Looking back it's really crazy how big poni was in the early 2010s.
it was also insanely fastpnoys pulled a blitzkried on the entire ineterwebs
It was the first mainstream wave of the western otaku. Up until that point fandom hadn't really hit the mainstream the way it had in Japan, but the wake of the '08 crash massively accelerated the push towards media consumption in the same way that Japan's crash did.
>>42997280I didn't start using the internet until 2018 (born 2005 and parents didn't let me have a personal computer until I turned 13), what was it like?
>>42997290very interesting analysis
>>42997294Damn, you started posting as an underage electionfag. What a cursed existence.
>>42997294I was born in 2004 and started using the internet when I was 10 years old
When it eventually reached mainstream news I was like come the fuck on now guys...
>>42997412I still haven't emotionally recovered from having to pokerface when ponies were in the Super Bowl.
>>42997417I can imagine the tension in the face muscles to keep them straight during that
>>42997417God feels like yesterday /sp/ had a meltdown over seeing ponies in the super bowl
>>42997427Hey, it's only been 11 years.
>>42997430>2015 was 11 years ago>been here for 11 years of my life
>>42997441Could always be worse bud.
>>42997294Imagine a slower internet, where trends were more all-encompassing, rather than disposable memes isolated on various platforms. Farmville on facebook was the closest thing to modern dopamine sinks we suffer with today.There were time to marinate in what was popular, spoofs and parodies had time to be made before the next popular thing pushed the old aside.Then pony happened. One episode after the other, hype increasing with each, and just having that spark we all know, it blew up like you wouldn't believe. Nowhere was safe, ponyposting happened in very mongolian throat singing and underwater basket weaving forum, couldn't find a comment section without pony profile pics. Art and music was getting made at an insane flow on a daily basis. It really was an amazing time, that is hard to truly imagine. People loved it or hated it, and there was a lot of focus on that divide early on.Could never happen again in this age of short-form content and show binging, all fighting for attention and dopamine. People have fuck all popular culture to share and discuss with each other over the weeks. I guess that is why only politics exists now. Thanks for reading my train of thought.
wild
>>42997280Was it really that big, or did we just tell ourselves that?I remember in 2011 it felt bigger than we could ever imagine, but it wasn't actually the biggest thing on the internet. A huge part of it was just media sensationalism about grown men watching a cartoon for girls. All I'm trying to say is that (You) could still browse internet, watch TV and other media, and see nothing MLP related or at the very least, it was so far in the background that you wouldn't notice it or could easily ignore it. We also have to differentiate between brony and mlp content and actual bronies and bandwagoners/women (like Jenny Nicholson for example) who just joined the trend and liked the idea of liking this show when actual number of pony autists and content was much smaller yet still unexpectedly in its quality, form and quantity.
>>42997441I've been in the fandom since 1986. I'm going to be 45 this year. Don't treat this as a bad thing. This show's basic message is that we can be better people by embracing the ideals of friendship, kindness, honesty, negotiation/problem solving, and respect. There are a LOT of humans out there that need those lessons. Take what the show gave us (especially the Mares), and work to be a better person 1% every day. You'll improve yourself, and the world around you.
>>42997441Look on the bright side. At least it hasn't been 12yrs
>>42998115Pony references were absolutely everywhere, even mainstream normalfag talk shows. You couldn't go anywhere online without seeing a pony pfp.Hell, back then if you typed a pony's name into youtube search, the UI would change to the colors of that pony.It was huge, make no mistake.
>>42997441>>42998135Try 15 years, anons
>>42998115Idk what you’re on about. I mean sure, you could choose not to care, as I did when I first heard about it, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t huge. That used to be normal behavior. Not being a terminally online retard was normal back then. Pony was fucking everywhere though. That’s why I finally decided to give it a chance in 2011. By then I had seen in pop up everywhere I went, so I figured there must be something to it and I ought to give it a go.
>>42997280>>42998115I mean the show ending kinda didn't help the fandom's longevity.
>>42998115We basically ran the Internet from 2010-2014
>>42998237Not we, but ponies ran the internet.That's the distinction I'm trying to show here. A large part of MLP’s popularity from 2010–2014 was simply the 'cute show' aesthetic, which is different from the media coverage and mentions of the brony fandom. There were many people who didn't even know what a 'brony' was or had never watched the show, but they had pony pfps just because the characters were cute or memes, just as there were kids who watched Transformers but didn't have any Transformers toys and vice versa.
Looking at right now, it's insane how pony videos are pulling 10M+ views on TikTok
>>42998415Anything pulls that many views on TikTok when there's so many mentally ill people online. Also if there's something the modern internet has taught me is most videos with that much traction aren't actually that popular.I trust an old YouTube video with a million views to have more real people that have watched it than a YT short with 100 millions.
>>42998209It was dead before the show ended, dude
>>42998838Of course, there is no active decision process on what somebody wants to watch with shorts, whereas with a video, you have to want to watch that video and click on it.
>>42998115It was probably bigger in some regions than others. While I do remember seeing MLP references in stuff from 2012 and maybe 2011, I only actually got into ponies by the end of 2013 and only then I started noticing them popping up more. This might be because of the specific websites I used to visit not having that many bronies, how I tend to stay in my comfort zone and the one channel that aired the show in my country was meant for toddlers.If I could convince my younger self to do one thing is watching season 1 as soon as possible, instead of wasting time playing Wii shovelware and watching The Annoying Orange on YouTube.At least I got on the ride before everything was over, so I can understand various inside jokes without needing to ask an oldfag for context.
>>42998875>and the one channel that aired the show in my country was meant for toddlers.MiniMini?
Bump
>>42998993Discovery Kids.I would've been much more receptive to the series had it been aired in another channel, like Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon. The first time I watched an MLP episode felt odd because part of me was cringing at watching Discovery Kids, but I could see there was something unique about the show which reminded me to cartoons like The Powerpuff Girls. It is a weird memory but one I appreciate.
>>42999519In an alternate universe Discovery Kids Latinoamérica was replaced by The Hub Latino.
>>42999611beta designs
>>42997280
>>42998838Even if they did watch it, they definitely don't remember it
>>42999357
>>42997294>>42997361I hate when i'm reminded that people born after 2000 are adults now
its your moral duty to continue representing ponies all over the internet
>>43000554Even now I still have to remind myself people born in the 2000s are not underageb&
>>43000558There are people born in the late 2000s who aren't underageb& anymore, it's insane.
>>42997280>>42997290Also, this sounds fucking insane but 9/11 and the cultural impacts of it played a part as well. After the attacks on the World Trade Center, a lot of innocence was shattered and we saw this be reflected in the way that the 2000's saw a massive split in terms of things either being extremely cheery or extremely edgy. In the 90's these two vibes could even be found in the same place (look at Sega being both at the same time for example), but in the 2000's it felt like shit was either Linkin' Park or Hillary Duff. TV and vidya and movies and all sorts of things were either leaning into being happier and warmer or more edgy and "real".The happy stuff was there because of a society that wanted to be cheered up often, as a market had grown for it, and the more cynical stuff was there out of a desire for, y'know, being "realistic" (as many called it back in that era). I genuinely think MLPFiM partially caught on as much as it did because girly kids shit was constantly poked fun at in the 2000's for being so sincere and saccharine, and just embracing something so pure and sweet after a decade of it being something you could get bullied for was almost a form of rebellion. Add on the stigma of men enjoying something like that and it became as much of a thing about men wanting to be honest about their emotions and feelings rather than bottling them up as much as it was about choosing some form of happiness and positivity.Then, with the fandom heavy scene of the late 2000's/early 2010's internet and the popularity of memes at the time, ponies just so happened to be in the perfect spot to scratch those itches as well. Not many other pieces of media wanted to be so sweet while also having depth, and I think MLPFiM provided a window into a world that had rarely ever been explored in fiction ever before. It hit a ton of specific points in society that had been left unhit, all while being appealing and fun in its own right. The thrill of watching a little girls cartoon and enjoying was some insane shit that felt borderline wrong for many, and that added a huge air of mystery and almost shock value to it that helped it catch on. It was funny, sweet sincerity and enjoying something like this had become so criticized that going along with it was almost its own bizarro world form of being edgy.And I also think this "man well I guess I have to be honest about the fact I'm enjoying this" caused a lot of us to take down some barriers we built up as well. I think it's why so many have such a deep emotional connection to the show and it's characters; it's sweet and pure in a way that catches you off-guard and, once you see how much you can relate to the characters, a lot of them almost become some form of emotional support for you.The reasons FiM took off so hard are really fucking fascinating to me. I think on some part bronies really were the early 2010's own version of hippies, with hippies taking off after the cultural effects of Vietnam.
>>42999957
>>42997458I get what you're saying, I spend a lot of time thinking about this and I think it's a huge core of how much things have changed. I just can't adapt to this new world.
>>43001083
>>43001803
I wish I could go back
>>42997280It was the last time the internet was fun. Now everything is a psyop.
>>43002507You can't with the phone and social media killing what is left of old internet. Only thing you can do is get a time machine and go back and Kill Steve Jobs and the rest of the Apple department for the phone.
>>43002658Wouldn't that just make you plop into a different time line while the the previous one stays unchanged?
>>43002225
>>43002671it would be worth it to keep old internet a bit longer
>>43003539No it wouldn't.
>>43003916Yes it would.
>>43003144
>>43004761
>>42998993I'll assume there was only a Polish channel with this name, and it is what you're referring to. kurwa, I wonder if I'd find ponies earlier if I had cable instead of three OTA free channels, with fucking Teletubbies and the like. I guess lack of cool cartoons made me sit on DSL internet (slow enough to make me reluctant to use YouTube) and learn 'puters instead, so maybe it wasn't a waste of time. I dont even remember if I ever saw pony pictures in the techfag parts of the internet I frequented.But in the end I have found ponies, or they found me - just after too many years to say in public. It is difficult for me to "enjoy ponies" for some reason, but I'm holding on to them, as I don't think anything else like them will happen again. /)
>>43000678Good comment. I think we've well arrived at the point that we can somewhat coherently analyze the recent past such as the early 2000's to the 2016 years. I was born January 2000 so I have a very niche and limited experience of the old internet, but I do have it. I remember surfing the web around maybe 9 years old. At that point a lot of memes might already have been old but heck, trollface was created 2008, and the TROLOLOL song didn't break out proper until 2011. Me and my brother began watching FiM in summer 2011, right after season 1 ended and season had been announced. I remember scrolling endlessly, mostly on Youtube about anything and everything ponies. Back then I thought that popular culture was "fixed" and permanent, after all I hadn't really lived long enough to notice the change in trends. I thought that what was cool and funny would always be Chuck Norris, bacon, shoopdawoop, rick'rolling and taking an arrow to the knee. I'm 26 now and because I grew up and became lucid during those years I've had an incredibly unique position to view the passage of time from, at least in a short form. Historically it used to be that change was slow, then at the onset of the industrial revolution time speed up. Now with the digital age, instead of goods being quickly manufactured, we've seen culture evolving at an unprecedented rate. Once again I reiterate that I'm only 26, but I already feel behind and not up to date to the happenings 'round the web anymore. I kinda tapped out around 2020. I remember Ugandan Knuckles becoming viral and dying out as a standout moment, when I realized that shit is popping off and being forgotten at the same rate, as compared to memes just before 2016. Today, while Youtube is still huge, the grand bazaar of the internet has been moved to instagram, tiktok and snapchat, three websites and apps that I have no intention of getting involved with because they sound hellish and stand for a type of entertainment that seems truly literally vapid to me. I fondly remember the 2010's, at least the 2010-2016 years, but I don't think I will remember the 2020's that positively. With some exceptions of course, and things due to my own personal development.
>>43000678>9/11I know bronydoc mentioned this too and that point is usually ridiculed in later video essays (along with a lot of other things of course), but apart from sounding silly it really is true to an extent. Those events did set the general feel of the early internet and ponies was that sudden burst of saccharine some people were looking for.>I think on some part bronies really were the early 2010's own version of hippiesWhile researching old fandom happenings, I vaguely remember finding a news article on Canterlot Gardens that was also making parallels between the attendees and the hippie movement.
>>43005571I was in between Season 1 and 2, too! Funny you mention old memes "dying out" because in recent years, Chuck Norris and all of the other 2010 era shitposts have seem to taken off and become beloved all over again. As far as Ugandan Knuckles goes, yeah, 2017/2018 was when we started to see memes start popping off and dying in mere months afterwards rather than being long-term mainstays of internet culture that'd be relevant for at least a few years. 2020's have been fantastic to me but yeah 2010's were real special. It is cool how we can go back and analyze everything now for sure, and, I am happy my analysis actually resonated with someone rather than just seeming like pure schizo shit because it's something I've only started recently doing research into.
>>43005571makes me wonder what 2040 would be?? trends lasting only an hour? 90% of the internet will be AI bots? who knows but i feel bad for my next generation
>>43006913I think that The Great Recession had much bigger impact on us then 9/11. The Brony fandom didn't form randomly, it emerged during a specific cultural and economic time, and it reveals a lot about how difficult that time was.In 2008, the global financial system collapsed, and the effects were more profound than many remember. This wasn't just a rough year or a short downturn. It marked a significant break for a generation. Millions lost jobs, homes, savings, and long-term financial security. Young adults entering the job market at that time faced especially hard challenges, graduating into an economy that had little room for them. Wages stagnated, debt grew, and the belief that hard work would lead to stability suddenly vanished. This kind of economic trauma doesn't just impact finances, it reshapes culture.The cultural vibe of the 2000s was largely cynical and abrasive. Music leaned toward post-grunge, pop-punk, and emo, focusing on angst, aggression, and isolation. Comedy was edgy and often mean-spirited. Irony and nihilism dominated as ways to deal with dissatisfaction. After the financial crash, that tone faded quickly. However, what emerged wasn't genuine optimism, it was escapism. The early 2010s became defined by a desperate need to feel alright, even for a moment.This is where recession pop, stomp-clap-hey, and upbeat music came into play. It explains why vague messages about togetherness, positivity, and “good vibes" became common. It also shows why culture heavily focused on wholesomeness, quirkiness, and emotional safety. Even politically, this shift was clear. Obama's messaging wasn't that things were fine, it centered on "hope" and "change," which only resonates when people feel deeply unsatisfied with their current situation. This wasn't optimism, it was coping.My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic debuted in late 2010 and gained immense popularity in 2011, which is significant timing. This was when the long-term effects of the Great Recession were fully setting in. Unemployment remained high, foreclosures were rampant, and many young adults realized they might never achieve the stability their parents had. The show offered a world that contrasted sharply with reality: bright, safe, morally simple, and emotionally predictable. Conflicts resolved smoothly, friendship always triumphed, and no one faced irreversible consequences or material struggles.What made the Brony fandom stand out wasn't just that adults watched the show. Adults enjoying children's media has always happened. What was new was the scale, intensity, and emotional involvement. People didn't just watch the show casually, they formed identities around it, created large online communities, attended conventions, and produced endless fan art, fan fiction, and merchandise. For many, the show provided a refuge from an unstable, overwhelming reality.
>>43007446This is where I think the phenomenon becomes revealing. When many adults, especially men, turned to a show meant for young girls to find emotional stability, it wasn't a sign of cultural health. It reflected desperation. Cynicism no longer worked as a coping tool, and irony didn't bring relief. People sought something completely non-threatening, non-ironic, and emotionally comforting. They needed a world where nothing truly bad could happen.To me, this reveals much more about the early 2010s than people want to admit today. That era is often looked back on nostalgically as hopeful or simpler, but I believe that memory is misleading. The positivity of the time was forced. The wholesomeness served as compensation, and the optimism was fragile. The Brony fandom unintentionally became one of the clearest cultural signals of this. People didn't turn to talking cartoon horses because life was good, they did it because life felt unbearable. That's why I view it as the most extreme example of post-recession escapism and a case study for understanding why the early 2010s was a more difficult time than people would like to admit.
>>43007446>>43007449Back in my day anons wrote their own textwalls.>i wrote this thoIf you wrote a textwall with 7 separate 'it's not x, it's y' statements in it yourself then you've turned your brain into ChatGPT, and that's terrible.
>>43007426>90% of the internet will be AI bots?That was 2025, bro.
>>42998115"Wasn't huge?" Please be bait. Ponies practically took over everything back in those days.>>43000558Same. I feel (and practically am) like a fucking hag.>>43000678This is a really interesting comment; it makes sense. I also thought, and from what I've remembered, /b/tards were trolling liking MLP with MLP memes, and then unironically began liking MLP. The others were supporting Faust because at the time she was really admired. >>43005571I'm in a similar boat. I have no idea what the current memes are and I don't understand any of the zoomer lingo or references. I stick to imageboards. I miss the Old Internet, but I also don't in some cases. It's weird. >>43007309It's funny I'm seeing people do "rawr xd" unironically now, or creating sparkledog OCs.... it's kind of nice to see.
>>43007455I also noticed this, def AI. But don't tell them how to spot it, let them reveal themselfs
>>43006913To be completely fair the entirety of that brony documentary gets ridiculed by the new age fans on YouTube. Never watched the whole thing before, but the passion of the fans in it always gets treated as cult-y and cringy, when in reality you had to seriously be there to understand how deeply and profoundly the show touched people. It wasn't just a cartoon, it was a window into a world that was full of love, and the Mane 6 being as developed and unique as they were meant a ton of people were able to relate to their problems. Seeing the characters not only reach positive outcomes for situations many felt were relatable, but also be outright depicted as deserving of love for flaws that many felt were the reason they were unloved was extremely touching. A lot of the new age fans have absolutely no generational context as to what ponies meant in the era of the early 2010's and the current culture at the time, both online and offline, and I think it's left them extremely judgmental and cynical of the olden days, especially with how common it is to go overboard on morality these days.>Those events did set the general feel of the early internet and ponies was that sudden burst of saccharine some people were looking for.But yeah for sure, the clash (and honestly coexistence) of cynicism and sweetness in the 2000's lead to a lot of deeply ironic senses of humor forming by the late 2000's. Adult Swim was famous for its flavor of ironic detachment in a lot of its comedy, for example. I think [s4s] in 2013 with it's happy-go-lucky cheerful irony in the face of 4chan's at-the-time cynical bitter irony is another example of people rebelling against downer shit around that time period, too. [s4s] also played a major role in birthing the goofy, playful post-irony we all know today, as well.>While researching old fandom happenings, I vaguely remember finding a news article on Canterlot Gardens that was also making parallels between the attendees and the hippie movement.I'd be very curious to see it. My mother was a huge hippie in the 80's, and back in the early 2010's she was actually rather touched to see me being so passionate about a group of happiness-loving people who claimed "love and tolerate" as their motto. Said it reminded her of what she adored about hippie culture back when. I've seen a lot of subtle hippie culture bleeding over into things, too, whether it's people noting Pinkie and Fluttershy having a lot of traditionally "hippie" characteristics about them or Psychedelic Brony or whoever it was back in the day going all out with pony hippie music, there was always a gentle presence of it and people noting and commenting on the similarities.Funnily enough, hippie flower-power aesthetics also took off really hard again in the early 2000's, and were also bolstered by people wanting happiness and freedom after the cultural impact of 9/11. It's interesting how these things work, yeah?
>>43007449This is something I've felt for sometime. I know that a lot of anons are being post-ironic when they acknowledge and admit the degeneracy that is adult men adoring ponies. I am guilty of being self-depricating about it as a coping tool to make me appear more confidant about it than I am. But it is a tool for certain. A lot of normies back in the pony heyday were lambasting it and us for pretty shallow and surface-level reasons, "it is a girls show! you're a guy you're not supposed to like that stuff, it is gay!" was pretty much their whole sentiment. But what bronies could have been legitimately criticized for would have been the horrifically desperate adoption of something so contrasting to their demographic. I know it is trite to use and compare double standards and such, but if an equivalent of adult women doing this took off in a similar way, I'd probably scoff at it too (especially if those women were conventionally unnattractive), and I wouldn't do it, and neither would the majority, because I considered it a symptom of a ailing society, but I would do it because "women bad" or some such. The ponies have brought me nothing but grief, only positive thing about it are some memories and that I've aquired the most niché and underground musical tastes unknown to man, which itself isn't very positive because it makes it hard for me to share my likes. Grown men shouldn't be this attached to something so childish, it isn't healthy. They should be attached to their families, protect their communities and aquire real world skills. If you're doing this meanwhile enjoying colorful horses then you're actually a normie and perfectly healthy. But I know for a fact that the vast majority of bronies aren't this, they're severly maladapted anomic wastes of space, because they found no room where they were useful or desired. The one-way mirror to Equestria redirected their misery like jingling keys distract a baby. I'm not saying this to intentionally diss bronies that is just an inherent outcome of my general indisposed sentiment. Anons on this board frequently belittle and disparage people "leaving" and "returning" to the ponies because it shows a lack of loyalty or somesuch. I think it is rather very often a concealed grief, a sadness that stems from that others can develop and move on to greener pastures while they themselves are too sick to stand on their legs. It stems from simple envy, but takes the form of perverse pride. Imagine talking smack about "fake fans" in meat-space to someone who only has a vague grasp on the phenomenon. You'd come across as crazy, and rightfully so. This is a topic only applicable to cyber space, unless you'd akin it to the schism of Christianity (a comparison too alien for real consideration). The brony fandom is a core symptom of anomie. When all founding bedrock of community has eroded to sand, people pack up and leave to settle a new location, but with them they brought only planks and hammers, but no nails.
>>43007709MLP's popularity rises from the fact that characters are colorful one note archetypes so autistic people can latch on to them. It helps that there are so many characters so there's a pony for everyone.>OMG purple horse is a nerd, just like me!>I like shy girls, yellow horse is my waifu!>I wanna fuck a tomboy so rainbow horse gets me hard!All the talk about the lore is suuuuuper deep and dark and character development being "genius" is pure cope. Everyone loves Luna because her design is cool and that's it. We knew nothing about her until halfway through season 2 but by then she was already arguably the most popular ponyrfu.
>>43007804This. I don't want to pretend that the horse universes lore is deep, interesting or thought-out. It is all incredibly stupid and doesn't hold up even for 30 seconds of reflection. The youtubers that do analysis of this show (and other childrens shows) are at an amoeba level of intelligence, and I don't usually bother ranking levels of intelligence. I could see why people would do it for fun, I myself like making haphazard observations about the show with the explicit awareness that the writers probably didn't give this shit a second thought. The show is good because it is bad and doesn't really pretend that it isn't. When I see people praising it because the lore of Luna and Celestia is so alledgedly deep, I unironically roll my eyes and sigh because I really do occupy a space with children.
>>43007804Oh no yeah, they did a great job making the Mane 6 represent a variety of personalities. Anyone could find one to relate to on a surface level; that being said, there was deep character writing going on, but the character development isn't excruciatingly "dark" so much as it does deal with some of the pains some of the characters have had to endure. The show is just very sweet and healing about it and treats their experiences with respect. Like Fluttershy being bullied in Hurricane Fluttershy, or Pinkie's abandonment issues and clinginess in Season 1.That being said, the show absolutely had lots of simpler background characters people got obsessed with. Not everyone was into the character depth; tons of people did indeed just like Rainbow for being the cool tomboy or Pinkie for being the silly goofy meme horse. I think Luna also had cool lore in relation to Celestia that made her appealing, but, yeah, she also has a fantastic design, too.>>43007852Oh no yeah due to the show having a bunch of freelance writers shit's all over the place. A lot of this stuff can very easily just be observations of things that look like they can be daisy-chained together to make an actual narrative, and a lot of it could just be unintentional by the writers. All that being said, I do think some of it was intentional. For me I personally just find it more fun and meaningful to go with it, so I kinda do, haha.
>>43007852>When I see people praising it because the lore of Luna and Celestia is so alledgedly deep, I unironically roll my eyes and sigh because I really do occupy a space with children.That's because these people only watch other children's media and in comparison to those, FIM's lore is INSANEt. thinks Luna and Celestia's lore is deep
>>43007446Huh, holy shit, here I was hyperfixating on the early 2000's in regards to this narrative and I didn't even bother to think about the shit immediately close to 2010 as well. That's a very good point, there was a great amount of positivity there just as much as there was post-9/11, though truth be told I think both contributed a lot as well. Your points about culture and comedy being meanspirited and cynical I absolutely resonate with, though I touched on those already.>>43007449Here, as well, I find this interesting but I'm far more of an optimistic lovey-dovey sort myself, so any attempt at happiness is genuine and meaningful rather than fragile or forced. That being said, I wholly agree that pony impacted the lives of so many broken people. Listen to the Elements songs from AcoustiMandoBrony from back when. Loyalty has shit like "you can give your broken heart to me, and you'll know that I'll stay with you", Kindness is literally about a fictional character saving you in a time of extreme personal darkness, and all of the lyrics in Laughter are arguably all about Pinkie's message reaching you through the show to help you really smile in real life.It's something I've noted, in the pony community, it's actually extremely common to run into "this show/character/whatever saved my life for this really personal reason" in comments sections or random posts online. Like, a lot more common than any other space online. Ponies absolutely were a healing force, and I may have said it in this thread already, but for many people, their favorite pony almost became a little emotional support buddy due to how understood or heard they felt by them. It was really sweet, and I believe that kind of thing is a major backbone as to why waifufags and tulpafags and everything else had such a major presence surrounding ponies. People wanted more out of this shit, and some people wanted it to be something more real, hence why we had so many people daydreaming about AI becoming a thing back in 2013 and so many movements to try and get closer to pony using the occult or whatever.I think it's genuinely beautiful and it's one of the reasons I've been stuck to ponies for 15 years now, and will likely keep using this board forever. Shit's about so much more than what it first looks like.
>>43007655Oh yeah, ponyfags using ponies to troll was always a thing. There absolutely had to be a ton of people just not even being into the show but adoring the anger they caused. I sadly wasn't there for the early /b/ days of pony shitposting, but they're always a good time to hear about.And yeah the 2000's online emo/scene culture is totally picking back up again. It's like Gaia Online never died, and honestly I think it's really fun too. Internet culture is simultaneously more high string and more laid-back than it's ever been, and it's creating something very fun where it's super easy to just be you but then also attract tons of haters while doing it. Unironically a godlike era to be a troll if you're into that kind of thing, with how serious so many people are online these days. I feel like this current ecosystem is a small part of why ponies have started taking off a little more recently, too.
>>43007709>To be completely fair the entirety of that brony documentary gets ridiculed by the new age fans on YouTube. Never watched the whole thing before, but the passion of the fans in it always gets treated as cult-y and cringy, when in reality you had to seriously be there to understand how deeply and profoundly the show touched people.Lots of fans at the time weren't happy with the documentary either (if you asked outside this thread you'll get similar responses). The problem some of them had with the documentary is less the cult/cringe but rather it implying that the fandom in general is like this. There were a lot of fans that were really active in the fandom but never got into the "bronyism" side of things. And some people just like the characters but won't go full friendship is magic irl. I mentioned later video essays because they single out the "9/11" part amongst other things to laugh at.I can't find that Canterlot Gardens article, but here's something else I found that's pretty nice: https://kidmania.wordpress.com/2012/10/01/our-trip-to-the-canterlot-gardens-convention/ It does mention Woodstock at the end, but this isn't the one.Canterlot Gardens was a pretty special con. SGaP and Andrew W.K.'s only ponycon appearances (>>43007771), Tara Strong's first cosplay ever and over 2k attendees. They overshadowed Trotcon which was in the same area. Unfortunate that their attempt at 2013 didn't take off. I know there's some story behind this but I haven't bothered with that yet.
>>43008167Oh shit, yeah, no I remember the documentary being memed on but from the little bits I saw of it I at least appreciated it for capturing that one specific side of the fandom from back when. At the time it was likely a poor reflection of the community, but nowadays it could be a fun time capsule. Again I never watched the whole thing, will likely do it soon though as it was just something I never got around to back when.>Not once did any brony give me a look, or a hard time. They were even high-fiving my husband. Accepting of anyone. Creativity, kindness, tolerance, and friendship. It’s all in the spirit of ponies.>As we were driving home, marveling at the Canterlot Gardens experience. My husband said, “This is must it must have felt like at Woodstock.”God that really is sweet. Yeah it's shit like this that just makes me feel so at home; I genuinely love the spirit of kindness and friendship that MLP radiates. Excellent article, thanks so much for sharing; totally gonna give it a more in-depth read later.I love this line in specific:>My boys fit right in with all the other young guys there, wearing pony hats and loving the MLP music. My daughter felt like a princess.When I was getting into the show with my siblings back when it was new, me and my brother were totally going through the "aah shit oh fuck oh god what the hell am I doing" thing a teenage boy would commonly go through with it, but my sister just didn't care at all. She already liked Littlest Pet Shop and stuff, so her reaction was "oh cool I never got into My Little Pony this looks cool". Something about the target audience falling in love with it for normal little girl reasons amongst brony hype is both really funny and really sweet to me.
>>42997280dick hardener
>>43008945
