jestre:

fallfeatherspony:

emeraldsilver:

dispatchrabbi:

realrandomsam:

persephoneholly:

realrandomsam:

persephoneholly:

realrandomsam:

persephoneholly:

did-you-kno:

Source

Good. They can have their brony con and leave little children to their own cons.

I used to work for BronyCon. It was one of the bext experiences of my life. I loved it.

Were there problems? Of course. There are problems with any convention. But it was fun, and I loved getting to make magic for attendees of all ages - including the many children who were in attendance.

Don’t judge a convention by the toxicity of part of a fandom.

Look, I don’t mind Bronies. I just am not comfortable with the fact that grown men like to go to conventions with young children, especially girls. Allow them to enjoy their own, separate convention away from children.

But…that’s almost all conventions. Every conventions I’ve ever been to had children there as well as adults. There were children’s activities as well as 18+ programming, and everything in between. And I think that’s how it should be - something for everyone to enjoy with age checks and other similar precautions in place.

The idea that adults shouldn’t go to events because children are there and have to have their own conventions seems ridiculous to me.

No. Adults should not go to event made specifically for children. Children should not go to events specifically for adults. MLP is for children. It was made specifically for young girls and then adult men got into it and many of them made it unsafe for them. If there’s a con FOR CHILDREN parents and those affiliated with the con should be the only adults. If there’s a con FOR ADULTS adults should not bring children. If there’s a mixed audience then you have events for each, like with Doctor Who or Anime.

MLP does have a mixed audience though. Lauren Faust specifically made MLP:FIM to appeal to all ages and genders, though the target audience is younger girls. And it paid off with strong writing, entertaining and diverse characters, excellent music, and an overall fantastic show for anyone to enjoy. That’s why adult fans of MLP exist in the first place- because it is a fantastic show that can appeal to everyone. And it’s why it appealed to me. The show was then and is now a breath of fresh air during a time when there isn’t a whole lot on TV that interests me.

By that same argument, adults shouldn’t be allowed participate in events for Harry Potter, which is a children’s series. And yet I saw a lot of independent adults at midnight book releases, and only adults at the premiere of the last movie. Nancy Drew, Adventure Time, and Disney TV shows and movies are also children’s content, and yet they all have a sizeable adult demographic.

And finally, since I actually worked for BronyCon for a year (I don’t anymore), I can vouch for them and say that adult content is not allowed under any circumstances. It is a family-friendly convention. They do have some plus panels to talk about some things slightly above kids’ heads (discussing grimdark content and its impact is one that comes to mind), but no explicit content is allowed anywhere, period. Not in the panels, not in cosplay, not in art and merchandise, nowhere. If something gets out of hand, there are consequences. Panels get cancelled, badges get revoked, attendees get banned. BronyCon is about having fun and celebrating an awesome show, and that’s it.

Again, please don’t judge a convention or an entire fandom for a toxic subset. 

We actually don’t do plus panels anymore. No one came to them. We do have panels that we expect, for example, swearing to be more likely to happen in (because that’s a thing with how people talk), and we schedule those later in the day (past 10pm) so that there is less of a chance of children attending them.

One of our rules is, if you wouldn’t see it in the show, don’t bring it to the con.

I’ve been working for BronyCon for over three years now. It’s pretty much the formative experience of my adult life. Nearly everyone I work with is a gift and I’ve learned so much from them, and doing the con itself is almost like magic. Adults and children both get really happy over this one thing, and since I generally consider children to just be small adults it’s nice to see them bond. Children don’t need to be, what, protected from the big scary adults?

I was a child when I got involved in the HP fandom alongside a ton of adults and a teen in a WoW raid guild where the leaders became surrogate parents to me despite only being college aged themselves. This whole…is it because the target demographic is not only children but female children? Well guess what, I was a female child too, and having adults participate in the same activities as me did nothing to harm me and and, in fact, really did help me grow.

<3 you dispatchrabbi emeraldsilver

Lots of people came to plus panels from what I saw. Even the grimdark panel last year was filled to the brim. Is that really the excuse for no more plus panels where a good idea for color-coded badge checking would work?

It’s a con where a bunch of fans cosplay and talk bout whatever it is they are a fan of and debate some things about it and show off art. What makes it different from comic con or ikkicon?