Now to my point...
It kind of sucks being Catholic and liking these kinds of shows. First I get the standard accusations of being effeminate from the more conservative members of my faith. And here I mean conservative as opposed to orthodox. Worse, Catholics can't very well find solace or empathy in the communities for these kinds of shows. The vast majority of the online community for MLP or AT is fairly liberal college students and young adults. I am an outsider to virtually all people I could talk to about these shows. Case in point: In an episode of Adventure Time, which I'm not going to explain everything about, the character Marceline is singing a song which might or might not be interpreted as having a lesbian bent. This being the internet, people took it and ran with it. Very far if you're brave enough to google image it. (I wouldn't)
Likewise, My Little Pony is show about 6 ponies discovering, aptly, the magic of friendship. These characters are all female, as is about 80% of the population of Equestria where they live. Once again this has led to many things which cannot be unseen.
While this is all fine and dandy for those who take no issue for it, as a Catholic it is a distinct reminder of my outsider status. I'd obviously never value a TV show over my faith, but it's never nice to feel left out. Furthermore, I don't have the knee-jerk, disgusted reaction to common immoral situations portrayed in modern media. People sin, some people have no problem with it, and we're all human beings. However, thanks to the culture wars of the modern day I am disliked by most people on both sides. Like I said, I'm adverse to the throw-out-your-TV mentality, but that doesn't mean I'm going to throw out my opposition to gay marriage just to fit in with the people I deal with the most.
And this can be applied to a lesser extent to my entire experience on the internet. I had depression (clinical, it was not a self-diagnoses) for several years and so had no real social life to speak of prior to my college life. I grew up on the internet. Yeah, I could restrict myself to the Catholic sphere of the web, but a lot of the people on those sites seem like fundamentalists, or worse, National Catholic Reporter readers.
I can't help that my temperament tends to coincide with 13-34 year old males who enjoy MLP; I just wish that I didn't seem to be the only social conservative who does.
I also take issue with calling myself conservative. 1. because I hate labels and 2. because I think there's a distinction to be made between the political positions labeled conservative and actually being a conservative. But that's for my next post.
