My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is, due to its large and extremely vocal Periphery Demographic, an almost literal lightning rod for nearly every other contemporary cartoon. The overall reputation the die-hard "Brony" fanbase has developed since late 2010 doesn't exactly engender favorable feelings from other fanbases.
- FiM and Transformers: Prime seem set to have one of these, judging by the reaction
to Prime getting nominated for six Emmies (winning two) while FiM had two nominations in the Best Original Song category.- Both of those entries wound up losing the Emmy to "In the Happy Little Land of Hoboken Surprise". To say that caused friction between the Pony Fans and The Penguins of Madagascar's fan base would be putting it lightly. It happened again when another song from FiM lost an Emmy to All Hail King Julien.
- FiM vs. any other show on The Hub. Every time that The Hub's Facebook page makes a non-Pony post, Pony fans complain about the fact that it isn't a pony post. Which leads non-Pony fans (and Pony fans who don't want to be seen as jerks) to defend it, Pony fans not listening, and neither side getting anything done. This has intensified with other shows on the Hub receiving Emmy nominations instead of FiM.
- FiM and Adventure Time is a strange, though glaring, example. There's a number of Pony fans who enjoy Adventure Time, but very few AT fans who like FiM. Among Pony fans who don't like Adventure Time, they see it as nothing but random/trippy shit and Toilet Humor. Meanwhile, Adventure Time fans see FiM as far too girly and life-lesson filled… and aren't happy that MLP stole their thunder as the "it" cartoon online so soon. Bringing up one around fans of the other rarely ends well.
- Incidentally, Friendship Is Magic and Adventure Time seem to be the two most cosplayed western animation franchises at conventions. It may or may not have stemmed from this rivalry.
- There seems to be a bit of a tense relationship between fans of The Legend of Korra and the bronies. However, none of the episodes coincided with the release of one of the other series, as FiM's season 2 finale happened the week after Korra premiered. Their rivalry is mostly arguing over which show is better, even though most bronies like Korra, and several Korra fans like MLP.
- Before Littlest Pet Shop (2012) was released, Bronies were highly wary of the cartoon, seeing it as a cheap rip-off and/or a naked attempt by the Hub to recreate the buzz they got with FiM. The franchises have mostly managed to avert becoming rivals, though they're dancing between – on the one hand, Bronies love to support the writers and actors in all their works (FiM and LPS share an animation studio, music composer, and several writers and voice actors). On the other hand, FiM is the one true way and anyone who says otherwise is a deranged lunatic.
- One of the more infamous rivalries involved Bronies and the Furry Fandom (particularly in the mid 2010's, when Friendship is Magic was at the peak of its popularity); in spite of some bronies also being furries, many of them often objected to considering themselves as such due to the latter being a widespread source of mockery on the internet, and some furries weren't too pleased with how massively widespread the Friendship is Magic fandom (and everything else that was derived from the show, including memes and animations) was becoming on the internet. It didn't help that both groups were common sources of ridicule, which lead to conflicts between the two fandoms.
- The infamous Cold War of FiM vs. My Little Pony (G3) or My Little Pony Tales. Fans of the former see the latter shows as too girly, poorly written, poorly acted, poorly animated, and not by Lauren Faust; this has happened to every bit of pre-FiM My Little Pony content to an extent, but those two shows bore the brunt of it. Fans of the latter two shows (and occasionally My Little Pony 'n Friends) tend to dislike FiM because it's too full of pop culture references, full of gratuitous slapstick elements (and since the pony wedding two-parter, some violent elements), and being too dark (or trying too hard to be dark) - especially after season 1, when Hasbro allowed more educational elements to be left out, costing the show its E/I certification.
- Adding to the rivalry is the general perception of bronies and how some have cyber-bullied fans of Tales and G3 at one online venue or another - it's not unusual to hear reports of bronies sending death threats to fans of Tales and/or G3 via PMs at forums or via e-mail every now and then.
- Said bronies fired the first shots again by dissing and being downright condescending towards the then-upcoming Tales DVD boxset series release by Shout! Factory. Some fans have noted that the behavior is downright despicable and ungentlemanly.
- Complicating the matter is that some fans of My Little Pony 'n Friends are siding with the bronies and also waging war on Tales and G3 fans, as they believed that Hasbro took the wrong turn with Tales and G3, and want the shows of the franchise to return to its pre-Tales Darker and Edgier roots.
- On yet another side of things, various old-school pony fansnote grew to dislike bronies and view them as a group of obnoxious dudebros crawling out of the depths of 4chan and invading their turf, taking over some of their spaces and generally eclipsing them. Many of these fans are also frustrated by Hasbro's various attempts to pander to the bronies, complaining that said attempts caused G4 to become rather strange over time.
- Within the FiM fandom itself there's adventure story fans vs. Slice of Life fansnote . The former were irritated that so many episodes of the latter appear in the earlier seasons, assuming that Hasbro must have been intentionally holding back Lauren's vision of "Sailor Moon with Ponies" (however, the real reason was that slice of life episodes are just easier to make). Fans of the latter are annoyed that, since Lauren's departure during season 2, the show has been throwing in less slice of life elements and raising the stakes (which also caused the show to lose its E/I certification).
- Bronies and fans of Sonic the Hedgehog mix about as well as nitro and glycerin most of the time. In particular, posting an image that ships, compares, or just even juxtaposes Rainbow Dash with Sonic will trigger an explosion that can be seen from space. When news broke out that Friendship Is Magic writer Dave Polsky would be on board for Sonic Boom, the war went up to a new level, albeit started mostly by the Sonic fans, who would rather have absolutely nothing to do with anything even tangentially related to Friendship Is Magic in their lives. And in Russia, Sonic Boom recently started airing on Karusel, the same channel that airs Friendship Is Magic. In fact, some Sonic fans have disowned Sonic Boom for precisely this reason. The hate runs that deep.
- Any kind of pony fan art or fiction that has anything even remotely Sonic-related in it will be universally scorned, despised and down-voted on looks alone, never mind the actual content.
- Another notable thing is that many bronies are primarily PC gamers given their friendly fandoms with the Team Fortress 2 fandom (one could say a large subset of the TF2 fandom consists of bronies) and their alignment with Valve Software (whose founder and CEO, Gabe Newell, is a notorious self-confessed brony). On the other hand a large number of the Sonic fandom are primarily console gamers with roots going all the way back to the Sega Genesis or even the Sega Master System. This could be another reason for the hatred between both factions - it's the PC vs. Console War manifesting itself in a different manner.
- Bronies as a whole do not have many kind words (if any) to say about Filly Funtasia. There have been no shortage of predictable cries of "rip-off" directed at the show and its comparatively tiny, but growing fanbase (it exists). In October 2014, when BRB Internacional released an exclusive Filly trailer to Filly fansite Funtasia Daily, it caught the attention and did not pass without comment on Equestria Daily, which quickly zeroed in with a less-than flattering article about the new show (with bronies providing extra snark and ridicule in the comments). To stir the pot worse, Bronies swarm Filly videos on sites like YouTube, ignite Flame Wars in the comment sections of said videos and spam it with down thumbs. Though there are some bronies interested in Filly Funtasia, they are few and far between. Nevertheless, the battle lines have been drawn, the first shots have been fired, and fans of Filly are currently bracing themselves for the proverbial headbutt with the Bronies. This may or may not be expected given that many fans of Filly were MLP dissidents who gave up after G3 because the artistic direction Hasbro took with G3.5 doesn't work for them. In addition to the accusations of Filly copying FiM, there's the additional "Lauren Faust's design is superior, it's a pony because she said so" versus "Doesn't look like ponies" angle. This has mostly died down when Filly Funtasia was finally released in March 2019, with some Bronies not finding the show as bad as anticipated, with some even jumping on board, due to the fact that Friendship Is Magic was announced to be finally ending after Season 9, and find Filly to be an adequate Pony replacement.
- The fanbase also has an odd example of a Fandom Civil War between "regular"note fans and a smaller group that has decided to take the word "Brony" and use it as a pejorative to refer to the absolute worst possible fans. It goes without saying that these two mix as peacefully as nitro and glycerin, with the bronies being insulted by the "Bronies are gross" sentiment being flung at them, and the latter feeding off the animosity to justify their attacks.
- For a long time after the production rights to Arthur changed hands from Cookie Jar to 9 Story, the bronies were picking on it and its fans. It appears that there are two groups of haters here- one being bitter about how Marc Brown chose to terminate Cookie Jar's rights and grant the rights to 9 Story instead of transferring the production rights to DHX Media (which is incidentally the company behind FiM) when they bought up Cookie Jar, and another just sees Arthur as yet another show competing with FiM for awards. The rivalry has since died down.
- A group of people on Tumblr went on a rampage when Equestria Daily announced it was going to make a similar website for Steven Universe, claiming that the show was, among other things, "for girls" and that they wouldn't let it be "perverted the way My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has." This of course extended to people going against each other for liking the opposing show, culminating in the supervising director of Steven Universe Ian Jones-Quartey himself reblogging a post mocking that small portion of his fans who were getting so worked up.
- When Boomerang got reshuffled into Cartoonito in Asia in 2012, it retained several Boomerang shows including FiM. In 2014, Cartoonito scheduled the newly launched Pip Ahoy! to air right after FiM, and this show happens to be the epitome of everything bronies hate about season 1 of FiM (ie Slice of Life, gentle plots, and No Antagonist), and a small scale war erupted, mostly started by bronies. However, Cartoonito was reshuffled less than six months after the premier of the show back into Boomerang, and Pip immediately got the pink slip in Asia after the reshuffle, giving the bronies a defacto victory. The bronies are happy and stopped bashing the show, but the pipsqueaks (the official nickname given to fans of Pip) aren't and are holding grudges.
- Although also appearing on the Friendly Fandoms page, there are some bronies who cannot stand SpongeBob SquarePants, mainly because of The Mysterious Mr Enter's involvement with both fanbases, one of SpongeBob's most acclaimed writers, Merriwether Williams, being one of My Little Pony's most criticized, and the amount of similarities in jokes/sense of humour that fans of both shows tend to point out. It's not hard to see why bronies wish that SpongeBob would just go away, and vice versa for SpongeBob fans.
- Surprisingly, they've managed to even find fault with Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, believing that only My Little Pony is teaching good morals about friendship and consider this show to be inferior. This even though Daniel Tiger airs on a completely unrelated channel in a completely different timeslot, even outside the US, and has no history whatsoever with anyone or any company that worked on FiM. And adding to that is that FIM has had considerable amount of darker morals being thrown into the show since the show lost its E/I badge. Apparently the entire mess started with a rumor that DHX was going to buy or merge with Nine Story.
- A lot of Bronies despise Teen Titans Go! and Family Guy, which mainly seems to stem from the fact that those same Bronies are also fans of The Mysterious Mr. Enter, who also despises those showsnote . Likewise, a lot of those shows' fans don't look too highly on Friendship Is Magic either.
- Similarly to Filly Funtasia, some bronies just aren't as keen to Corn & Peg. They will accuse the other show of copying the others.
- A lot of Bronies don't have a particularly fond opinion of the Bluey fandom, largely due to the fact that the latter fandom often gets compared to the former. In addition, some Bronies feel that the Bluey fandom has "replaced" them as the "children's Edutainment Show with a Periphery Demographic" in pop culture, despite My Little Pony being a much more well-known and popular franchise in the public consciousness. Some Bronies are also Bluey fans and vice versa, but these fans of both franchises are often seen in the Brony community as some of the "weirder" people in their fandom.
