Candy coloured ponies and pastel uniforms: Military Bronies and masculine innocence

The Hasbro Company’s My Little Pony franchise began as a toy line marketed specifically to young girls; however, with the 2010 franchise reboot under the new title My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, an unanticipated and vocal following of adult men terming themselves ‘Bronies’ emerged as fans. As a focused subset of the brony community, ‘Military Bronies’ are challenging traditional expectations of masculinity and radically moving towards accessing formerly proscribed designations of innocence. The Military Brony phenomenon generates a sense of masculine innocence through the refutation of traditional cultural limitations on heteronormative masculinity.