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Second Survey of the Brony Subculture

Last posted Sep 28, 2012 at 07:38PM EDT. Added Sep 10, 2012 at 09:54PM EDT
116 posts from 66 users


Hey, guys.

I don't like to start threads, but opspe, CitationNeeded, and I have begun recruitment for the second dissemination of a survey of the brony subculture.

You can find that link here.

You can find our previous results here.

We've already posted on /mlp/, reddit, Derpibooru, and tumblr blogs, and we've submitted a request for Equestria Daily to post the survey as well.

We'd also like for people who know about the subculture to take the survey as well. As long as you know about the subculture and can answer honestly about yourself, then we'd appreciate your input.

If you have any questions, then let me, opspe, or CitationNeeded know. You can also post here, and I'll probably answer it pretty quickly so everyone can see it. If you have a question you don't want anyone to see, then you can just PM us as well.


Also, note the fancy logo made by Gigatoast. We'd like to thank him for his help. It makes the presentation of the survey much more professional looking and pleasing to the eye. Go and see his other art (EDIT) and his logo here.

Last edited Sep 10, 2012 at 11:40PM EDT

Mack TheUnoriginal wrote:

I'm not a brony. Is my input in any way helpful, or just an obnoxious outlier?

I think it will be, Mack.

One of the things we found in the last survey is that there are a ton of differences between the mainstream culture and brony subculture. Use of social networking sites, religious affiliation, sexual orientation…

However, that could be attributed to other reasons. Perhaps people involved with Web Culture would be just as different. So we want people who would also frequent various sites on the Web but who aren't bronies.

In one way, you'd be part of a comparison group. We need people who are Web-savvy who aren't bronies to compare bronies to.

In another way, it's a source of data for people in Web Culture. I think Web Culture is interesting (part of the reason I've been on KYM for so long.) How did we get here? What makes us different? What are our demographics?

This will offer a bit of data on that outside of bronies if the recruitment goes well.

Twilitlord wrote:

>Question 18
>all fives

>Implying the other four are equal to Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle
>I Rikki Tikki Tavi

I'm disappointed that there is, to my knowledge, no Rikki Tikki Tavi / Octavia crossover fanart. I should get on that.

I have completed your survey and I must say it had a good amount of depth and the design was good; and for that I tip my hat to you (Verbose), Opspe, Gigatoast & CitationNeeded

However I must say there was one fatal flaw with the survey, you forgot to include KYM on question 29.
>2012
>Not shamelessly self promoting

Last edited Sep 10, 2012 at 10:47PM EDT

ExudesAffluence wrote:

>Implying the other four are equal to Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle
>I Rikki Tikki Tavi

I'm disappointed that there is, to my knowledge, no Rikki Tikki Tavi / Octavia crossover fanart. I should get on that.

The point of the question was how much you like each pony, not which one was better. That was… 19, I think? I like all of them a lot, I just like Rainbow Dash a little bit more, so she was my best pony answer.

Also, why was there no Doctor Whooves in the ship question? Derpy x Dr Whooves was my answer, and one of the top answers in your last survey, and I had to manually insert him. And don't say because fan-named character, Vinyl Scratch was listed on that question.

EDIT: After going back over the first one, he wasn't in that one, either, but he was one of your top ones, even with manual entry there, too. Maybe it would have been a good idea to add him in?

Last edited Sep 10, 2012 at 10:44PM EDT

Tim the Enchanter wrote:

I have completed your survey and I must say it had a good amount of depth and the design was good; and for that I tip my hat to you (Verbose), Opspe, Gigatoast & CitationNeeded

However I must say there was one fatal flaw with the survey, you forgot to include KYM on question 29.
>2012
>Not shamelessly self promoting

We didn't consider KYM to be a big enough hub (lolunintentionalpuns) for pony content for it to be included on the list.

Mack TheUnoriginal wrote:

All done!

Not to be a pain, but when can we expect results?

A few weeks, probably. We just want to make sure everyone has enough time to answer, and then we'll have to analyze the data and compile it.

Cite wrote:

A few weeks, probably. We just want to make sure everyone has enough time to answer, and then we'll have to analyze the data and compile it.

I'd say between four and eight weeks, judging by how long it took us last time. We'll probably leave the survey open for at least two weeks, and since all three of us are busy school (especially Verbose and I since we're in grad school), it'll take a few weeks for the results to get processed.

We didn’t consider KYM to be a big enough hub

That's a surprise. We have a second MLP sub-community huddled around the MLP image gallery and with all those people dedicated to just posting in that one comment section and that one image gallery, I figured it would be a sizeable hub.

People are definitely coming to KYM to get their fill of pony art and video. That's why that gallery constantly receives new uploads every minute. Even I go through that gallery just to check out what new art has been uploaded. It's quicker than going to Derpibooru

I answered "Other/not listed here" to that question. Where by "Other" I mean KYM

Last edited Sep 10, 2012 at 11:03PM EDT

Blue Screen (of Death) wrote:

We didn’t consider KYM to be a big enough hub

That's a surprise. We have a second MLP sub-community huddled around the MLP image gallery and with all those people dedicated to just posting in that one comment section and that one image gallery, I figured it would be a sizeable hub.

People are definitely coming to KYM to get their fill of pony art and video. That's why that gallery constantly receives new uploads every minute. Even I go through that gallery just to check out what new art has been uploaded. It's quicker than going to Derpibooru

I answered "Other/not listed here" to that question. Where by "Other" I mean KYM

Even while KYM may be considered a fairly large hub, it pales in comparison to tumblr, Reddit, /mlp/, Ponychan, and the like. When people list off pony hubs, nobody ever mentions Know Your Meme in those lists.

Verbose wrote:

I think it will be, Mack.

One of the things we found in the last survey is that there are a ton of differences between the mainstream culture and brony subculture. Use of social networking sites, religious affiliation, sexual orientation…

However, that could be attributed to other reasons. Perhaps people involved with Web Culture would be just as different. So we want people who would also frequent various sites on the Web but who aren't bronies.

In one way, you'd be part of a comparison group. We need people who are Web-savvy who aren't bronies to compare bronies to.

In another way, it's a source of data for people in Web Culture. I think Web Culture is interesting (part of the reason I've been on KYM for so long.) How did we get here? What makes us different? What are our demographics?

This will offer a bit of data on that outside of bronies if the recruitment goes well.

Once I got into the survey a little more, I saw how my response could be helpful. There were several questions I was kind of automatically disqualified for, but all in all, I felt like the non-brony (is that even the term?) had valid information to contribute.

So good job writing the thing.

Cite's in on this too this time? Cool, this should put a new perspective on things.

While I don't see how this is any different than the last one, nonetheless, I have filled out the questionnaire as requested. Those questions did get awkward fast, but for science okay.

Also, perhaps some more check boxes could be in order for religion? Because it's not uncommon for people to follow more than one religion. Hell, agnostic doesn't even count, since you can be an agnostic theist or an agnostic atheist.

(hint: for number 19, pick the fifth option)
(I checked the creating fanart option because troll)
(whoa haven't watched an episode in a looooooooong time)
(THINK ABOUT THE CHILDREN!)

@Quantum: I think they're trying to see how the fandom evolves over time. It's a very new and unusual fandom, and I can see it being a good subject for a persistent study. amirite, Verbose/opspe/Cite?

Troll Mode engage:

>Question 13.
>"Are you sexually attracted to FiM-stylized ponies?"
>Not "Are you a Ponisexual?"
>Not "Are you a Horsef***er?"
>mfw
%o


Also related (YES IT'S A PARODY MADE BY A BRONY):


All trolling aside, I didn't know Cite was helping you on this.
OH and be careful that /mlp/ might make a lot of "Ponisexual, actively telling EVERYONE,Changed sexual orientation, some obscure (or lulzy) ship such as Holy Smokes x Rumble(Priest X Youngboy)" and other responses that fit that stereotype, and pin it on Ponychan. So if you get a lot of responses like that, don't be surprised.

Last edited Sep 11, 2012 at 06:40AM EDT

Twilitlord wrote:

@Quantum: I think they're trying to see how the fandom evolves over time. It's a very new and unusual fandom, and I can see it being a good subject for a persistent study. amirite, Verbose/opspe/Cite?

That's exactly right.


@X-Singular: Yeah… I'm sure there will have to be some quality control done on the responses. We can handle that.

--
@Free Cake: Yes. We want to be explicit, because some people may be extremely okay with most R34, but not at all with…fillycon, I think it's called? And we didn't want to ask a separate question about that, because that's pretty much just asking "Are you a pedophile?"


@Everyone else: Thanks for all the feedback!

Explosive Lasers AKA Solaire AKA Sexiest wrote:

Givin' ya two guesses as to whom selected Princest as their favorite ship.

Pyro wrote:

Me and you both, buddy

Last edited Sep 11, 2012 at 10:34AM EDT

My big problem with this survey was the question regarding how regularly I watch FiM. I watch it every week at the premiere when we're on season, but not at all when we're off. I haven't watched a full episode since the premiere of the royal wedding.

There was no option that accurately reflected the variability in my viewing habits.

Also, I thought the sex questions were just a little bit too unnuanced. I've never clopped and by and large am not attracted to ponies, so I put down that I'm not attracted to ponies, but there has been that one picture every now and then that I've found…aesthetically pleasing shall we say? "Octavia and Vinyl making out? Oh you silly ship/cloppers, you never learn. Hmm…the artist did a really good job though…Ah, look at dem thighs…THIGHS ON A PONY #ORH!O#IDBK#!$!R!Y#ORG!#$UFG!*#XHUIWDH suicide"

Edit: Oh, and just an idea if you guys ever do another one of these. I did NOT like FiM's art style or cutesy stuff in general when I started watching the show. I remember rolling my eyes and continually making"diabeetus" jokes while watching the first episode. I kept watching however because I liked the story and the characters, and over time, I find I've really gained an appreciation for the art style. I bet a lot of other people would report similarly, you might even find in the brony community some insight concerning how humans come by their aesthetic tastes in general.

Last edited Sep 11, 2012 at 12:18PM EDT

Fifths wrote:

My big problem with this survey was the question regarding how regularly I watch FiM. I watch it every week at the premiere when we're on season, but not at all when we're off. I haven't watched a full episode since the premiere of the royal wedding.

There was no option that accurately reflected the variability in my viewing habits.

Also, I thought the sex questions were just a little bit too unnuanced. I've never clopped and by and large am not attracted to ponies, so I put down that I'm not attracted to ponies, but there has been that one picture every now and then that I've found…aesthetically pleasing shall we say? "Octavia and Vinyl making out? Oh you silly ship/cloppers, you never learn. Hmm…the artist did a really good job though…Ah, look at dem thighs…THIGHS ON A PONY #ORH!O#IDBK#!$!R!Y#ORG!#$UFG!*#XHUIWDH suicide"

Edit: Oh, and just an idea if you guys ever do another one of these. I did NOT like FiM's art style or cutesy stuff in general when I started watching the show. I remember rolling my eyes and continually making"diabeetus" jokes while watching the first episode. I kept watching however because I liked the story and the characters, and over time, I find I've really gained an appreciation for the art style. I bet a lot of other people would report similarly, you might even find in the brony community some insight concerning how humans come by their aesthetic tastes in general.

That's the thing. We were more interested in seeing how many people continued to regularly watch the show throughout the summer, when there were no new episodes.

@Tim

BSoD believes differently (and it's already been answered), so you may be on to something. But in terms of fandom hubs, we didn't think that KYM would register compared to other hubs.

Given how many respondents there are and how people feel like "I didn't put down anything, because you didn't have Dr. Whooves and your mother" is a proper response that I can actually code (Heads up: I won't try if I have to think about how to code it and it may not be considered in the analysis anyway), I wanted to avoid as many open-ended answers as possible. I had…issues with various things such as erroneous responses and spelling. Because there are an infinite number of ways incorrectly spelling something or having a typo, it's not feasible with our sample size.

But if it turns out to be that many respondents say other, then we'll have to figure out where those other sites are and/or if there are smaller hubs but a great number of them that make up a large proportion of the community.


@Mack

I'd go even further and say that I don't want to put a number on that. I'm very deliberate to prevent mistakes. In fact, I started the recruitment a little too soon, and I made an obvious and terrible error (omitting Dr. Hooves/Whooves in an item where I anticipated him to be chosen very, very often. I ruined that question. It won't be usable, but I can't change it without asking people to retake it.)

However, there is a responsibility to the respondents, the FiM community, and those interested in the results to get them out in a reasonably timely manner. That could be four weeks after we stop collecting data (which I highly doubt.) That could be closer to eight weeks (which sounds about right.) It could be in December.

I should mention the analysis will be more detailed than last time. It won't just be a matter of collecting data and showing graphs, tables, and statistical analyses. That wouldn't take four weeks if we (read: I, Verbose) buckled down and did it over weekends and evenings.

It'll include asking each other about each item, each analysis, and their implications will take time. So that's 38 items and a lot more tests. It will include more background information, anecdotal considerations, theoretical basis for speculations from our fields and perhaps outside of any of ours (ideally)…

tl;dr: I'd like to be done before November.


@Doctor Hobo (and to whomever takes the questionnaire later on)

I appreciate your input. I really do. But you probably shouldn't have guessed.

The reason I say that, is because guesses on a questionnaire like this isn't what we're looking to analyze. We worked on wording a lot so that people could be sure that the answer they gave was true about themselves. If it's potentially misunderstood, then that would be getting data of a sort that is different from what we expect.

However, it's just one item. As long as it's not being misunderstood by a sizable portion of respondents, then it's perfectly fine. We expect it to occur.

I probably should have worded the instructions to say that you should skip the question if you didn't understand the question or if you felt uncomfortable with answering it. It's something I'll have to keep in mind for the future.


@Twins

From the last survey, most respondents chose one faith, even though they had the option to choose others along with their only actual choice. Furthermore, the way we present the results can come out to be a bit odd. When you have the chance to choose multiple responses, the descriptive either have to show all of the chosen combinations (which is too many to reasonably show), or it would not total up to be 100%. It's hard to graph that, and it's hard to conceive in a table when the same respondent could be represented in three or four different categories.

We understood that some people are often of a religious affiliation culturally but are also Atheist or Agnostic (e.g. Judaism and Atheism.) However, we felt that those nuances, although crucially important to the individual, would not be the focus our this survey.


@Quantum

See Twilitlord.

The community will change over time, and we'd like to see those changes in a cross-section. Also, as we learn more about the fandom, we have new questions to ask of them. We also make mistakes in the creation of the questionnaire, and we'd like to make sure that everything is being understood and that people can answer as truthfully as possible while being feasible to us.


@X-singular

Yeah, that's a legitimate concern.

Many people say (and accurately so,) that they don't frequent some other large sites for pony content. If we determine that there may be a lot of erroneous responses on sites, then we simply wouldn't recruit on those sites anymore. (Having select qualitative focus groups would likely yield the same themes and trends. And it would be much easier (although not easy) to analyze. There is responsibility on us as researchers to do good science and to be unbiased, but there is also a responsibility on the sample as well to be truthful.

I know the Internet is a different place for a survey, especially when it is embedded in Web Culture and a sense of anonymity, but I won't intentionally expose the survey to a community that has shown itself to have motives outside of the survey's aims.

Several respondents said they wanted an opportunity to respond, and they didn't see it when it was presented here, on EqD, and on DeviantArt. We think they were absolutely correct. This is their opportunity.

@Cake

Yes.

In my opinion, we wanted to focus on how people perceived Rule 34. We did not want people to consider sexual activity among characters who are obviously presented as minors. That would introduce opinions of another matter: pedophilia. Even as objective researchers, that is something that we would hope that no one believes is right and would not tolerate in the least. And at the very least, being completely objective, we believed that it would skew the results further to disliking R34 than what is actually the case for our specific interests.

That is a good question though. Thanks.


@Fifths

opspe answered the first part exactly as I would.

As for the attraction items, those are generally new. We certainly have more questions regarding ponies and sexual feelings than the last survey did. However, that also means that they are new to us.

Perhaps I would run more qualitative analysis before the next survey (yes, another one…but not now) to make sure that people have a chance to understand what people want to know and if they can respond without much confusion on what each item is asking. A pilot before the pilot run, if you will.

As for what people came to like about the show, that would be interesting to ask about. It's something we'd have to figure out how we'd incorporate into the survey. At 26 items, people seemed to say that there could have been more items, so we decided to add a few more questions of interest to us and to the community.

What I'm reading now in comments is that some people feel that this was a bit time consuming/required a bit of effort. I would not want to add many more items unless we removed some others. Respondents don't receive any direct compensation, but we receive many results. We don't want to overburden people.

I can take several surveys. I like them. But most people are not like that, especially considering the topic area of some of the questions.

Gigatoast wrote:

Ummm, I think you forgot Spike in the 'favorite shipping pair' category. Don't ask me why I noticed that.

Yeah. I did. I've seen that elsewhere too.

Fortunately, there was an option to add a character. It covers for that sort of mistake, but I fear that a lot of people would ship Spike with Sweetie Belle or various others. It wasn't one of the most popular ships, but it has been done in art more than once.

Like I said before, I rushed the recruitment. Yesterday night was a good time to start it, but it would have been better to take more time to look over it in more detail. I was checking for grammar and understanding when I should have been checking for completeness. In all honesty, it was pretty amateurish on my part.


And again, thank you for your logo. It looked really nice when we finished posting it on various sites.

> Gets to question 10
> Select other fandoms
> No Ace Attorney
Jimmies status:
Rustled: [x]
Unrustled: [ ]

Joking Aside, I've finished. Now I'm just waiting for the sequel to that Brony Community video.

@Verbose
I didn't guess that much. It was only for questions like "When was the last time you watched the show". Because i haven't really been watching MLP.

Hey Verbose, for future reference, people from the Middle East are Caucasian.

"The term Caucasian race (also Caucasoid, Europid, or Europoid) has been used to denote the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia (the Middle East), parts of Central Asia and South Asia."

Another Protip: Many other countries have states and provinces

Katie C. wrote:

Hey Verbose, for future reference, people from the Middle East are Caucasian.

"The term Caucasian race (also Caucasoid, Europid, or Europoid) has been used to denote the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia (the Middle East), parts of Central Asia and South Asia."

Another Protip: Many other countries have states and provinces

If you're gonna go by that classification of race then the only three choices should be Caucasian, Mongoloid and Negroid.

I don't know if anyone else had this problem, but whenever I clicked the next button it took me to the top of the page and I had to click next a second time to get to the next page. I finished the survey anyway, so no big deal.

burning_phoneix wrote:

If you're gonna go by that classification of race then the only three choices should be Caucasian, Mongoloid and Negroid.

I was going to elaborate on ethnicities left out but it became too complicated.

Anyway, I mentioned that because there are other non-White, non-Middle Eastern Caucasians.

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