lonely tylenol said:
Radoh said:
lonely tylenol said:
What is it about this show that has everyone hypnotized? Everyone just has this weird obsession with My Little Pony. I don't get it.
I genuinely don't get it.
Well have you looked into it?
Yes, I still don't get it. 5 or more years ago My Little Pony was just strictly for little girls; heck, things I played with when I was a child. Now suddenly the internet loves it.
Seriously, the internet always finds the way to creep me out. Memes and rickrolls and lolcats and the 'word' lol (and several others: ROFL, etc.), unicorns, pedo bears, sad Keanu, cakes that are lies, stupid pink cubes, crapy photoshopped images with white text on top of them, nyan cats, fail fails and fail things, stolen staplers, abridged series, the misspelling of the word "the", the over-usage of the words "awesome" and "epic", Gerard Butler yelling "this is Sparta", "I can has" (I mean, what the fuck is that?), vuvuzelas, "you done goofed", "backtraced", "cyberpolice", and now ponies, among other things.
I mean, when did the internet transformed from an information superhighway meant to make our lives easier, be connected to people and have information with the touch of a button, to a huge compendium of stupid things. Does this actually make our lives better? Is this an improvement? Do we really need all that crap?
There will probably be dissertations written on why there is such a strong fanbase for this show, but I'm going to try to be brief[er than I tend to be] and add my two cents.
The first and foremost reason I can think of is that it's getting this attention because it deserves it. There's still this stigma that "there's the good stuff... and then there's the girly stuff," a mindset that something girly is fundamentally bad because it is girly, as opposed to just being bad. A lot of things I saw in my childhood kind of show that this was very much the case, that a lot of stuff marketed towards girls missed their targeted audience and couldn't be enjoyed by anyone. As for what I'm seeing here, years of internet exposure to traps, the moe boom, and other such things seem to have made people more receptive towards looking at things based on their own merits, rather than who they're for. The internet has also made it easier for people to openly express their thoughts on the things they like. This show (not the original incarnation) would likely have gone unappreciated in the 80s and 90s, because these thoughts would likely have stayed internalized because no [guy] wants to admit they like something girly, right? As a result, it probably would have gotten cancelled long before it could accomplish anything.
That being said, for a cartoon, and even for its target demographic, it's a surprisingly solid show. Though with the people involved behind the scenes (Lauren Faust, Craig McCracken, etc.) who were involved in other things that combined cute and cuddly with sheer awesome, it's a lot less surprising than you'd think. No one appreciating it is comparing it to War and Peace, but in an era where I'm wondering if my children will have to suffer through mindless slop that's all seizure-inducing colors and patronization, the show really is a breath of fresh air. From its high production values, to its incredibly fleshed-out characters, crisp animation/art, and voice actors that take their roles very seriously, it really feels like a throwback to the days of Nicktoons and "What a Cartoon!" in terms of writing. And knowing the staff behind it, it'll likely get better next season. I believe the first season teased us with the pilot episodes, then spent the rest of the season being episodic to showcase and establish the characters, but will return to the plot it was hinting at in season 2. It also doesn't hurt that this show is clearly aiming to be more than just a cash-in for a toyline, like Hasbro usually tends to do for anything it makes.
To contrast, the guy behind the awesome show Gargoyles is currently working on Young Justice, which (when it was actually airing with a fair amount of frequency) was largely hit-or-miss in the writing, characters, AND the content of the episodes. None of its following episodes have come close to matching its initial pilot, and it feels like a regrettable waste of time at times because it's been a mess since those first two episodes got everyone pumped. Then there's crap that's targeted at older audiences that is also utter crap. TV's been getting better all across the board, but it still has a long way to go. The fact that something like this exists even in the kiddy block is a good thing, in my opinion.
As for the near-obsessive levels of fan-gushing, this is the internet. We express our joys in the strangest ways. Some of our joys aren't always the most kosher, and some of the ways we express them for those things that ARE kosher might not be the best ways either, but we probably wouldn't be expressing them at all without it, for better or worse. And I think it's more so for the better. In this case, I'm glad that the internet at large can admit it likes something. I was even surprised that people were quick to say this show is NOT a guilty pleasure, that they unabashedly like it. I'd rather see this getting some over-attention than something particularly stupid and mindless like Hole in the Wall (live-action? On MY cartoon network?). I'd rather see people proudly proclaiming they still watch cartoons because they like them, not because they're nostalgic or a guilty pleasure. The same with video games. Good things should be enjoyed, regardless the medium. And the guys behind Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends are people I'd place my bets with. Now, if the people behind Hey, Arnold! and Rocko's Modern Life, and the people behind Billy and Mandy could make some more stuff, I'd be ecstatic.
