Why My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic? · 5:22am Sep 5th, 2014
Well, I think I have it figured out, "it" being the fascination that adult males have with this show.
Look at the world.
Every day, we are confronted with more and more violence and hopelessness. Radical Muslims are hacking people's heads off left and right, countries are torn apart by civil war, gang violence is pandemic, and even here at home, kids are amusing themselves by punching elderly folks in the back of the head and yelling "Twenty points!"
There is really no escaping it—social media, newspaper, television news...we are inundated with this day in and day out.
Sexual deviance on scales unimagined washes over us in commercials, kids cuss out their parents, parents molest their own children, people just disappear and are never heard of again, siblings abuse siblings, kids kill each other over pittance a like a yo mama joke or stepping on their shoes.
There is no escape, anywhere...or is there?
I have taken to watching MLP:FiM to try and figure out what the hell is so appealing about this show that grown men are fans of it.
Here is what I found...an honestly funny, charming, well-written world that isn't afraid to poke fun at itself, with jokes everyone can get, moral lessons that sometimes are forgotten in real life, witty pop-culture references (Doctor Whooves, anyone?), catchy songs, with, in my honest opinion, a ton of world-building potential (and you know how I love that), and, quite frankly, an adorable cast of characters.
But, most importantly, it is a world where Everything Will Be Okay.
The land of Equestria is a paradise, where the weather is controlled and scheduled (save in a few "peculiar" places where it happens on its own) by Pegasi, who have a society descended from a military mindset, Unicorns form a pseudo-aristocracy, similar to wizards, and Earth Ponies are able to coax life from the most barren of soils. Dragons and Gryphons roam the skies, Windigoes prowl the frigid airs of the far north, and Alicorns (Unicorns with Earth Pony strength and Pegasus wings) rule on high.
The ponies are ruled by a series of Princesses, the most important of these being the Princesses Celestia and Luna, who control the Sun and Moon respectively. Celestia is a mother-figure to her subjects, taking an active part in their lives and protecting them, whereas her sister, Luna, is a bit more asocial, preferring to visit them in their dreams and safeguard them that way.
There are villains, of course, such as Discord, a chimæra being known as a draconequus that is based off of the character Q from Star Trek: TNG (and voiced by John de Lancie himself, no less...he was my original draw to watch it, I just adore Q), and the evil Queen Chrysalis (a member of a race known as Changelings, who feed off of emotions), and a black hearted unicorn known as King Sombra who conquered an entire empire, and Centaur...thing...Lord Tirek, who absorbed the magic of everything that moved in Equestria and essentially sent three of the land's four Princesses into Hell...
The world is a believable one, the voice-acting superb, the writing very well-done, the jokes (both obvious and subtle) at least good for a smile of honest amusement from the sternest of adults, and the characters relatable in their daily struggles and individual personalities.
It isn't all just slice-of-life fluff and soap bubbles, either—Discord plunged the world into utter chaos, Chrysalis tried to infiltrate the land with her shape-shifting armies and literally imitated a bride just to steal the groom's love to parasitically feed on it, and Tirek nearly conquered the entire land (with Discord's help, after which he betrayed Discord) in a matter of days...
The conflicts are engaging and fill you with a sense of urgency as you watch the heroes race to save everything, and are pushed to the wall in doing so...
But in the end, everything is okay. Celestia and Luna will raise the sun and moon, Twilight will read a book, AppleJack will go back to her farm, Pinkie will throw a raucous party...
Everything goes back to a harmonious balance.
Everything will be okay, no matter how bad it gets.
The evil-doers will be beaten, even when things look their blackest.
And in a real world where evil men do evil things while spineless leaders dither about making them a manageable problem, it is easy to see why such a cartoon would draw adults in.
Of course, when you get adult fans, you get the weirdos who cosplay and the ones who make erotica and porno (known as "clop" in Brony parlance), but that's with every fandom, isn't it? I mean, how much Pokemon porn have you stumbled on by mistake? (ugh...I never looked at Tangela the same way again...)
It's a safe place, safe for kids to watch, safe for a parent to enjoy, safe for anyone to partake of.
It is a show that provokes "mono-no-aware", or "a sense of the ah-ness of things", that relaxes you, and shows you that it is possible to just kick back and look around and say "Ya know...I think it's gonna be okay..."
Kinda like watching a cat video on youtube.
So...while I may not wear the shirts or collect the stuffed animals, while I may not Bronyspeak, while I may not obsess over each episode or watch the forum boards or start flame wars over who is Best Pony or Best Princess (Derpy Hooves and Luna, btw)...
I am confident enough in my masculinity to say it.
I am a Brony.
And Celestia-dammit, I am PROUD.
I got into the fandom much the same way. I mean I liked the series when I started watching it, but I'm pretty sure that a lot of the charm of the world for me is the contrast between Equestria, in which good is unironically celebrated and evil understood to be threatening, and the America of the last five years, in which good is despised and evil accommodated. Celestia's an autocrat -- but she's a good and competent one.
2429525 Agreed. Celestia (love of cake notwithstanding) is a perfect ruler because she, much like a mother figure, honestly knows what is best for her little ponies, having lived for untold centuries (judging her physical age to be around mid-to-late-twenties, possibly early thirties, and taking for granted that she aged at a normal rate before ceasing, which puts her at 1025-34 at the youngest) and seeing much.
The love her subjects have for her is evident by the presence of the Royal Guard, as the legendary Sapidus3 mentioned in his fiction, Equestria's Twilight (I do encourage whoever reads this reply to peruse that story, it is top-notch and takes a solid look at Equestrian physics).
The Princess is enormously powerful, powerful enough that a guard is just ornamentation. The subjects insist on one because they have no greater way to express their gratitude for how well they are treated (as compared to, say, the Gryphons, who appear to be very antagonistic, of Chef Gustave and Gilda are any evidence) by essentially telling Celestia and Luna that they will willingly lay their lives down for their rulers, even though the Diarchs are more than capable of taking care of themselves.
Celestia recognizes this and, for her subject's own peace of mind and ignoring the possible inconvenience, accepts this gesture with good grace and her own gratitude.
I also love Equestria because of the fact that Good, when it is done, is not overly celebrated—the ponies are innocent enough to think that doing Good for its own sake is its own reward.
What's wrong with cosplay? I've met plenty of people who do it, and they're perfectly normal people.