The Importance of Pony Subcultures · 3:27am Oct 27th, 2014
My Monday blog post is done early, and I can’t wait to post it, so even though it’s a half an hour until Monday (my time) this is it. This week, my writing post is as much about ponies as it is about writing, and it’s a subject I hold near and dear to the obsessive part of my personality my heart: this week I’m blogging at you about pony type/tribe subcultures.
On my last writing post, someone requested that I provide a bit of a table of contents, with what subjects I’m covering, so I’ll do that here:
This post covers
What culture and subcultures are and what they mean for an individual who’s a part of them.
What we know in canon about pony type (earth pony, pegasus, and unicorn) subcultures.
My headcanons on type-based subcultures and opinions between them (‘cause it’s my blog and I can.)
Ways of working subculture into a story.
Some rambling at the end because I don’t know how to end a blogpost.
And since I don’t know how to transition in a blog post either, let’s go:
Any society, real or fictional, has a culture. It will probably have more than one. In the real world, many of us here on FiMfiction are part of western culture, which is just “the way the world works” in the US and Europe; a set of ideas about how people should act, what makes something art, what makes something important, and all sorts of other things we think everyone understands that have changed and evolved for thousands of years into the set of assumptions we have today in this part of the world. We talk about “western culture” because different ideas and attitudes evolved in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and among various tribes and island cultures around the world.
From the larger western culture, we can divide things further into subcultures, where some groups of people interacted with each other a lot and developed slightly different takes on all of these ideas-- American culture is slightly different from European culture, the culture of Jewish people is slightly different from that of Catholics. Gay people in the western world have had slightly different experiences than straight people. Women have slightly different experiences than men. I say slightly here because all of these subcultures start from and include the same basic ideas and assumptions, they just have different priorities, concerns, points of view, and ways of expressing them (including common subcultural reference points in art and philosophy); this is as compared to a completely different culture which might not share the same assumptions at all. A gay, Jewish man in the west is likely to have more in common with a straight, Catholic woman in the west than he will with a gay, Buddhist man in Japan.
One thing it’s important to keep in mind about cultures and subcultures is that they don’t create a homogenous unit, they’re just the basic assumptions we all start from and understand that other people in our culture start from. Take the subculture of internet users as an example. Here I’m referring to people like us, who spend time on the internet for entertainment, rather than people who mainly use email and facebook for keeping in touch with people they know in real life. We might not all agree on things like trolling, forum etiquette, or how much benefit of the doubt to give anonymous people, or about issues like #GamerGate, net neutrality, or copyright infringement, but the chances are that we all understand what these things are, share some basic assumptions about the internet (purposely trying to prevent people from reaching a third party’s website is an act of malovance, you don’t ask for someone’s real name without a reason, Rule 34 is verifiable) and have some sort of opinions on major internet issues (even if the opinion is “I wish everyone would shut up about that.”) Even someone who entirely rejects all the common opinions of internet culture and refuses to consider internet-important issues is a part of internet culture because they understand what they are rejecting.
Another thing to keep in mind is that people often judge each other based on subcultures we’re a part of. Part of this is totally valid, because there are experiences that people within a subculture share; that’s what makes it a subculture. On the other hand, within a subculture people react differently to different things, or sometimes reject the common attitudes entirely. To continue the internet example, people might assume that those who spend a lot of time on the internet don’t have a social life apart from the internet. While this can be true, after all many us consider our best friends to be people who live halfway around the world, it also might be offensive to people who are careful to balance internet and offline social interaction, or who use part of their time online socializing with people they know offline.
We often don’t realize how much our culture influences us, and how many assumptions we, as members of it, make based on it until we’re dealing with someone who isn’t part of our culture. In terms of internet subculture, many of us have had experiences trying to explain something about it to someone who isn’t part of the subculture (often parents or other relatives.) Trying to explain what 4chan is, or why you believe (or don’t believe) your friend from FiMfiction about their life situation, or why you’re pissed off about the latest changes to youtube will often open your eyes to how much you just assume people understand about the internet, and sometimes you’ll realize that you don’t even know where to start because these are just things that everyone knows. How much you encounter this depends on how many of the people you interact with are not part of your subculture; if most of the people around you are heavy internet users, you’re less likely to have to explain things and you have more frame of reference when you do, but on the other hand when you encounter someone who isn’t an internet user, that divide is going to be even greater and you’ll probably be missing even more of the tools to begin explaining. If you’re surrounded by a lot of non-internet users, you’re more likely to be careful about the divide between your subculture and theirs (for instance, less likely to use a term like “troll” in everyday conversation) and more likely to be used to explaining things carefully when your cultures do clash in some way.
Equestria obviously has both an overall culture (which may or may not be distinct from other parts of the world like Saddle Arabia,) and just as obviously has subcultures based on type of ponies. The existence of these subcultures just makes sense: not only do we see that the different types historically had totally separate cultures in Hearth’s Warming Eve, but they also have different abilities that are going to continue to separate them to some extent and reinforce those bonds within the subculture.
The show backs this up, sometimes explicitly in the case of things like Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, or the fact that Ponyville does Winter Wrap-Up the earth pony way, which is specifically mentioned as different from how Canterlot does it. Cloudsdale is obviously mostly segregated, since unicorns and earth ponies can’t even visit without a magic spell. And Trenderhoof shows that at least some ponies make assumptions based on these subcultures, by specifically mentioning to Applejack that he has “such respect for the work ethic of earth ponies.”
There are more subtle indications of these differences too, for example we’ve never seen a group of pegasi who weren’t competing at something-- even raising the water to Cloudsdale becomes a matter of breaking the record set by another team. And important ponies in Canterlot are almost always unicorns: Prince Blueblood, Fancy Pants, Shining Armor. On the other hand, even the “upper class” of Ponyville are earth ponies: Mayor Mare, Filthy Rich, Diamond Tiara, and Silver Spoon.
Given what we talked about before, this means that there are likely to be deeper differences between the subcultures: things that a pegasus assumes about life or the world that a unicorn wouldn’t, types of art or sayings that are common among earth ponies and totally different from the ones pegasi are used to. And since the types are all aware of this, it’s equally likely that they see some of it, and form assumptions based on this. This isn’t always racism, the way most people think of it (though it certainly could be). For one thing, the assumptions might be true, especially in the case of ponies who interact with different types of ponies a lot: a unicorn who spends a lot of time around pegasi might understand quite a bit of pegasus culture and know what he’s talking about when he generalizes that pegasi are very competitive. For another, different assumptions carry different weight in our world (Italian grandmothers are good cooks vs. all Italian-Americans are in the mafia), and we have no idea how innocent or loaded any given assumption might be in Equestria. On the other hand, it’s safe to say that ponies are less likely to appreciate unflattering opinions about their type (no matter how true) and it’s likely to irk someone to have something good about themselves reduced to just an aspect of the culture they were raised in (no matter how true).
Because this is clearly a subject I love, and this is my chance to talk about it, I’m going to take a break here and unload my personal headcanon about the tribes, how they see each other, and how “racism” works in Equestria. Some of it will probably be familiar if you’ve read The Importance of Being Earth Ponies, Losing New Year’s Eve, or Maidens Day. This is just my headcanon, based on my reading of what we’ve seen in canon:
Pegasi have a strong martial tradition, and their cities and communities are meritocracies based on athletic prowess and flying abilities, with some weight given to strategic intelligence and ambition. While they do often care about about the other tribes and each other, overt emotion is a weakness and pegasi who tend to show it are ostracized to “toughen them up.” Their aesthetic in art and architecture is what we think of as greco-roman and they’re prone to using military, weather, or flight related language and metaphors or analogies. In the abstract they tend to see earth ponies as tough and honorable but too tenderhearted to be equal to pegasi, and unicorns as intelligent and cunning but physically weak and not accountable to honor.
Unicorn society has always styled itself the leader of the tribes in politics, magic, art, and science, and most unicorns strive to be at the bleeding edge of whatever they do. Novelty and innovation is praised, as long as it seems to be the direction the field is headed. The harshest slight to a unicorn is to simply be ignored. Politically they prefer a traditional peerage system, and Unicorn style tends to be ornate and reflects what we would see as a variety of upper class styles from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century. Their language will often reflect (or attempt to reflect) a good education, using more complex words than other types. Unicorns see pegasi as nearly their equals, if only athletics and battle were more… creative. Being ground based, they tend to work closely with earth ponies and appreciate them as hardworking and talented ponies in their own right, but are often surprised when a new idea came from an earth pony, or when one rises to be a leader in their field.
Earth ponies as a group are very socially minded, to the point of putting this ahead of individual success. Which social group is important can vary from pony to pony, but it always includes family and usually the local community, and often extends to all of Equestria. They may not care for individual ponies, but will set that aside for the good of “everypony.” For their own towns they tend towards democratic systems of government. Traditional art and architecture tends to be “folksy,” whether in European peasant or American country style, though earth ponies are the most adaptable of the tribes and easily pick up and imitate different trends and styles and traditional sayings and slang tend to be related to food, or the preparation or farming of such, . Earth ponies admire both pegasi and unicorns for their abilities, but have the suspicion that many members of both groups will always work a little harder to make themselves look good than they will to help everypony else.
In all cases, the stereotypes tend to be reserved for “a unicorn/earth pony/pegasus” and not “this pony in front of me.” Even with the good parts, it’s rude to imply that one is noticing a pony’s tribe rather than the pony themselves (*coughTrenderhoofcough*) though with close friends ponies might be able to get away with some ribbing about stereotypical behaviors. (For example, AJ could get away with calling Dash a “puffed-up pegasus,” while saying that to Spitfire would rightfully earn a glare.)
With this in mind, we can see that some of the mane six are deeply involved with their type-based subcultures, and others are on the outside for various reasons. Applejack and Rainbow Dash obviously grew up with the attitudes and traditions of their subculture being very important, defining part of who they are. Twilight and Pinkie were more subtly influenced; they don’t see Twilight’s focus on academic excellence or Pinkie’s desire to make ponies happy as being a part of having been raised in unicorn or earth pony culture, even if that certainly influenced those things. For Fluttershy, being unable and/or uninterested in being a part of pegasus culture is almost a character defining trait, and Rarity seems to have grown up in a family that rejected a lot of unicorn culture, while she embraces it for herself.
Now that I got that off my chest, and can use that as an example, let’s talk about using culture in stories. There are two ways of doing this, which I mentioned briefly when talking about how the show does it.
The most obvious way is to use it explicitly. This is where you show or mention differences, whether as central to the plot or details that inform the characters actions. Whether it’s mentioning something is an old earth pony saying, writing a fic about how different views of unicorn culture affect Rarity’s relationship with her parents, or inventing a cultural courting tradition to use in a ship fic, these require a bit of world building, making sure to fit these things into overall pony culture and the way you’re depicting the subcultures in that fic. An old earth pony saying should feel like it came from situations ponies were likely to come across, or the attitudes of a pegasus should feel like they apply in some way to the pegasi we know from canon if you’re going to point them out as part of that subculture. But when done well, readers appreciate new ideas that make sense and add dimension to the setting and the character’s place in it.
The other way you can use culture in your fic is implicitly. When you do this, you have a strong headcanon for how the subcultures work and you show it in the characters and setting without ever bringing it up. This is a good way to do it if you want the cultural aspects of your fic to be a part of a larger, murky whole. Examples of this would include a pegasus and unicorn royal guard working together and dealing with differences in how they see the job (some of which stem from culture), showing an earth pony unable to do something in a unicorn home because the unicorn typically does it with magic, or slipping in swear words that seem to fit earth pony culture. These can all be things where cultural differences are never mentioned specifically as cultural differences, but they’re there all the same.
If you have trouble thinking of things to use, some places cultures are frequently different include the emphasis placed on family, work, or education; treatment of guests; grooming rituals (even utilitarian ones can be performed in different ways with different emphasis); common and uncommon foods and their preparation; holidays and celebrations; traditional stories, crafts, and music; courting and wedding rituals; attitudes towards parenting and important rites of passage in growing up; specific words, alternate definitions, and slang; and assumed gender roles and responsibilities.
While ponies we see on the show spend a lot of time in places where they interact with other types of ponies, so they’re likely to at least know about or recognize a lot of these things, they still might differ in how they actually do or think about them, and the more private or subtle ones could still surprise a pony of one type who sees the other type doing it differently (for example, maybe pegasi always shower with their romantic partners, or unicorns see the fourth date as an important milestone in a relationship, either of which could surprise an earth pony in a new, mixed relationship for the first time.)
Culture is a fun world building dimension, because you can use it in settings and with characters you’re familiar with but still introduce new and creative ideas. One important thing to keep in mind though: if you borrow a ritual or way of thinking from a real world culture, or use one in original fiction, make sure you really understand the concept and implications before you use it, because someone among your readers will probably be a part of that culture and no one wants to see people mess up something they recognize. But with ponies, there’s plenty of room to get really creative, and tons of stories to be told about how three diverse types of ponies live and interact peacefully and happily in spite of their differences.
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Some of my headcanon from my continuity ...
The subcultures of the Three (main) Kinds have also merged in Equestria over time, because of almost a thousand years of peace between them as Kinds. The last time the Kinds seriously clashed primarly along racial lines was the Lunar Rebellion of over 850 years ago: after that, even when there was violent disunity within Equestria, it tended not to align neatly along such racial lines.
This is over eight hundred years of inter-Kind friendship, love and intermarriage, such that it is by now extremely common for any Pony to have friends or even family of other Kinds. Because the Kinds are stable genetic morphs, they can't exactly merge the way that the races are merging among Humans on Earth, but they can increasingly become less exclusive groups.
As you pointed out, a Pony who has close friends among other Kinds learns their subcultures, and ideas thus spread from one subculture to others. And such webworks of friendships make splitting Equestria into warring Kinds more difficult.
In my continuity, Random Flag (the "Black Pony" Avatar of the Crawling Chaos) deliberately tries to break the unity of Equestria along Kind lines. He is most successful with Windvane's Rebellion (YOH 1512, twelve years after Luna's Return), hoping through the revelation of the Pegasus Device to tar Pegasi as "monstrous" to the other Two Kinds, but fails when the New Pegasus Mandate is cheated of even a minimal victory over the Crystal Empire by the intervention of three loyal Pegasi (Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and Scootaloo). His attempts to trigger a Socialist-style revolution among the Earth Ponies and aristocratic conspiracies among the old Unicorn families fail to even reach the point of open warfare.
He was initially much more successful through his pawn Chrysalis, finally sparking the highly-destructive Great Changeling War of 1513-1515. His hope was either that Chrysalis would overrun Equestria, or the Equestrians would annihilate the descendants of the Flutter Ponies. This policy failed even more completely, as the consequence was not genocide, but rather the completion of the Reconciliation, with the Lost Kind being welcomed into Equestria as fellow ponies.
Off headcanon for a moment ...
There are also cross-cutting subcultures, such as professional or hobby associations. These are important because they unite Ponies in ways governed not by genetic inheritance but by personal interests, and enable them to meet in fields where differences of Kind become meaningless or merely tend to spice things up a bit.
Such associations of course are the product of protracted social peace. As generations pass in which violent racial conflict fades into mere historical memory, this comes to be far more real than the divisions of the past.
Common enemies can also help. In our history, the World Wars were unifying events for America; the Central Powers and the Axis were enemies of almost all Americans, and cared very little for our own internal divisions save as levers to potentially exploit to defeat us. The same was even true to some extent of the Cold War: Russian nuclear warheads weren't going to check ethnic affiliations before killing us.
Equestria's history is full of such common enemies. Even in pure canon, the last few years have seen repeated appearances of enemies such as Discord, Chrysalis, Sombra and Tirek who wanted to oppress all Ponies, without checking first to see who had wings or horns. In my fanon, the Shadow Wars draws Ponies (including the two Lost Kinds of the Changelings and the Deep Ponies) together with other Earthlife against the terror that seeps down from the Shadow Universe, leading by the Final Victory of YOH 1524 to an Earth united in its own defense.
One issue with this is that you're assuming both that these cultures are monolithic and that these cultures actually represent the types of ponies, and are not merely the types of local ponies. For instance, the assumption that earth ponies are very socially minded actually is almost certainly false; Manehattan appears to be a New York City analogue, and we saw a bunch of earth ponies there who didn't seem to be very community-minded at all. Indeed, really, the only earth ponies we've seen all that much of are in a single rural town (Ponyville), and indeed, even there, the Cakes and Pinkie Pie are pretty different from the Apples - and the other town we've seen, Appleoosa, is also very Apple-heavy. Filthy Rich and Cheerilee don't really seem to be all that similar to the Apples, either.
It may well be that there is a stereotype of earth ponies being urban farmers who do back-breaking labor... which doesn't really seem to be the case so much with modern earth ponies, given the number we've seen doing other things. The Manehattan earth ponies would probably resent the implication that they're obsolete farm equipment.
It seems very likely that this is not only racial but also very heavily based on location; the Oranges were not that similar to the Apples from what little we saw of them. And frankly, Trenderhoof didn't seem much like a Canterlot pony; I have to wonder if he might be from somewhere further afield like Vanhoover. Might explain his hippie attitudes and his massive variance from the Canterlot ponies (and lack of familiarity with earth ponies, given that Canterlot is not that far away from Ponyville). Gustaf le Grande and Gilda are both griffins but didn't really have a whole lot in common culturally from what we saw of them.
We haven't even seen a bunch of other places which apparently exist - Los Pegasus might be similar to Cloudsdale, or it might be radically different. The Crystal Empire probably has its own culture as well.
I would guess that the pony culture is not only faceted along species lines but also along the lines of locale, with ponies in different locations possibly having more in common with their neighbors than with ponies on the other side of Equestria of the same type - the Manehattan ponies seemed to be fairly similar to each other culturally despite being of many different breeds, for instance.
>implying Europe has cultures
2557653
I do agree with this, but my discussion was about the overarching subculture-- there are often subcultures within subcultures. And while it's true that it's possible that, for example, Manehattan ponies are more like each other than they are like "earth ponies," Trenderhoof didn't suggest that Ponyville, or even rural earth ponies have a similar work ethic, he seemed to take it as a cultural stereotype for all earth ponies, which implies that there might be reasons for having cultural stereotypes of "all earth ponies" (even if earth ponies in places like Manehattan reject aspects of that.)
2557661
That may be more like "all Asian people know Kung Fu", which is totally a real-world stereotype in the US about Asian people which has no basis in reality at all - it is a misconception taken from stories about martial arts. Trenderhoof's stereotype could just as easily be from the Hearth's Warming Eve play.
Of course, it may have been more true back then, but nowadays no one expects black people to be farmers.
Its my headcannon that the pegasi once had an agoge style ritual murder of un-pegasi foals. It was this practice and the fact that the Heart of the Weather Factory is off limits that lead to the pegasus device scary story.
The pegasi were also the originators of the Equestria games. Not as an out growth of a tradition but because Hurricane was smart enought to realize an atgletic cpntest would help show the other tribes worth to Her extremely militant society.
The unicorns are used to being on top. To the point that until the sisters influence Unicorn Supremacy was a big movement. Under the guidance of Princess Celestia most accept that they are a part of a whole and not able to function without everyone helping. Yes the Princess has essentially brainwashed the evil out of them.
The Earth ponies are used to being shit on, if I may be crass. Every famine is blamed on them. Every time trouble brews they are eitger abandoned or in some was implicated. Things got better after Unification but some old prejudoces remain. Thus many Earth Ponies are even more Clanish than unicorns. Thus the Apple Family being so large and yet tight knit. Even AJ in my stories is wary around Earth Ponies that are "puttin on airs" or acting like nobility.
2557666 Yes, but the reason stereotypes like that exist is that Asian cultures have a number of things in common which are different from the west. As such, "all Asians know Kung Fu" doesn't feel out of place to a certain kind of person, even if it's totally false.
A stereotype that "All British people and Californians like pineapples" wouldn't be held by many, because there's nothing culturally uniting them, so no reason to hold stereotypes.
(ETA: of course many Asian cultures are as different as British people and Californians, but there's no reason to combine them without including the rest of the Western world. And I understand that people from Asian cultures have plenty of stereotypes of "the west" (because we can be seen as a monolith from their perspective, since our culture as a whole is different from theirs.)
2557666 A much more common stereotype is that all Asian people are good at math or studious.
2557683
Ah, I see what you're getting at now.
GODDAMNIT WHY CAN'T I PUT BLOG POSTS ON MY BOOKSHELF
2557653
Now that the baby is asleep, let me go into this a little deeper. I established why I think there is some "earth pony culture," whatever you headcanon that to be (it might be as loose as historically being from the same society, not having horns or wings, and mostly being sick to death of annoying ponies telling them they're hard workers.) This could easily mix with other subcultures of location, trade, social class, or hobby, so every pony is going to be a different mix of subcultures, just like every person is affected differently by membership in different subcultures.
I did identify what I think earth pony culture is like, and I do have reasons to back that up:
First, I suggested that they're socially minded at least in terms of family.
Pinkie Pie and Applejack have the largest families of the mane six, and among the closest-- not only do we see them having close relationships with their siblings, but twice Pinkie has mentioned advice she received from her grandmothers, and obviously Granny Smith and the extended Apple family are close to Applejack. Additionally, both take it very seriously when they think they might be related, even distantly.
Over in Manehattan, there are the Oranges, who happily took in a niece despite having no children of their own (so it was likely to be a change for them,) and the Seeds, who responded to Babs having trouble by calling on their extended family. And in addition to the Apples, Apple relations, and the Pies, we have Filthy Rich and Diamond Tiara as another set of family oriented earth ponies -- Diamond Tiara is all ears for her dad's boring lecture, and actually (begrudgingly) listens to him even if it means wearing bunny ears and socializing with Apple Bloom. (I would also mention the Cakes, we do see them as a family unit a lot, but that's not surprising since they have infant twins.)
Compare that to unicorns, who seem to have relatively close immediate families (Twilight and Shining Armor are close, Rarity and Sweetie Belle try to be close, and we've seen the Flimflam brothers) but also seem to have smaller families (two kids that we know if in each) even among the mane six there's never been so much as a mention of extended family from the unicorns. That's also the extent of the unicorn family interaction we've seen, no other background or side character unicorns mention or are shown as having families. Then you have the pegasi, where we know literally nothing about the families of Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, or Scootaloo.
Second, I said that earth pony social concerns usually extend to the community.
Once again, among the mane six Applejack and Pinkie are the most tied to the community, despite Pinkie not being from Ponyville. We also see Filthy Rich going out of his way to maintain good relations with the Apples. Good business, yes, but also not necessary business, really-- plenty of retailers don't make their kids wear bunny ears for the benefit of their suppliers. We also know from Pinkie Pride that he made Diamond Tiara use Pinkie as her party planner. And in Ponyville both the school teacher and mayor, two important social roles, are earth ponies. Outside of Ponyville we see Appleloosa, another earth pony town, shaping up the same way. Now, one could argue that this is actually a subculture of earth ponies-- rural earth pony culture. Cheese Sandwich had to leave the city to discover his special talent as a party pony, and even now he doesn't seem comfortable dedicating himself to one community, though one could argue that he sees all of Equestria as his community.
We see a little bit of this among Canterlot ponies, but mostly through the lens of social position maneuvering, thanks to Rarity and Jet Set and Upper Crust. Twilight certainly felt no cultural pressure to socialize, or ignored it if she did. And the socializing we see among pegasi is always competitive.
Finally, I mentioned they tend towards a democratic government. This is simply based on the fact that Ponyville, a town founded by earth ponies, has a mayor, and that their Hearth's Warming founders had a Chancellor, both of which are commonly associated with some form of democratic or representative government. So it seemed likely that they prefer to avoid titles or military leadership and elect officials.
Once again, this is all my headcanon, and no one has to agree that this is what earth pony culture is like, or how important it is. And every pony is likely to also be influenced by their local subculture, as well as social class, occupation and any groups they voluntarily join or associate with. I just felt that what we've seen so far made a good argument for this, and that it made sense logically that family and social ties would be more important among the ponies who were traditionally farmers and trades ponies, and who would benefit from stronger social ties to compete with unicorns and pegasi economically even in modern Equestria.
Feel free to substitute your own headcanon if it makes more sense to you!
I feel like this could be a factor in the whole 'pegasexual' (and other types I haven't found a name for yet) discussion. Attraction to a certain stereotype of a race, and so on...
This post is fascinating. Thanks for writing it.
Can you recommend any other (non-mature) stories that do a deep dive into one subculture or prominently feature cultural conflict among pony races? I've read the two links you gave above, but I'm hungry for more.
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Not many as direct as those, but here are some I know of that touch on the subject in one way or another:
Tchernobog's Mood Wings has an interesting take on a specific aspect of culture, how pegasi communicate using body language with their wings.
See White by AcreuBall is a Rarity x Vinyl Scratch ship fic where the plot is kicked off by an interesting culture clash between Rarity and upper class unicorns.
Racist Barn by Ponydora Prancypants is a silly comedy, but I thought some of the cultural stuff that came out in it was pretty spot on.
TaticalRainboom's The Skyborne Dance and Blagdaross's The Foalnapping are both incomplete but were heading in that direction.
But clearly it's a subject that should be covered more often!
I feel like there is a lot of story potential around the implied family differences between the mane 6 and how that ties into the broader pony subcultures. AppleJack or Pinkie interacting with Twilight's parents or extended family or vice versa. Exploring pegasi family structure through the eyes of one of the non-winged. Yes, more ink needs to be laid down to these things.
Another excellent post Bookplayer
2557653 On Manehattan: the rudeness of the ponies there could be explained fairly easily without rejecting the community-minded focus. The community, in this case, is the city, and Rarity & Co. are obviously outsiders. Ergo, not part of the community to be minded.
It's actually a fairly common ingroup-outgroup dynamic.
2558401
Otherwise known as "Goddamn tourists."
Now whenever anyone brings up headcanons about culture in Equestria, I will simply point them to this blog if that's okay with you kthnxbai
Looking at the blog title, I thought this would be about Goth ponies or something.
Quite an interesting read, again! There's a lot of potential in working out all the subtle stuff that could be there when you have three different breeds of ponies living and working together.
It seems to me that the three primary races in the MLP are based loosely on the three primary human races which are; Mongoloid (Asian races) , Caucasizoid (Light or tan skinned races), and Negrosoid (Dark skinned races). Obviously the type of racism that comes from this type of dynamic doesn't work in a polychromatic world of Equestria. But the concept is the same.
I see the pegasai culture as similar to ancient Greek cultures with a bit of focus on the Spartan culture. The Unicorn culture seems to be a mix of ancient Roman culture and modern industrial capitalistic idealists. The Earth Ponies seem to me to be more like pre-depression era industrialistic middle-class Americans.
What it boils down to in my observations is that the Unicorns are the elitist rich class who are a bit egotistical with their superiority in magical power, the Pegasai are proud warrior types and would be in a democratic socialist society but have disdain for any race perceived as soft or weak. The Earth Ponies are hard working and industrious who would hold tradition and family values above all other social values.
Hot damn. This blog post summed up things so nicely. It also put together why I'm always so disappointed at how few earth pony POV stories this fandom seems to get.