My Little Pony
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, tend to sow shitstorms everywhere they go.
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 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.
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.
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.
God damn it.
What the Hell?
The popularity of the show is inexplicable to some, but fans usually chalk it down 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 ease of access - since Hasbro basically regards the show as advertising for toys, they couldn't care less about 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. 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.
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 learned 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.
Curiously, even 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-as-hell on /b/, /f/, and /co/, they're infrequently brought up on the other boards anymore, /tg/ included. The addition of the /mlp/ board also gave the ponyfags of 4chan a general board to post their content so they wouldn't have to 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, 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.
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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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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A tech-filly of the Ponyius Mechanicus.
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Venerate the God-Empress of Ponykind or else.
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The Empress Protects.
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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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Suffer not the pony to live.
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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 to 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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Eeyup.
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C-C-C-COMBO CANCER
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what is this I don't even
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.
- Elsewhere
- 4chan's pony board - The new dedicated board for bronies and is SFW(Most of the time). Depending on your stance on ponies, you'll either learn to love it or hate it with every fiber of your being.
- Ponibooru - Oh god, 81,000 images and growing
- FIGHT!
- Behold as a Deviantart sperglord completely ruins any fondness you may or may not have for the series
- Video Review