The Inside Story: Bronies for Ron Paul

Since I’m both a fan and a fandom journalist, my biggest challenge is making sure that my passion for my topic is helping, not hurting my ability to report the truth.

At least, that’s the theory I discussed last fall in my Otaku Journalist Manifesto. Today, I tested that hypothesis when I profiled @Bronys4RonPaul.

Last night, I reached out to this Twitter user after one of my co-workers tipped me off. I sent him a tweet with my email (it’s a bad habit, but one I have to keep at until Twitter lets me DM strangers.) And then, I sent him a picture of my My Little Pony alter ego, illustrated by Kevin Bolk.

“Here’s a picture of my cutie mark just so you know I’m a real reporter!” I tweeted. It’s a joke only fans would get; in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, a young pony acquires a design on her flank once she figures out what her true calling is.

I was only half joking when I commissioned this drawing. On the one hand, I’m a grown woman, and this is a kids’ show. On the other hand, I’d be hard pressed to say that I’m faking being this happy.

In the end, it paid off. Here’s what @Bronys4RonPaul, who asked me not to reveal his real name, wrote to me:

“I’m very surprised that someone would want to interview me and I normally would not grant one to anyone but you showed me your pic with a pony drawing and I figured no harm should come from this.”

He was right to be wary. As it turns out, he has his fair share of trolls. Plus, mainstream brony coverage can be pretty snarky.

For the record, I don’t think fandom reporting has to be snarky to get hits. Fandom is already so wacky that an objective take is more engaging than belittling ever would be. I don’t get, for example, why Gawker had to be so snarky here. A week later, they had some equally fascinating brony coverage just by letting the fandom speak for itself— and got quadruple the traffic.

That’s exactly how I wrote about @Bronys4RonPaul. I let him speak for himself. Was it successful? Hitwise, it didn’t crack our top ten stories for the day. But it did get a mention from Gawker reporter Adrian Chen.

I know I got this story because I’m not just a reporter, but a reporter AND a fan. At the same time, I don’t want to become known for writing fluff pieces that make fans look good no matter what. I’m happy with this story because I didn’t give myself a voice, snarky, apologetic or otherwise. I just let the subject speak.