Meet the world's manliest Brony

Dusty Rhoades is a man. A man who eats red meat and builds motorcycles from scratch. A man who once worked as a “bodyguard/ranch hand” and maintains a very impressive, very geometric mustache. A man who discovered the wheel and built the Eiffel Tower out of metal and brawn.

Take a closer look at him, though, and you might notice something just a little bit… off. Nope, you’re not seeing things: Rhoades is, in fact, wearing a “My Little Pony” shirt. And those blurry, colorful objects on the bookshelf behind him? Yeah: They’re pretty ponies with big, sparkling cartoon eyes and long, flowing manes.

See, Dusty isn’t just a man’s man—he’s also the dude known far and wide (among My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fans, anyway) as Dustykatt, a.k.a. The Manliest Brony in the World. And he’s got a message for all the nay neighsayers out there: “If this guy can like a girl’s show for what it is, you can, too.”

Learn more about Dusty—and the fascinating, multifaceted subculture that is My Little Pony‘s adult fandom—in A Brony Tale, a new documentary that hits VOD Tuesday. (It was also released for one day only in theaters nationwide July 8.) You may not come away a brony (or pegasister, as the case may be), but it might just convince you to take these guys seriously. Because if you don’t, you’ll have to answer to this guy: