Why exactly did this show specifically get such a huge following?
>>25684001
So close on those trips.
But in honesty, you know how some shows use some sort of humor or some lines to keep adults in and make it bearable for adults to stay around with their children?
MLP Exercised it so well, in a way, and the animation and adorable factor (Put a grown man near a kitten and watch him love it, I dare you. That's my point) lured in people, along with the Child-like DBZ-Esque battle in the whole Friendship is Magic/Elements of Harmony episodes, that people eventually got hooked into the children's show, and it won over countless people.
That's the best I can explain it.
>>25684001
A perfect storm of odd people, autistics, and try hard faggots with no identity of their own.
>>25684001
The ''an innovative girls cartoon that breaks the stereotypes'' shit, the Sonic Formula and 4chan.
The biggest and most expansive answer as to why MLP got so popular is here.
pastebin.com/mwat380a
>>25684295
OP here, thanks for the pastebin, hadn't seen this one yet.
I guess I'd then ask what else got you interested in the fandom, as I understand many people (including myself) didn't just start watching, but were often linked funny videos from friends or other websites.
Like this for example,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4f9m4OYkCY
Ever heard the phrase "haters make me famous"?
Why the fuck do you think beiber got so popular? Because he's good? No...
Because its so easy to talk shit about him, so when you go and talk shit and 10 people see your shit talk, and 4 decide to check it out, either for the lulz or out of curiosity, and 2 decide they actually like it, beiber/mlp/whatever band or tv show you hate just gained 4 viewers on YouTube and 2 new fans.
And mlp is very easy to hate - i mean go post a pony somewhere on fb or another board and watch how assblasted people still get 5 fucking years later.
>>25684514
I saw Fluttershy's Lament around mid season 2 and it sort of stuck with me. My initial reaction to the whole phenomenon was mild confusion but then I put the video in my music playlist and when I got over the fact that I cringed a little bit every time I saw a pony video I turned into a fucking turbo autist about it. Still took me until around the end of season 2 to watch the show.
>>25684514
I knew about bronies for a while, but avoided them for obvious reasons.
>2012
>Vaguely knew what bronies were, but didn't look into it
>see a brony wearing a derpy shirt in the cafeteria of my high school
>showing off his shirt to friends
>sit down, looking over but minding my own business
>faggot comes over to brag
>"I'm a brony!"
>look at him blankly
>he immediately becomes hostile
>"U HATING ON ME BRO!?!"
"No, no. I just don't know what a brony is."
>"Someone who watches my little pony!"
"Oh, uh, okay. You don't have to make a big deal about it, christ."
>throws an autistic punch on my shoulder and runs away
>brags to his friends about 'fighting the haters'
That kept me from pone for a year. I came here to try and understand the phenomenon, which lead me to writing the autistic pastebin you read. Luckily, I was already coming to 4chan, so I knew to keep my power level safe.
From my personal experience its because everyone was hating on it..
So I was like, let's see why everyone hates it.
Needless to say I found I don't hate it.
>>25684514
I saw the legendary pic on /b/ and searched the source, then I was on the ride after watching swarm of the century.
Link to said pic
https://derpiboo.ru/8984?scope=scpe4e029b75fd8269bf19aea66ad7a1b7d5695acf27
I think it's because it feels good to watch a show that can be mature and intelligent at times, and still fun, funny, goodhearted, and retain its innocence. It's an almost paradoxical mix of all these things, presented with great animation, voice acting, and storytelling.
Some anon made a zero punctuation style review that actually explained it pretty well. Let me see if I can dig it up.
>>25684854
https://desustorage.org/mlp/thread/25179467/#q25179841
">The characters were spawned from the primordial ooze that grew in the toxic waste of a stereotype factory, the songs ensured an immediate need for insulin, and the design of the characters made me wish I could take some LSD and properly appreciate this polychromatic nightmare, but worse than all that was the realization that somewhere along the line I had started to enjoy the experience. Fuck if I know why, but something about this universe of equine Barbies was actually creating an atmosphere that was- dare I say it- fun. Perhaps it was the relentless optimism of the thing. It's rare to find a lighthearted show nowadays that isn't trying to be in some way trendy, quirky, or ironic, but this particular cartoon stands out by playing it all more or less straight. I remember one part where the obligatory ADHD character started singing about scaring away fears with laughter (great lesson for children, by the way, just laugh at the next school shooter and he'll be your best friend forever while he showers you with gifts of hot lead!) but instead of trying to roll its eyes and be above the whole thing like a brooding teenager with an eyeliner addiction, the show seemed determined that the audience should in fact be buying into this. And hell, maybe we should. If the entire world was made up of depressed, mopey bastards, then I wouldn't have anybody's spirits left to crush under my heel!"
>>25684514
I joined the fandom a bit late, in November 2012. Unlike most of the people on here, I found it from TV, not from the internet.
I was browsing my TV's on-demand feature when I stumbled upon "My Little Pony". From what I knew of the older versions, it was going to be stupid. I watched a few episodes, it was okay.
What actually got me in was the preview song for S03E01--the Failure Song. I'm a STEM nerd, so Twilight reciting a close approximation of the value of the square root of 546 both appealed to me and challenged me.
I spent most of the rest of the day trying to calculate it myself and failing miserably.
After that, I figured I might as well look it up. I got a ton of results, and was left wondering "what even is this."
I quickly became swept up, and watched several episodes. I was hooked.
Since then, I've been on the ride nonstop.
>>25684514
As to how it all started with me, it started when all the /b/ronies started breaking off 4 chan to go elsewhere. Deviantart and other sites were flooded with wave out of wave and as pastebin even states, not everyone here was happy. How you think I was when I left here to become cancer elsewhere? I had such a hate for MLP because of the idiots.
I never watched it, I avoided it because anyone that gave a breath about it was trolled, caused drama and headaches for all.
I remember the show only as the G1 series, quite girly, especially My Little Pony Tails. Which is what I remembered. I used to play pranks on my sister who watched it by stealing her pony toys and hiding them... So indeed my outlook was not so positive.
Wasn't till this year I got on the ride. And it was a friend one late night we decided to watch youtube videos and she decides to watch My Little Pony, The griffonstone episode. "Funny I didn't even notice twillight's wings then" I sorta was thinking in he back of my head (Really?!) But then I was a bit more open to it, (especially that I was on my own rewatching tokyo mew mew and just had a craving for a new cartoon)
As I watched it I fell in love with the set up of the show, the build up to lore and wanted more story and lore. So After that night I went online, started watching from season 1 to season 5 and it took a while but I was hooked.
Not only am I a sucker for the lore in the show but also the Animation on par that it has tons of film theory behind it that I already started making threads here just about it. When you can say that about a cartoon, you know it's good.
>>25684295
Read all that, yeah. Just another fandom in truth. Most I knew some you made quite good points.
>>25685151
There should be a comma there. When I left here to find the cancer elsewhere
>>25684514
>>25685151
If you guys have any suggestions on how I can improve the pastebin, let me know. I updated it whenever I found a new reason, so it is kind of a mess after editing it for a year.
>>25685468
I'll re-read it, but I'm pretty sure I found some spelling mistakes in there. Or at least words that sounded out of place.
I never knew about /b/ flooding KYM with a metric fuckton of pictures, thereby making pony eternally trending. That's both funny and impressive.
Early fandom stuff is really interesting. I'm glad I joined relatively early on, but sometimes I wish I could experience it all again for the first time.
>>25685560
>/b/ flooding KYM
wait, what?
>>25685628
Well, according to the pastebin /b/ flooded Know Your Meme with over 200,000 pony reaction images. Apparently they measure what's trending by how many images a particular "meme" has, and because that many were uploaded, MLP was trending for a long time.
>>25685769
Well, at the time of writing the pastebin it was over 200,000 images, which I compared to the total images on KYM of 900,000 images. You can look in the oldest images on the MLP KYM page and see a lot of old /co/ shit.
>>25685468
I'll have to re-read it as well but so far >>25685560
I agree with that early fandom history is interesting, especially with a late bloomer as myself who avoided it all in the beginnings.
Psychology aspect is also interesting as what gets people to join a fandom , including MLP to what gets people hooked, to what gets people to stay hooked. I can see this report getting quite inflated with all the things one can explore.
Bump for more early fandom discussion.
>>25684514
One of my friends told me about it.
Last bump.
