Halp. Ponies.

[SweetShark]

I must say my story for how I become a fan of the show is somehow weird:

Before I become an active user here, in Escapist site, I was a Gametrailer user.....before the owners of the site buttf*cked hard by changing the site in my opinion.

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Anyway at some point I decided to create an awesome Videogame Characters VS MEGA Thread with the name "GT Brawl".
[I even created my own Title card ^^].

http://forums.gametrailers.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=1215559

The rules were simple, all the users had a chance to put an character from their favourite videogame series, but only ONE per title.

The Thread was perfect. Many users contribute to my Thread and I was happy to prepare my second part of the GT Brawl.
Then a user out of nowhere suggested Pinkie Pie as a Brawl character...
At first I didn't wanted cause I thought it was stupid and girly [yes, old me, I know, but still is girly...] to not have her in my roster. But after a lot of presure by the fans of the show, I decided to put her inside.

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So, after we finally selected the 100 characters, I decided to create the second part of my fan game.
"Part 2: Rival Battles!!!".

http://forums.gametrailers.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=1215648

Rules again simple: We needed to create 50 rival battles.
The Rival Battles we created had the competitors have something in common or the exacly opposite.
Again, the thread was great with a lot different ideas and we had a lot of fun.
At some point I hoped someone suggested a battle between Kratos and God of War from the game Darksiders.
But.....guess what most of the users wanted Kratos to fight:

Yeah......I was a little piss off a little with them wanted the most fearsome Greek god of WAR fight a pink little pony.....but....I thought it was pointless to agrue with the fans of the show, plus I though it would be hilarious. I end up accepted this fight.

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The part two ended and I was ready to create my first and the only succesful Rival battle: Pinkie Pie VS Kratos.

http://forums.gametrailers.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=1216937

It was very simple: The character with the most votes win the battle.
Ha, Ha, Ha......guess who win the battle..............yeah......
Then I saw that, I was like:

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Soooooooooooooo....I wanted to find the reason why this girl TV show was successful. For that reason I created another Thread explaining how I end up to at least watch the first 2-5 episodes and how much the fan of the show affactive to do so...........
And..........a new world opened before me without know it...........wow.....this cartoon was so good.
If you want to see how I slowly from a big hater become a fan, see the thread I just mentioned:

http://forums.gametrailers.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1223659


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And so this was my little tale of me becoming a fan of the show for a good reason.

 

[C F]

So, Escapists, describe how you got hooked on the world of ponydom. How did you watch it, when did you watch it, and why.

btw Twilight Sparkle is by far the best pony. Deal with it.

Well, it started in February of 2011, when the show was about 5 months in, and beginning to snowball around places that weren't 4chan. I caught an online confession in a close-knit community somewhere that one of the members watches the new My Little Pony television show and he wanted to know what we all think. Now, I vaguely remember seeing a fraction of an episode of G2 or G3 or something in the past, and I knew that "My Little Pony" was a show with crap-all to give in the production value department and was just a marketing vessel for little girls, so I wasn't interested one way or the other.

However, I let him know that I wasn't going to judge him for liking what everyone (myself included) assumed was more of the same girly show, because we all have something that we like that society would shame us for. And I respect this dude just a little, so I took the bizarre fact he thought it was actually good and buried it in the back of my mind.

Fast forward to the early Summer of 2011, and I started catching some of the memetic content stretching from the show in other places of the internet, particularly a gaming blog that likely consisted of a bunch of young(ish) men in my age bracket. They linked pony-videogame mock trailers like the Starcraft II one, and Ponies: The Anthology, and of course I was amused and rather impressed. Now I know something's up with this show. But the internet does what the internet does, and I wasn't prepared to look it up because frankly, I don't care what the internet does.

But my older sister did.

Independent of my internet shenanigans and escapades, she caught wind that Lauren Faust was doing a re-boot of My Little Pony. The sheer juxtaposition of quality in that sentence probably got her television nerdiness frothing at the mouth, and she was engrossed in it on Youtube when I came around to see what she was up to one day. I saw she was watching the seventh episode of the first season of this new My Little Pony show, and I told her "Put it on speaker."
So she did. And she started from the beginning of the episode for me. She also told me about "Bronies" hoping to catch me with an almost unbelievable factoid, but I told her I've heard of the term and I know of a couple online.

In time, she and I became Bronies, bouncing our amusing MLP related internet finds and stories off of each other and watching episodes, and getting frothed at the mouth at the prospect of more to come... entire months away from Season 2.

Now I am of the mind that Darth Revan is best Sith Lord. You deal with it.

 

[In Search of Username]

Yeah I never got the appeal. It's just another kids show. :S

 

[MammothBlade]

Feh, I will never fall to magic friendship rainbow cannons.

 

[Little Woodsman]

and then we spent the day after easter sitting in a fort, eating chocolate and watching the entire series.

{Blink}
{Blink}
Thank you very much my friend. I believe that I now know how my little girl & I will be spending
Christmas day.

 

[Robot Number V]

So, we're talking about ponies, huh?

Alright. Here's my take, for it's worth. I went on Youtube and watched 3 episodes from the third season, which I think SHOULD be enough to get an accurate feel for the show. My verdict? Yeah, the animation, voice acting, and writing are good. Really good, actually, considering it's a kid's show. It even got a few legitimate chuckles out of me. But...It's not good enough to keep me watching it. Honestly, I'm sure parents appreciate it, but I still can't see myself watching it without a child in the room.

 

[ejb626]

Word of advice, OP, don't fall for that "love and tolerate" BS that was just a joke on /co/ you are not required to publicly humiliate yourself or "convert" people. I myself was pretty indifferent to the pony phenomenon until I was watching YouTube poops all day and I came across cs188's extremely long pony poop. I finally decided "OK, I have to see what this is all about" and watched the first episode, then blew through the entire series in about two or three days. Funnily enough the YouTube channel I watched all the episodes on got taken down by copyright claim right after I had watched every episode.

 

[Dangit2019]

Yeah I never got the appeal. It's just another kids show. :S

It's not too hard to explain. Basically, people watch the show to get away from all the dark and gritty stuff that's overtaken nerd media for a while now. The reason the show sticks with some people so much is mostly the characters and the sincerity in the writing. It feels legitimate instead of the usual "We're here to teach you an Aesop so that your parents will approve of you watching a stupid vapid show" feeling that comes with those Barbie movies and the like.

Also, the second season is chock full of nerdy references and shout outs.

Spoiler: like this one for example

 

[IamLEAM1983]

So, Post no. 11 from the bottom is a Scarface pic.

How is this relevant? Only Daystar has the power to make image-based thread derailments work without a hitch.

 

[A Weakgeek]

MLP fandom alone turned be off the show. I watched a few episodes but it was boring to me. Also thanks to the lovely bronies out there on several messageboards, I knew the plot for quite a few episodes, thanks to the horrid spamming of memes and the like.

 

[xplosive59]

I think it was RebelTaxi and the ThatGuyWithTheGlasses contributor Chad Rocco which really brought me to the show, before that I had seen images and memes on The Escapist before and I was attracted to the art style greatly, it looked amazing with the vibrant colours and interesting character designs but I didn't want to check it out because "Girls shows suck and cartoons are for kids!"

The videos from the two people mentioned praised really made me interested in it and I decided to see if the show was on youtube, turns out the entire first season was available so I watched the first 10 episodes after midnight after I made sure everyone was asleep.

I would not call myself a Brony though, I don't like labels in general and I don't have anything to do with the community or obsess over the show. It is very well made though and I would recommend it to anyone I feel would enjoy it.

Spoiler: The two videos that drew me to watching the show

 

[Ninjat_126]

Anyway, how I got into the show is simple.
~youtube snip~
This. This right here.

Mine was Spike Pilgrim vs the World. Then, one day I went over to a friend's house and he was watching The Best Night Ever on teh Youtubes.

I personally don't identify as a Brony, in the same way that I don't wrestle bears and turn their scalps into a hat because I watch Adventure Time, or cut my hand off with an axe because I read The Walking Dead.

 

[Giftfromme]

OH MY GOD DON'T GIVE THEM AMMUNITION!

I like ponie, you like ponie, we all like bronie. In related news, North Korean scientists do too! So we're never alone

 

[Berithil]

Someone messaged me on my Youtube Channel saying that despite all the issues I cover on my web show, I'd been ignoring one too long (ponies) and asked for my opinion on it. When I heard the show had a large adult male following, my previous disinterest turned into "What? Are you serious? This I gotta see!" I watched the first season, then reviewed the premire on my web show.

Then... everything changed when the Bronies attacked.

My review called the show "okay" and told people that if they were interested, go check it out, and if not they weren't missing much as far as I was concerned. And the spam from the bronies would make my inbox tremble.

I got dozens and dozens of episodes, PMV's, videos, Rule 34, fanfics, Gorefics, rapefics, fan animations, fan music, and Equestria Daily blogs dumped into my inbox over the course of several months in an attempt to bring me to the dark side of the Internet. It was frightening how many people I'd pissed off by calling it a so-so kid's cartoon.

Fast forward one year, and I still somewhat enjoy the show and miss no opprotunity to stab Derpy with my lightsaber.

Wait, what?

*sigh* Why is it every time I think how cool the fanbase can be, I'm reminded how crappy and obsessive they can also be. I think we have Equestria Daily to blame for that...

Ah, well. As with all fandoms, I guess. At least you actually watched the show (and somewhat enjoy it).

Better than a lot of people.

 

[Torrasque]

Call me late to the party, but I saw yesterday that every episode of Mlp:FiM was uploaded commercial free to YouTube, so I decided to open up my personal Pandora's box and watch the first few episodes. Little did I know that I had gone too deep, and now I'm have to watch the next episode regardless of any feelings towards doing so. It seems that I've become a brony overnight, and I'm scared now. (hold me)

So, Escapists, describe how you got hooked on the world of ponydom. How did you watch it, when did you watch it, and why.

btw Twilight Sparkle is by far the best pony. Deal with it.

Pretty much the same way you got sucked in. I had checked out a few clips here and there from fans of the show, and since I enjoyed the clips, I decided to check out the show. 2 seasons later, I own all the ponies McDonalds, an autograph from Andrea Libman, and a whole bunch of pony meme pics

I watch it every saturday usually, unless I don't have time, then I'll watch it sunday or something. I still watch it because it amuses me greatly.