The Human In Equestria Exposition Dump: Don't do it.

Show, don't tell. This is writing 101.
If you can cut it without taking anything away from the story, cut it. This is also writing 101.

So why do I keep seeing HiE fics that start with entirely unnecessary exposition dumps, which frame the narrative in an inelegant way?

How your human character got to equestria usually doesn't matter. If the extent of your story is "anon (or "generic human who isn't anon") hooks up with a mare", chances are good that "how he got there" is really irrelevant. What matters is that he's there. Similarly, how he fits into ponyville/canterlot/whatever is probably at best an afterthought (unless it isn't, in which case it's still a bad idea to convey the information as an exposition dump. You should use the exposition dump as rarely as possible.

Show, don't tell.

Comments

[Lazy_]

You can get away with large amounts of exposition if you somehow manage to fit it into the narrative. 99% of exposition chapters ever are forced, written in to explain backgrounds and events to the reader without having to actually put any effort into making the expostion matter to the story. Most of the time, like you said, what happened to your human and how they got to Equestra doen't usually matter too much. But in a story such as, lets say To Friend is To Human, the events before the human arrived in Equestria are actually relevant. There are characters from before the human gets to Equestria that matter to the plot. Like, main characters. In this case some exposition would actually be preferred. But you can't just dedicate one chapter to exposition then never mention it again, that would be what a dump of info that no one wants to read.

ARTICLE 2 is a story that does exposition well. It's spread out over the story and is contextual to the plot of what is happening in current time in the story. Backgrounds and history of the character are tied to events that happen in the plot, usually because they relate mildly to these events and the exposition comes up in conversation and is detailed. It gets mixed in with what is already happening to make the story flow rather than grind it's gears for 3k words then continue at a slower pace.

So yeah. Large amounts of exposition and/ or info can be good in a story if it matters to the plot. Like you said, if it doesn't matter then it doesn't have to be there. But I wouldn't say that they should be avoided at all costs, you just have to know when and how to use them if at all.