to detest.
Please, ladies. The hate has to stop.
In other news: Sexual Harassment Fluttershy has replaced Stupid Sexy Mudcrab as my favorite character.
I don’t know what’s funnier: the idea that most men wouldn’t love to have women act like this, that this was intended as a serious critique and not more than a ridiculous joke, or the claim that this comic was ever reluctant to tackle such “topics”.
God, I wish I’d never had to experience anything that’s happened in the last 5 years. I could have died far less miserable back then, but that’s just a complete personal failure.
I’m trying to give the comic authors some credit.
“Bad social interactions only happen to women” is a theme and message I’m sick of hearing, so I was thinking that maybe they were trying to do something interesting with it.
“Overthinking” seems to imply that I’m putting too much effort into it. I came to multiple conflicting interperetations of this by the time I finished reading it, even after pruning the ones that were implausible. This is just a bad comic. Bad at communicating it’s point. Bad at using a role reversal and not really doing anything with it.
It’s a confused, jumbling mess to me, and you have done nothing to argue against that.
If you dislike bronies so much, then why are you on this site? I’m sure you’d be happier back on tumblr.
lol your overthinking it. The message is simple and stupidly easy to determine. How is it that this comic is a mystery to anyone?
Bronys as a whole probably lack social intuition to a certain degree, but this is ridiculous.
Let me see if I’m understanding you right:
In a large gathering of people, there will be some people who are mean and do things that a passerby won’t like.
Or they flirt the wrong way due to lack of practice.
Or they’re just screwing around, but with other people rather than keeping the shenanigans to their inside group, where the rules for what things are okay to screw around with are relaxed, and they forget to change gears.
Is this rule supposed to be specific to nerd conventions? I’m not quite clear on that.
Worst case scenario, it’s another “women are always victims and men are always evil victimizer” message that gets filtered away with all the others so that it loses all meaning in the white noise of the repeated memes.
I gather by your final sentence that you dislike the comic.
In my opinion, this is a pretty bad comic, as far as communicating a message goes. There are too many conflicting messages that could be read into it that are each plausible readings of the panels. The art seems a bit off in places, but that’s just a mechanical problem that’ll get ironed out as the artist keeps practicing.
IMO the only one who was clearly over the line was ass-grabbing fluttershy, and that is only for the ass-grab. The thing she says is too forward to be tolerable in “I just met you 5 seconds ago” familiarity, but that just necessitates a metaphorical step back to reinforce the distance between the two.
There are so many simple ways to play off of what comic!dash said that I’ll just say it’s easy to brush off and use it as a way to further zero in on the requested information.
The final panel happens after the redshirt leaves and isn’t part of the interaction.
I have little suspicion that this is ACTUALLY about Bronies, Pegasisters, or MLP fandom. MLP is merely used because the fandom itself is reversed to expectation. I’ve never heard of this happening at MLP cons; I’m sure it does at times, but I’m sure it’s far less than other nerd cons.
THAT SAID; this is about role reversal. You need to imagine a bit more of a ‘what if My Little Pony was mostly female fans’. Also note that even if you like the idea of women coming on to you at a convention, you (if you are male) should still feel uncomfortable with this. These girls are surrounding, fondling; their language is forceful and degrading. Not degrading that is fun, either; this is pure objectification. The danger is that it’s easy to misread and think this is sexy; I assure you no matter how desperate you are, or even how submissive you are, you would not find this sexy.
This stuff does happen at conventions all the time. Give social power to someone without it (nerds) that are resentful… well, you get abuse like this. Suddenly, surrounded by peers, a nerd sees they can do much of what they like. Most nerds will still be their normal nice self, but some… some will take out their resentment on women. They want the power that bullies have had over them. None the less; it’s still terrible and pathetic.
The ‘standard complaint’, if one exists, is that a significant number of female cosplayers have no interest in in the characters/fiction they’re cosplaying, and are simply using it as an excuse for sexual attention. (I don’t know whether this complaint reflects reality, but I do agree it would be obnoxious for nerd conventions to be flooded with non-nerds trying to get attention via scanty attire.)
For this comic to be a gender-reversal of that complaint, that dude would be dressed in some kind of pony-themed stripper costume. He would not be purchasing merchandise. He would not be able to hold a conversation on the subject of Equestria…
Is that it?
Jesus. I knew the majority of The Escapist was shit but didn’t know it was this bad.
I wonder if that site will implode if Yahtzee ever leaves them.
Entitled Douchebag Leer Twilight is just about my favourite thing of the moment.
This? Again?
Guys? Seriously? You don’t get the obvious role reversal with bronies being sexually harassed by girls, and that bronies are pop culture?
…
I probably screwed up the wording but the point is that this joke isn’t that hard to get…
so here is a picture of Cao, Bei, and Jian.
I’m still looking for one.