Cultural fads on here

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The OP has a fairly narrow minded point of view here. The Brony phenomenon is very easily explained and has been in several articles I have read. However, I will explain it here in the way I understand it to be. Bronys tend to be rather geeky sorts with poor social skills, be they aspies or neurotypicals. What many of them watch it for is to learn social skills that they otherwise have not learned in the course of their lives. Thus, there is a logical reason to watch it if you are an aspie. As aspies tend not to care as much about the social implications of something and instead look to the core data, a show designed to teach social skills that they missed growing up is a logical place to look to gather this data. The fact that it is a show geared towards females is not relevant. After all, many on the spectrum do not have as strong a gender identity as neurotypicals so it may not matter as much that it is not geared towards their gender.

Well-worded.

Ironically, the OP is following the oldest "fad" of them all: bullying and belittling anyone who is "different" than him.

I've always wondered it myself but I'm thinking maybe it genuinely does interest those people that are interested in those things. I've tried to understand anime and get into it, I could never do it. My friend tried to get me into it. I'm just not into it. I was never into anime or Pokemon. Sure, I liked My Little Pony when I was 3 years old and the closest thing to anime I ever liked was Sailor Moon when I was around 9 years old. I'm just not into the whole fantasy thing. I find that a lot of aspies are into the whole fantasy theme.

Must be further behind than usual...

I didn't know these were trends, heh.

I like MLP but I'm a 27 year old female....so not a brony....I also watch a British cartoon called "everything's Rosie", an old Canadian one called "Saqua the Chinese Siamese Cat" and a show called "Zozomafoo". All of these cartoons and kids shows are intended for very young children...under 10 years old....I watch other of these cartoons sometimes too I enjoy watching them because they appeal to me visually and I like the characters and just genuinely enjoy the shows. I don't think of it as a way to learn social skills and definitely not something I do to fit in because it's a "fad". In fact if anything I'm slightly embarrassed by the fact that I watch so many of these shows.

I like MLP because it is a great show, not because others do.

"Brony" is a gender neutral term, and can be used to refer to either male or female fans of the show. It's my favourite show I've ever viewed, though this is irrelevant to the topic. Why the OP feels the need to use such sweeping generalizations to judge certain cultures/fan-bases is beyond me.

oh okay I was the one who said I liked MLP but I guess I'm not a brony since I'm female. I didn't realize I was using the term incorrectly.......I love the show so I guess I am a brony. I think children's .T.V. shows and children's/young adult fantasy literature is sometimes more magical then the adult shows/novels......I'm not sure exactly why.

My apologies, I should have quoted you. The second half was directed towards the OP and their first post.

An American calling Japanese society f****d up? That's a bit the pot calling the kettle black. Jersey Shore. No need to say more.

Anyway, I think MLP, as I've said before, is a way to like, get the girly side out of a lot of guys. Like for me, I've always loved eurobeat and eurodance, and finally when I could find the music easier, it's now a bit of an obsession. I also figure skate, too. Both pretty "feminine" kinda things. But many guys have no such outlet. So one day, a couple people decided they liked the new MLP show, and then other guys followed them, too, partially out of legitimately liking it, and partially of it giving a "feminine" kinda outlet to them.

As far as trends in the "Aspie" community, well, Aspie is beginning to just be used interchangeably with "nerds" and "nerd culture" or whatever the hell. So instead of it being a mental disorder, it's a...culture of...whatever. In high school, I fit in better with the "nerds" and decided to follow the trends a bit better, but then when I left school, I didn't like, socialize ever, and there was not much need to keep up with it all anymore. Now I work out a decent amount, skate, etc, and there's simply very little in my life that's part of the "nerd" culture, so I don't fit in around "nerdy" people in real life anymore, due to my interests being so wide/different. I do have a fair number of interests/hobbies, though, but not as many anymore are really "nerdy."

As far as why people follow trends and fit into crowds, it's all the whole "place to belong" thing. It's powerful as hell, that idea. People join criminal gangs and kill over it. So to think of people liking MLP when they may not actually like it, that's not very extreme at all. But, generally people do wanna belong with other people, and many people compromise what they like and dislike to fit into a group of people. It's pretty simple to observe really. Now for me personally, I don't feel like compromising like at all, but now I also have no social group to hang out with anymore, so maybe along the lines that'll change or some group will really accept me without me changing myself to fit better into the group. Who knows.

But...there you go.

Man Zaboomafoo was like the best show when I was a kid.

Oh yes, I understood that the second comment was directed at the OP and I strongly agree with it and think it was well worded The OP, in not the original but a subsequent post called things like anime and MLP "stupid" and others in real life have said that to me about the kids shows I watch as well......so I wanted to explain what the appeal of children's shows and children's literature is to me.