My Little Pony

I think this is triggering my epilepssdffshaghahtaj

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 (and a few women) as a result of the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic cartoon. These fans, present on the net in comically large numbers, call themselves "bronies", and like every enthusiastic fanbase on the internet, they sow shitstorms everywhere they go.

How Did This Happen?

This is the true face of the 80s.

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 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.

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 an Exitus rifle - actually liked it. 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 everyone else, who regarded the flood of pony posts as invading waves of cancer. Eventually the ponies became so prolific and the situation so bad that they were near-globally banned from 4chan.

In the meantime, however, as with all things popular on 4chan, the fandom had escaped into the wild and began picking up steam amongst the wider internet. Brony-targeted websites began to appear, garnering huge audiences; the terrifyingly creative 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 attention and media coverage both positive and negative. The bronies have suffered a large backlash as a result of getting their ponies all over the place, however, and anti-fans are likewise commonplace pretty much anywhere you go and find MLP mentioned.

Why, God?

The popularity of the show is inexplicable to some, but fans usually chalk it down to good production, interesting characterisation, and 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. 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). Much of the show's popularity can probably also be attributed to the ease of access - since Hasbro basically regards the show as advertising for toys, they couldn't care less about high-definition TVrips appearing on Youtube within 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. As with every fanbase, the bronies have an unseamly huge amount of overly-vocal enthusiasts who are sadly lacking in intelligence, and their response to attacks on their passion can be comical and cringe-inducing, so a lot of common trolls are mixed in with genuine haters.

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/ 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 all the others did: vitriolic hatred. After the global banning of pony discussion, the most prolific of pony posters generally evacuated to safer havens than 4chan and, though the ponies are still common enough on /co/, they're infrequently brought up on the other boards anymore, /tg/ included. The general reaction to any mention of ponies on /tg/ varies between apathy and rage depending on how well you roll, but creative individuals have still taken to combining their love of a TV show for little girls and their love of pretending to be a female elf in their parents' basement and produced a plethora of pony-flavoured RPGs, including titles like Don't Rest Your Hooves, Ponyfinder, and other things that can be found on the internet. If you go looking 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.

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!

Gallery

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  Even /tg/ has not been immune.

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  Nor Paizo. Ponyfinder is your new RPG.

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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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  Venerate the God-Empress of Ponykind or else.

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  -4 Str

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  and Celestia as the DMPC

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  This as Hesperax ? Dark Eldar would find that sick... yet strangely erotic.

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  FUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOU!

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  C-C-C-COMBO CANCER

See Also

• Ponyfinder - the Pathfinder splatbook for MLP races and classes
• Don't Rest Your Hooves - the horror of Saturday-morning cartoons
• TVTropes' FiM article - for a more in-depth discussion of the show itself (timesink warning)
• Equestria Daily - the internet's most popular MLP-related blog. How is this even a thing
• Ponibooru - Oh god, 81,000 images and growing
• ClopClop - (nsfw) there is no god. We are damned.