Raves, technology, music and a shared interest in a children’s television program bring students together in the Wyoming United Bronies Club (WUBC).
“A brony is somebody who identifies with the fandom associated with the My Little Pony Friendship is Magic franchise,” Alyx Cox, a UW freshman and WUBC member said.
Started three years ago by UW senior Jake Harper and current WUBC President Jessie Johnson, the club came about as a natural progression of hanging out and bonding over shared media interests. Harper took it upon himself to seek out RSO status for the casual community that he and his friends had formed.
“We said, ‘hey lets make this thing legit.’” Harper said, “It gives us resources to put on parties, raves and stuff like that.”
After getting their RSO status approved, the group began an advertising campaign with a shoestring budget, placing paper flyers around the university and town.
From the initially small group of friends, the group has grown to nearly 30 members.
Harper, who self-identifies as “any other bro,” was driven to watch the show by the massive amounts of attention it has received online.
“It was something that really blew up on the Internet,” Harper said.
As a result of the show’s children oriented message, Harper finds that it allows an opportunity to defy societal norms.
“There’s definitely a rebel factor to it,” Harper said.
For Johnson watching a show advertised primarily to middle-school girls was not an easy process.
“It was so striking to me,” Johnson said. ”I thought, ‘I may as well check it out, and at the very least I can say I hate it.’”
Rather than being a club exclusively devoted to the show, the club’s members engage in a wide array of activity, from movie viewings, to making music, to hosting game nights.
“We’ve formed a fairly close knit community that branches out into other stuff,” Cox said. “We’ll go to movies and restaurants. None of that has anything to do with the show.”
Music is a strong focal point for the group, drawing from both their personal interests and from the music created by the online brony community.
For Cox membership in the group meant regular DJ lessons from Harper.
“One night at his place I was just chilling and he brought out his turntables,” Cox said, “Now I’m working on getting shows around town.”
Contrary to popular conceptions about students interested in technology, anime and My Little Pony the group has received no pushback from other students.
“We don’t get flack,” Harper said. “Our members tend to be really sociable people with a lot of technological interests.”
For its members the WUB club is about more than bronies.
“It serves as a catalyst,” Cox said. “It attracts people together to become greater than the sum of their parts.”
