My Little Pony Project Brings Bronies and Pegasisters to Toy Art Gallery

By Liz Ohanesian Mon., May 7 2012 at 10:23 AM

Shannon Cottrell

See also:
*More photos from the My Little Pony Project opening at Toy Art Gallery
*Top 5 Lessons for Adults From My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
*Boba Fett as a Girl: N.C. Winters Mashes Up Star Wars and My Little Pony in 'Abandoned Menagerie'

Just before 8:30 p.m., when the line to enter Toy Art Gallery was at its fullest, a small white car sped through the intersection of Melrose and Curson. The driver screamed, "Bronies!" The crowd let out a deep roar of excitement. My Little Pony Project 2012, a massive art exhibition dedicated to the cute and colorful toys that spawned a cult favorite cartoon series, was under way.

At TAG, the line extended down the block for the bulk of the night. Elsewhere on the avenue, My Little Pony fans -- including, yes, bronies, the term for older men who are My Little Pony fans -- swarmed other participating shops. JapanL..A had MLP keychains on hand early in the evening. Store owner Jamie Rivadeneira told me that they ran out in about five minutes. Designer toy shop Munky King was giving away free ponies with a $5 purchase. I stood in line for somewhere between five and 10 minutes to enter the shop. The line to make a purchase and collect a pony was longer than that. That this night was also Cinco de Mayo didn't matter -- Melrose was all about ponies.

Shannon Cottrell

My Little Pony custom by Miss Kika

The biggest crowd was at TAG, the focal point of My Little Pony Project. Although the opening event for the monthlong show was designed like a scavenger hunt, with flyers indicating what prizes were available at different locations, the organizers indicated that most people preferred to wait in line to see the main exhibit. Inside the small art gallery/boutique, the crowd was thick. People took cellphone photos of the large MLP figures, which were customized by artists ranging from Devo founder Mark Mothersbaugh to Japanese fashion brand 6%dokidoki. They ogled L.A. accessory designer Onch Movement's luxe My Little Pony necklaces and lined up again at the register, arms filled with T-shirts and other merchandise.

The event came at just the right time, when renewed interest in the 1980s toys is at a high thanks to the surging popularity of the Hub's animated series My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, and the Brony phenomenon has reached almost mainstream status.

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Toy Art Gallery

7571 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA

Category: General

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Tags:

Bronies, Custom Toys, Designer Toys, My Little Pony Project, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Pegasisters

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FiMBrony

I was still pretty fresh out of college with a PR degree with specialized education on social media and viral marketing when i first came across bronyism. The fanbase was still incredibly small then, but I saw all the tell tale signs of the perfect storm for a viral sensation: a good show with strong characters that stands on its own, a dedicated fan base who wanted to spread the word, a centralized blog/news site run by the fans and persistant threads on the most popular imageboard, which not much later spun off to multiple other imageboards. Bronies were coming up with their own slogans and such, plus the producers of the show were even talking to the fans. It didn't even take a few months for there to be an explosion of fan created content and a rich history of memes built up around a few episodes of Friendship is Magic. It was pretty easy to see this was something that would blow up to mainstream at this point. Sure enough, they started taking to forming conventions. I belive there are five bronycons across the US right now, and more likely to pop up by the end of 2013. What started it all? One article from Cartoon Brew proclaiming that Friendship is Magic marked the end of the creator-driven era in animation. This is a perfect example that even negative press can be positive press. If it weren't for that article sparking interest in people within the current demographic of bronies, who actually watched the show with the intentions of making fun of it, probably the only guys getting exposed to this show would have been fathers. They would've still loved it, but the viral sensation would never have caught on. It would just be one of those things that such a father would laugh off and explain as "you'll understand when you have a daughter of your own someday" to his buddies.

Pretty interesting, no?

Ray

Ahhhh! Gen. 3! Kill it with fire!

anzul

dont be like that dude :/i gota admidt, i dont like the disgn from previus generations, but they gota have our respect. at least they got mine....

and besides, some of the models in those photos i saw on EQD show some crazy art!, its truly amazing how they play whit the concept of ponies, from something totaly contrary to the mlp univverse to something super extra mega frilly, and yet, maintaining some crazy skills on art design!

RoboPlop

Come now. Just because you don't like the design doesn't mean you should hate on it like that. I'm no fan of G3 myself, but I have admit that these were very well done.

Ray

I just think it's not right to associate bronies with the old mlp. I understand that some people are fans of the old stuff, but the vast majority of bronies don't like it.It's part of the hive mind mentality.