My Little Pony
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The My Little Pony franchise consists of a series of toys and cartoons created and owned by Hasbro (yes, that Hasbro). As anyone with even a passing familiarity with the subject will know, the target demographic is small girls, and Hasbro generally regards the animated component as an advertisement for the line of toys (just like with Transformers). The franchise has been around since the eighties and retained popularity with the little girls for whom it is made, but the most recent revision begun in 2010 has seen an explosion of popularity on the internet, amassing a cult following of adult (or semi-adult) men as a result of the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic cartoon. There's also a healthy female audience, but they're largely not spoken of, since it's not viewed as weird when girls enjoy lovable, marshmallow horses.
Pony fans, present on the net in disturbingly large numbers, call themselves bronies, ponyfags, and a variety of other monikers, and while every enthusiastic fanbase on the Internet tends to sow drama everywhere they go, the bronies have had their notoriety given a leg up by moderator temper tantrums and mass banning across 4chan.
How Did This Happen?
The MLP franchise has a long history, beginning all the way back at the dawn of time (also known as the 1980s). Hasbro created a line of toys and an animated cartoon to go with it as advertising, and the story horror had begun. The original series was remarkably terrible dross, alternating between being boring, patronising, and reinforcing negative gender stereotypes. The franchise saw a couple of updates and revisions over the years between then and now; the originals are now referred to as Generation 1, or G1, and it also went through a G2 and G3 (and a sort of sub-edition referred to as G3.5) before the completely new and substantially different 4th Edition Generation 4 appeared in modern times, causing epic shitstorms - is anyone else getting deja vu?
Everything pre-G4 is generally regarded as pretty terrible without much in the way of argument between anyone (except perhaps five-year-old girls, and they bite if you insult their ponies). To produce G4, however, Hasbro brought in Lauren Faust, known for her previous work on shows like the Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, and also known for having a major bone to pick with stereotypical girl's entertainment. She saw the posting as a golden opportunity to make a girl's show that wasn't completely terrible and set to work with gusto, assembling her team and churning out a show - subtitled "Friendship is Magic" - that went to air on Hasbro's own TV channel, The Hub, aiming to teach young girls lessons about friendship and being a decent person without perpetuating horrible stereotypes about fashion and other such "girly" pursuits, which I'm sure we can all agree is pretty cool. Except for That Guy, but he's a faggot.
The problems began when /co/ discovered the show. Up until a few episodes in, MLP:FiM had gone unnoticed and ignored by most people outside its target demographic. When someone linked a blog lamenting the "death of creator-driven animation" (targeting the new show specifically) on /co/, however, the denizens investigated. To their surprise, some of them - despite being so far outside the target demographic they couldn't hit it with a Deathstrike Missile Launcher, let alone an Exitus rifle - actually liked it - and immediately began to share and spread it, like a four-legged Syphilis. This began an explosion of pony popularity on 4chan, as /co/ soon became consumed by the subject and it rapidly spread to almost every other board. A traditional civil war erupted between fans and raging, anti-pony lunatics, who regarded the flood of pony posts as invading waves of cancer. After the mods began issuing board-wide decrees telling everyone how angry it would make them if ponies were posted on their boards, the ponies became so prolific and the situation so bad that they were near-globally banned from 4chan.
Considering how Touhou had spread like this previously on /tg/ and /v/, but never warranted such a ban, that was one hell of an accomplishment, and also perhaps a hell of mismanagement by 4chan staff all around. Maybe because Touhou is actually kinda human and not considered furry by types that fall into rage convulsions at the sight of talking animals.
In the meantime, as with all things popular, the fandom had escaped into the wild and began their great induction to the wider internet. Brony-targeted websites began to appear, garnering huge audiences; the terrifyingly creative and almost-religious fanbase started producing musical remixes, fanart, pornography, and horrible, horrible fanfiction faster than a Peasant Railgun in full swing, getting their obsession all over the internet and attracting global attention and media coverage both positive and negative.
What the Hell?
The popularity of the show is inexplicable to some, but fans usually chalk it up to good production, interesting characterisation, and legitimately funny humour, both character-driven and some traditional slapstick; the series also throws out a lot of pop culture jokes, with recent episodes featuring references to the old "Chocolate Rain" meme, The Big Lebowski, and even a shot-for-shot parody of the ending of Star Wars: A New Hope. Others chalk it down to one big "ironic" joke that escaped and somehow ended up seeding a legit fanbase.
Less often do they mention the disturbingly large amounts of pornography (furry or otherwise) the fanbase has produced, although some of them do like to talk a lot about the creativity of the brony fandom (presumably while hoping nobody catches on to what they mean, or they are quite simply "ignoring the elephant in the room"). Although to be perfectly fair, fandoms always gets Rule 34 sooner or later and the more popular, the more massive it's collection is.
Much of the show's popularity can probably also be attributed to the deregulated ease of access - since Hasbro basically regards the show as advertising for their shitty toys, they couldn't care less about mass piracy and high-definition TV Rips of various appearing on Youtube within - literally - hours of airing, so the entire series is freely available to view without even having to torrent it - and the engagement of the creators with their unexpected fans, frequently responding to comments on DeviantArt and even appearing in person at fan-organised conventions.
Everyone else, on the other hand, can't get their heads around how grown men could go apeshit for a cartoon about colourful ponies designed for little girls, and this dissonance in some causes a lot of rage and accusations of paedophilia or homosexuality. It doesn't help that the so-called "brony" ranks are padded out with a large number of overly-vocal enthusiasts who are, as is the case for Gloria Tesch, sorely lacking in intelligence and are suffering from an unbearable amount of unwarranted importance. Their enraged responses to perceived attacks on their passion can be comical and/or cringe-inducing, so a lot of common trolls are mixed in with genuine haters.
There do exist fans of the show who are not completely beyond fucking hope, and who simply treat it as one of their favorite cartoon programs (read: heresy in moderation) and are able to discuss it without sounding and/or looking too much like a giant sperglord. Much like the Lamenters Chapter of Space Marines, however, who were founded during the cursed founding but suffered no real mutation and are ultimately damned by the Imperium at large due to their origins, these less abominable souls are damned to being immediately clustered by the public with the unholy and freakish ranks of the bronies.
On /tg/
Fa/tg/uys have a historical record of wishing to be the little girl, but the days when /tg/ stood for /totally gay/ and/or /touhou games/ have long since passed and are merely a happy memory now, so our beloved board responded to the Pony plague in much the same way that /tg/ responds to everything it doesn't know how to feel about: violent anger.
For serious, it's just another iteration of the same thing. We saw it before with Touhou, we'll see it again some other time and wish that Ponies were the least of our problems. Regardless, /tg/'s mods never learn from their past mistakes, and fired up the Commissariat - discussion of My Little Pony on /tg/ is now Extra Heresy and will be responded to with bans.
Ponies are still common-as-hell on /b/, /f/, and /co/, but they're infrequently brought up on the other boards anymore, /tg/ included. The addition of the /mlp/ board gave ponyfags a general board to post their content. The mods make it too much trouble to fight for it anywhere else.
The general reaction to any mention of ponies on /tg/ varies between simple exuberance, to indifference and apathy, to Khorne-pausing RAGE depending on how well you roll, though the second scenario is more prevalent overall. Even with the bans in place, fans on /tg/ have proven their time-honored ability to get shit done and produced a veritable arsenal of Pony-flavoured RPGs, including titles like Don't Rest Your Hooves, Ponyfinder, Poor Unfortunate Foals and other things that can be found on the internet and had their genesis in /tg/. It just goes to show that even when something's completely ridiculous, /tg/ won't be prevented from dicking around with it and trying to make some win in the process, or at least prying some laughs and mockery out of it. If you go looking around the seven Internets, you can even find fanfiction about the main cast playing D&D, which is like product-placement inception when you remember it's all owned by Hasbro now. Just as planned. While 40K has fallen to the filthy plague of pastel-coloured horse loving man-children, regular Warhammer has not, owing to the fact that WHFB has largely into obscurity outside the Tabletop scene due to being overshadowed by it's futuristic, grimdark counterpart.
Overlapping fanbases have resulted in large amounts of crossover fiction and fanart - including the somewhat bizarre meeting of MLP and Warhammer 40,000, amongst others - and they are guaranteed to incense at least a few people every time they rear their mutated heads. Including you, once you reach this page's gallery section. Look out, here it comes!
Oh yeah most of the Dawn of War cast also did VA work on FIM, most notably Farseer Taldeer's who voices Princess Celestia and Firaeveus Carron who voices Chief Thunder-nuts. In the exact same voice.
/mlp/
The "My Little Pony" board was created on 4chan after the exodus and condemnation of the ponyfag population from /co/ and subsequently everywhere else, leading to a board-wide ban of anything pony-related. However, MLP-related discussions still went on several boards of 4chan and bans did not help much in suppressing the population either. With luzly public rage spectacles and Inquisitorial-grade bannings happening all around 4chan, mostly on /co/ and /b/, moot came up with 1 idea to satisfy haters and fans: Keep the bans to please the haters and dump all the fans into one quarantine board to contain all the "OHH LOOK A PONY, YOUR DAY IS RUINED" shenanigans. Thus, after much derping around, /mlp/ was born.
/mlp/ on the outside, is mostly tolerable. The board's content is a combination of /b/, /tg/, and /co/, basterdized with pony. They keep to themselves and know the general rule of 4chan of not posting pony-related material on other 4chan boards with the sole intent of pissing people off and publicly condemn any others who do. Any other requests to raid other boards are dismissed using the: "We are not your personal army" line. Basically, think of "bronies" with all the insanity involved but far less obnoxious to outsiders. They're also in good relations with /k/ and /pol/ and also relatively enjoying warm relations with /tg/, but that's because /tg/'s a total bro.
/mlp/ also hates much of "love and tolerate" brony culture and mindset as much as everyone else, even the term "brony" for them is treated with disdain, preferring themselves to be called: "nor/mlp/eople", "ani/mlp/huckers", "horsefuckers", and "clop faggots" to name a few as a way to distinguish themselves from bronies. Thus, to their credit, they at least realize that they're freaks. Despite sounding hilariously ironic, /mlp/, at large, loathes the USI-rampant culture of bronies who think they're entitled to a special privileges and/or attention by the show's staff and the rest of the world, simply by watching a show not made for their demograph. Said bronies are still unable to comprehend that despite them being an unexpected audience, the show's staff is still aimed towards its original demograph, which are little girls (who still outnumber and give Hasbro more money), rather than manchildren with entitlement and unwarranted self-importance issues. In short, kind of like why we hate the likes of Chris-Chan, hipsters, That Guy, and basically any misguided, overzealous fanbase out there.
The vast majority of /tg/ fails to see the irony inherent in this.
It's this hate that caused /mlp/ to create their own subculture of dementia that shifts from "Ohh gods make it stop" to "Wut?".
Gallery
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A SPEHSS MARE-EEN mini.
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".....We stood at the end of discord and would have fallen, if it were not for the God-Princess and her Ponies of Friendship. Forged in love, tempered in tolerance, we are the living weapons of friendship: The Space Mare-eens."
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Hereseh my Batul brothars, hereseh!
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Heresy unending within heresy.
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Even /tg/ has not been immune.
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In the grim darkness of the far future, there are only ponies.
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Ridiculous amount of ponies, that is.
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Nothing must be spared.
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Typical constituent of the 'expanded demographic'. Note the eerie resemblance to fa/tg/uys.
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Chaos Space Mare-eens of Khorne, Slaanesh, and Tzeentch.
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Papa Nurgle's version.
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A tech-filly of the Ponyius Mechanicus.
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Venerate the God-Empress of Ponykind or else.
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Rarity as Hesperax? Dark Eldar would find that sick... yet strangely erotic.
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Dark Eldar + Rarity = WHY BONER?! WHY?
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The Tau'va is now 20% cooler.
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Through the tolerance of our enemies do we earn our salvation.
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If you will not serve in combat, then you will serve on the bucking line.
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Lo', though the time is dark, my face shines.
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I LOVE NO EVIL FOR I AM LOVE INCARNATE!
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Initiating party protocol 23.
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Eat powerhooves!
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The Emperor's Ponies of Death.
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C-C-C-COMBO CANCER
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Suffer not the pony to live.
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The Imperium has judged these mutants and found them.... wanting......
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The Imperium has ju.....FAITH IS A LIE, TRUTH IS A LIE.
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Praise the Emperor and strike down his foes.
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EXTRA HERESY!
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Heretical and terrifying.
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Impersonating the Emperor's Commissars is extra heresy and punishable by BLAM.
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This picture is heresy within heresy. A work of infinite fractal heresy without beginning or end.
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He walked me through the ruins of Victory Bay, celebrating the slaughter I had carried out there! If you had been there, you too would see what a rotten veil of lies our chapter has become!" - Avitus
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Nor Paizo. Ponyfinder is your new RPG.
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Ponyfinder Pegasus datasheet
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Ponyfinder Unicorn datasheet
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Ponyfinder Rainbow Dash datashe...wait.
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Have to give 'em credit. Foul as the underlying concept might be, its presentation was carried out well.
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what is this I don't even
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Suffer not the furry to live
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A brony attempts to rationalize his faggotry. It's bullshit, and if you find yourself agreeing with any of it, you're out of your fucking mind.
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Anyone still not convinced the faggots have gone too far?There are worse abominations.
See Also
- /tg/ Related
- Ponyfinder - the Pathfinder splatbook for MLP races and classes
- Don't Rest Your Hooves - the horror of Saturday-morning cartoons
- Savage World of MLP - the Savage Worlds splatbook for MLP
- Rainbow Warriors - A Space Marine chapter whose colours are disturbingly similar to Rainbow Dash.
- My Little Dwarf Fortress - use your hooves to strike the earth! Now with 441 different pony hairstyles.
- Poor Unfortunate Foals - A completely homebrewed system for horror roleplaying as fillies and colts lost in the Everfree Forest of the MLP setting.
- /tg/'s general outlook on the My Little Pony phenomena can be accurately portrayed thus.
- Elsewhere
- 4chan's pony board - The new dedicated board for ponyfags and is SFW(Most of the time). Has surprisingly copied /tg/'s ability of being immune to trolls.
- derpibooru- Pretty much /mlp/ lite and more pictures and not fully there on the trolling part (most have a "don't like it, filter it" mindset)
- Behold as a Deviantart sperglord completely ruins any fondness you may or may not have for the series
- Video Review