My Little Pony is a franchise marketed at young girls. An adult male fan of the toys are known as a “Brony,” a community that at its peak was large enough to hold annual conventions.
Brian Cole Jr, the man charged with placing pipe bombs outside the Republican and Democratic National Committees’ Washington, DC headquarters the evening before January 6, 2021, was reportedly a massive fan of the children’s series “My Little Pony,” making fan art and fan fiction dedicated to the characters.
Per the New York Post, Cole, 30, appeared to have gone by usernames including iDeltaVelocity, Bron1Delta, Delta1Forgotten, and Blue Velocity online.
In one account on an online forum, Cole allegedly posted dozens of fan art pieces dedicated to the My Little Pony franchise. Many of the art pieces feature characters with light purple bodies and multicolored hair.
In a Tumblr account associated with the username delta1forgotten, Cole allegedly wrote in response to another user’s drawing of a My Little Pony character with a machine gun, "Eh… I’d give her an RPG [Rocket-Propelled Grenade]. What can I say? Explosions are COOL!!"
My Little Pony is a franchise marketed at young girls. An adult male fan of the toys are known as a "Brony," a community that at its peak was large enough to hold annual conventions. Assistant Professor of Psychology Dr Daniel Chadborn wrote in his book "Meet the Bronies: The Psychology of the Adult My Little Pony Fandom," "The subculture of Bronies was very online and unique and attracted a lot of male fans, who were breaking gender norms, which attracted a lot of attention."
He noted that the subculture is generally not sexual, however, he is not surprised that some members within the community are troubled. “Someone who is disaffected is often going to look for spaces to engage in, for a sense of identity and belonging.”
Cole also allegedly wrote fanfiction dedicated to the franchise, with one story marked as being an "adventure/horror" story featuring the characters Applejack and Applebloom.
The story began, "Applebloom’s eyes snapped open as she sat up in her bed, panting heavily and sweat dripping from her red mane […] The skeletons, the zombified ponies rising up from the ground, their decaying bodies, rotting flesh sliding off from their bones. She buried her face in her hooves, crying silently at the horrible images that inhabited her mind." An author’s note stated that the story was based on the "creepypasta game, Story of the Blanks."
A high school classmate of Cole’s told the Washington Post shortly after Cole’s arrest, "For the most part, people didn’t pay him much mind, but unfortunately I remember times of him being bullied. What I most vividly remember is people pointing and laughing at him or calling him out for being a ‘My Little Pony’ fan. It was the theme of his backpack, and he had some of the toys."
Cole’s grandmother has described him as "almost autistic-like, because he doesn’t understand a lot of stuff." In one Tumblr account associated with Cole, he allegedly wrote that his interests are "Parkour, music, video games (mainly horror), drawing, improving myself philosophically, anime."
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