This idea will probably be broken up into several sections. I'll start with the high concept stuff, and then get down into my personal observations and predictions as the series continues.
Popular culture is a mysterious thing; scientists are still, quite literally, trying to figure it out. Trends spring up in days, and with a little nourishment, can snowball into an edifice to endure or even define a decade.
A trend will is born in silence, with isolated people discovering an ability to enjoy something new--often something nobody would have predicted--but once those people find that they are not alone, and that there are others who share their enthusiasm, a fandom is formed and the trend becomes visible.
Fandoms are iceberg like things, with only the most prominent parts being visible without careful study. Also, like icebergs, they can be dangerous, if you assume you understand the whole thing, by looking at a part of it; many a marketing push has been crippled by a decision based on an overly small sample of the audience. Each has a unique raver to lurker ratio, based on a million unique factors, but each one signifies a deeper trend in the overarching culture, and can be used to collect valuable data points about the trends in that culture. Many of these factors are yet mysteries to marketing science, and new insights into the matter are valuable (for making money, if nothing else) in the right hands.
In this series, I'll be making observations on the growth and nature of the newborn "Brony" clique, and what they can tell us about the unexpected ways that Lauren Faust's My Little Pony reboot is trending in general, as well as what those trends tell us about society and modern marketing.
For those of you who haven't heard, a lot of red blooded, American males, aged 18-35, of both sexualities, are finding themselves unexpectedly enjoying My little Pony. (That's right, you're not alone.) For many, this has been an earth shattering revelation. One group of these fans call themselves "Bronies," keying off the irony that men normally expected to only be interested in beer, boobs and ballgames are unexpectedly finding themselves liking something that was intended to appeal to little girls.
People are asking, "Why is this happening!?" "What is happening?!" "Is this even okay!?" Nobody is asking these questions more than the bronies themselves. The men in question often find themselves horrified by their own lack of irrational bias, or dismissive pomposity. Leading the following question to often be, "If it's actually good, why shouldn't men be able to enjoy it?" or more succinctly, "Why not?"
I'll address each of those three questions in a subsequent entry.
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